Goldfish & Backhands

The goldfish — a carnival prize I'd named Chad after my sister's boyfriend — stared at me through the bowl with what I swore was judgment. His tiny mouth opened and closed, probably saying, *bro, you cannot bail on padel practice again.*

"Chad doesn't understand social dynamics," I muttered, scrolling through Maya's Instagram story for the third time that morning. She was at the community center padel courts, laughing with Lucas and his stupid perfect backhand.

Padel. The sport everyone at Northwood High had suddenly decided was life, transforming from "weird tennis mini-golf hybrid" to "the only thing worth doing Friday nights." I'd been swimming upstream against this particular current since September, mostly by conveniently "forgetting" my racket every time my friends tried to drag me to open court sessions.

My goldfish rotated slowly, his orange scales catching the morning light.

"You're literally useless," I told him.

He did a little flip, which felt personal.

The problem wasn't that I couldn't play. The problem was that every time I stepped onto a padel court, I became painfully aware of exactly how uncoordinated I was compared to everyone else. Maya moved like she'd been born holding a racket. Lucas served like he was training for the Olympics. Meanwhile, I was over here missing balls that were literally two feet from my face while everyone pretended not to notice.

Social suicide.

But today was different. Today, Maya had sent me a direct text: *we need a fourth for mixed doubles at 3. Lucas's friend Jordan is playing. you coming?*

Jordan. The guy who'd sat behind me in bio sophomore year and always smelled like sandalwood and confidence.

I stared at Chad. Chad did absolutely nothing.

"Fine," I said, grabbing my phone. *I'm in.*

The padel courts were worse than I remembered — enclosed spaces with glass walls and the kind of acoustic chaos that made every missed shot feel amplified. Jordan was already there, stretching against the fence, looking annoyingly fit in a way that suggested actual athletic commitment.

"Hey!" Maya waved me over like I hadn't been dodging this exact scenario for months. "Jordan, this is Alex — the one I told you about."

"The one with the panic attack during gym volleyball?" Jordan asked, grinning.

I died a little inside. "I didn't panic. I strategically reassessed my life choices."

He laughed, and something weird happened — I didn't immediately want to dissolve into the earth.

The game was a mess from start to finish. I served directly into the net twice. My backhands were tragic. But somewhere between Jordan's terrible jokes and Maya's aggressive coaching ("ALEX, HIT THE BALL, NOT YOUR FEELINGS"), I stopped caring about how uncoordinated I looked.

"You're actually not terrible," Jordan said afterward as we sat on the bench, both of us breathing like we'd just run a marathon.

"That's the highest compliment I've ever received."

"No, seriously." He leaned back, wiping sweat from his forehead. "You've got — what do you call it — chaotic potential. Like, you miss everything, but when you connect? It's actually solid."

"Chaotic potential," I repeated. "I'm putting that on my college apps."

He grinned, and for the first time all year, the social swimming upstream thing didn't feel so exhausting.

That night, Chad the goldfish was doing laps around his bowl like he'd personally orchestrated my entire character development.

"Don't look at me like that," I said, dropping a pinch of fish food into the water. "I'm still not going back next week."

Chad ate the food, unimpressed.

My phone buzzed: *same time next Friday? Jordan asked.*

I looked at the goldfish. The goldfish looked at me.

"Fine," I texted back. "But I'm bringing snacks."

Chad did another little flip, and I pretended not to notice he was right.