Fox on Court Three
I'd been spying on Maya for three weeks before she caught me.
Not in a creepy way â okay, maybe a little creepy. But from my spot behind the library's cracked window, I could see everything: the way she scrunched her nose when concentrating, how she doodled foxes in the margins of her chemistry notes, how she walked through the cafeteria like she was navigating a minefield of social expectations.
I knew her schedule better than I knew my own. I was basically a professional at this point.
"You again," she said, leaning against the brick wall outside the gym. I hadn't even realized she'd noticed me that first time by the library. Or the second time by her locker. Or the third.
"I wasn'tâ" I started, then gave up. "Okay, yeah. I was."
She raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because you're the only person who seems as lost as I feel."
Maya studied me for what felt like an hour. Then she shrugged. "Wanna play padel?"
"What?"
"Padel. It's like tennis met squash and they had a socially awkward baby. My dad's obsessed with it. No one ever wants to play with me because I'm terrible, but I figure if you're busy stalking me, you probably don't have much else to do."
I should've been offended. Instead, I found myself at the community center an hour later, holding a racquet that felt alien in my hands.
Turns out? Padel is chaotic and messy and forgiving â kind of like being sixteen. The ball bounces off walls, the court is too small, and somehow everything still works out. We played for three hours. I learned that Maya's terrible at math but brilliant at reading people. She learned that I stopped playing sports because my dad said I wasn't competitive enough.
"You're pretty good," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead as the sun set behind the court fence.
"I'm literally hitting the ball into walls on purpose."
"Exactly. You're playing the game your way. That's what makes you good." She paused. "You know, you don't have to spy on people to figure out where you fit. Sometimes you just have to ask."
The next day at school, I didn't watch Maya from behind the library window. I walked right up to her in the hallway.
"Same time today?" I asked.
She grinned. "Court three. Don't be late."
I wasn't spying anymore. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.