The Mechanical Bull Summer

Cameron's orange sunset-stained hair made him stick out like a highlighter in a grayscale sketch. That's what his sister said anyway, before she ditched him at the baseball stadium for some seniors with fake IDs.

Now Cam was stuck watching his crush Maya play center field, her ponytail swinging like a metronome counting down his dignity. The orange concession stand soda in his hand had gone warm and sad, kind of like his chances.

"You're bullshitting yourself, Cam," his best friend Javi had said earlier. "She doesn't even know you exist."

Javi wasn't wrong, but the truth hit harder than a fastball to the chest. Because here was the thing — Cameron didn't even LIKE baseball. He only came because Maya did. He preferred running, actual running, cross country style — the solo kind where nobody expected you to catch anything or hit anything or be anything but yourself.

After the game, somehow everyone ended up at County Fair, standing before THE MECHANICAL BULL.

"Bet you can't stay on," Maya said, looking at Cam with those eyes that made his brain short-circuit.

His orange hair was basically a target now. Everyone was watching. The old him, the pre-Mayan version, would've mumbled some excuse about having to be somewhere. But New Cam, tired of sitting in bleachers pretending to care about RBIs, peeled off his flannel to reveal a running singlet underneath.

Eight seconds. That was all he lasted before getting launched into the padding, but the laugh that burst out of Maya's throat? Worth every bruise.

"Your hair," she gasped between giggles. "It looked like an orange flame going everywhere."

Later, as they shared actual orange cotton candy (she paid, he was broke), Cam realized something: He'd spent all year running toward the wrong things. Sometimes the best catches happen when you stop trying so hard.

"Want to go running sometime?" he heard himself say. "Like, actually running."

Maya grinned, her teeth glowing blue under the fairy lights. "Only if you promise never to get on a mechanical bull again. That was tragic."

Cam laughed, and for the first time in forever, it didn't feel like he was pretending at all.