Vitamin Bull Sessions

The vitamin sat on my tongue like a chalky orange doom tablet. Mom swore it would help me bulk up for baseball season, but I was pretty sure it just made me feel like I'd eaten an entire construction zone.

"Hurry up, Marcus! You're running late!" she shouted up the stairs, because apparently telling me to hurry makes me move faster.

I grabbed my glove and bolted. The bus wasn't gonna wait for me to finish contemplating the nutritional regret in my mouth. Besides, if I missed another day of school, Coach Miller would have my butt running so many laps I'd personally set a new school record for most miles covered while not actually going anywhere.

Baseball practice had been brutal lately. Miller was in one of his moods, the kind where everything is wrong and everyone needs to do more pushups. My batting average was hovering somewhere south of embarrassing, and I'd spent the past week diving for balls that I definitely should have just let drop.

"You're thinking too much, Marcus," my best friend Tyrell had said yesterday, watching me miss yet another pitch during batting practice. "Just swing. You're so busy worrying about technique that you forget to actually hit the ball."

Easy for him to say. Tyrell had been batting .350 since sixth grade. I was still waiting for my growth spurt to kick in so I could stop looking like the bat boy's younger, disappointment-er brother.

The bus ride was its usual adventure in awkward. I ended up standing because someone's backpack was taking up the last seat, and the driver hit every pothole like they owed him money. My vitamin nausea was not loving the situation.

But then I saw it.

There was a field behind the abandoned gas station near the school—a real, actual bull standing there, staring at the world like it owed him an explanation. Not like a mascot or something. The real deal.

"Hey," I whispered to Tyrell, pointing. "Is that..."

"A bull," Tyrell said, like this was the most normal thing in the world. "Yeah, I've been seeing him around. Escaped from some farm, I guess. No one's caught him yet. He's just living his best life out there."

The bull looked massive. But what struck me was how chill he seemed, just watching the cars go by like he was reviewing the morning commute.

"He's just vibing," I said, and immediately regretted using the word "vibing" out loud.

"Yeah, he's not worried about technique," Tyrell said, giving me a look. "He's just existing."

Something clicked. The bull wasn't trying to be anything other than exactly what he was—big and stubborn and totally unbothered.

After school, I showed up to practice. Miller was already in mid-rant about how we weren't taking things seriously enough.

"Laps! Now!" he shouted. "Unless someone wants to show me they actually came here to play BASEBALL today!"

Usually, I'd just start running and get it over with. But today I didn't.

"I'll take batting practice," I said, and my voice didn't even shake.

Miller stared at me like I'd grown a second head. "You? You haven't made contact in three days."

"Yeah, but I'm done thinking about it," I said, surprising myself. "I'm just gonna swing."

The first pitch came in high and outside. I didn't adjust my stance or check my grip or overthink it. I just saw the ball and swung.

*CRACK.*

It wasn't a home run, but it sailed into the gap in right-center field for sure. A solid double, maybe a triple if I ran like I meant it.

The whole field went quiet for like three seconds before everyone started going crazy. Tyrell was jumping up and down like I'd just won the World Series. Even Miller cracked something that might have almost been a smile if you squinted hard enough.

"What did you do differently?" Miller asked later, and for once, he sounded actually curious.

I thought about the bull standing in that field, just doing his thing without apology.

"Stopped trying so hard," I said with a shrug. "Just swung."

That night, I told Mom I didn't need the vitamins anymore. She looked disappointed, like she'd really bought into the idea that they were my ticket to athletic glory. But I just grabbed an apple instead.

Some days you just have to stop overthinking everything and be a little more bull about life. Show up. Do your thing. Don't worry about what the world thinks.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll actually hit the ball.