Green Juice & Baseline

Jordan's phone buzzed at 6:00 AM. Again. The group chat from the padel team was already blowing up, and he wasn't even officially on it yet. That was the whole point of summer: get good enough that when sophomore year started, he'd be more than 'that quiet kid who sits in the back row.'

He dragged himself out of bed and laced up his running shoes. His dad called it 'the vitamin D regimen' but really Jordan was just running circles around the neighborhood because he'd read somewhere that cross-training improved your reaction time on the court. Plus, maybe he'd run into Skylar — the girl who'd moved in three houses down in June, who wore combat boots and somehow made it look effortless.

The spinach smoothie waiting in the fridge looked like something that had died in a blender. Jordan forced it down anyway. Three weeks ago, he couldn't have imagined voluntarily drinking anything green. Now he was measuring his life in how close he was to making the JV padel roster, like his entire social existence depended on smacking a ball around a enclosed court.

His phone dinged. Unknown number.

'ur running weird'

Jordan stopped in his tracks. A figure sat on a porch swing three houses down — Skylar, holding a coffee mug like she owned the morning.

'what's weird about it'

'arms too stiff. u look like a robot trying to escape'

He walked over, trying to play it cool even though his heart was doing something genuinely concerning.

'You run?'

'Used to. Track team, freshman year.' She took a sip of coffee. 'Quit. Too much yelling. Now I just watch people run badly from my porch.'

'Do you... want to show me how to not run like a robot?'

Skylar's eyebrows went up. 'You're asking for running advice at 6:15 AM from someone you don't know?'

'Well. I saw you watching me. So we're not strangers anymore.'

She laughed, and it was the best sound Jordan had heard all summer.

'Fine. But you have to tell me why you're running like your life depends on it.'

'Padel tryouts in August,' he admitted. 'I need to make the team.'

'Padel? Really?' She stood up. 'That's the most tryhard sport I've ever heard of.'

'Hey, it's legitimate. It's like tennis but cooler.'

'Sure, jan. Come on. Let's fix those arms.'

They ran together for twenty minutes while she critiqued his form and he defended his choice of sports. When they stopped, sweaty and breathless in front of her house, Skylar fished a vitamin bottle from her pocket.

'Want one?'

'What is it?'

'I don't actually know. My mom gives them to me. I think they're supposed to make me less tired all the time.'

Jordan laughed. 'I've been drinking spinach smoothies for three weeks because I read they increase energy.'

Skylar stared at him. 'You voluntarily drink spinach?'

'It's not that bad once you add enough berries to hide the taste of despair.'

'Despair. Yeah, that's what spinach tastes like.' She dropped two vitamins in his hand. 'Here. Anti-despair supplement. Fair trade.'

'You're coming to padel tryouts,' Jordan said suddenly.

'Am I?'

'If I make the team, you have to come to a match. Sit in the front row. Look visibly impressed.'

Skylar considered this. 'Deal. But if you don't make it, you have to come to my porch every morning at 6 AM and let me critique your running until you stop looking like a fleeing robot.'

'You've got a deal.'

Jordan walked home with vitamin bottles in his pocket and spinach-breath and the sudden realization that maybe he hadn't needed to change himself at all. Maybe he'd just needed someone to notice he was trying.