Taking the Bull by the Fins

Bubbles floated at the top of his bowl again. Not a good sign.

'He's just a fish,' Maya said from where she sprawled across my beanbag, scrolling through her phone. 'Get over it.'

Easy for her to say. Bubbles had been my first pet, won at that sketchy carnival back in seventh grade when I still thought goldfish were supposed to last three months, not three years. We'd grown up together.

Maya and I were supposed to be at the baseball field — first game of freshman year, trying out for varsity, the whole high school experience laid out before us like a perfectly chalked baseline. Instead I was here, watching my fish take his final breaths.

'Coach is gonna bench both of us if we're late,' she said, not looking up. 'Seriously, Tyler. It's a fish.'

'He's not JUST a fish,' I snapped, which was stupid, but I was fifteen and everything felt life-or-death that year.

I grabbed the bowl and walked out the door. Maya followed, sighing dramatically, because that's what best friends do when you're being weird but they love you anyway.

The baseball field sat behind old man Miller's farm. The shortcut went through his pasture. Usually fine. Today, not fine.

A bull — a massive, angry-looking creature with horns like curved daggers — stood directly in our path, chewing cud and eyeing us like we were the intruders.

'Nope,' Maya said, stopping cold. 'Hard pass.'

'It's just a bull,' I said, channeling her earlier energy. 'They don't chase you if you don't run. That's what they say.'

'Who is "they" and why are we trusting them with our lives?'

The bull took a step toward us. Maya grabbed my arm. I held the goldfish bowl tighter, Bubbles barely moving now.

Something snapped in me. Maybe it was the grief. Maybe it was just being fifteen and everything feeling impossible. But I was tired of going around every single obstacle in my life.

'Hey!' I yelled, stepping forward. 'Yeah, you! You big dumb steak!'

The bull stared at me.

'Yeah, that's right!' I shouted, my heart hammering against my ribs. 'I'm not scared of you! I'm not scared of ANYTHING!'

Maya grabbed my arm. 'Tyler, what the actual —'

The bull snorted, turned, and walked away.

We stood there for a solid ten seconds, me still clutching Bubbles' bowl, Maya gripping my arm like I might try something else equally stupid.

'Did you just...,' Maya started, then stopped. 'Did that actually work?'

I looked down at Bubbles. A tiny bubble drifted up from his mouth.

'Yeah,' I said, breathing again. 'I think it did.'

We made it to the field five minutes late. Coach benched us. But I didn't care. For the first time in my life, I'd taken the bull by the horns — literally.

Bubbles died that night. But that afternoon, watching from the dugout while Maya crushed a double into left field, I felt like I could handle anything. Even the stuff that felt like the end of the world.

Mostly.