Hat Trick

My dad's Yankees cap sat in my closet like a判决 I couldn't bring myself to carry out. You're a baseball player, Leo. That's just who you are. But the thing was, I wasn't. Not really. I was the guy who struck out looking because he was too busy overthinking everything.

So when Maya dragged me to the padel courts at the rec center, I figured it would be another cringe-fest I could later dissect with my therapist. Except—plot twist—I didn't suck. Padel was like if tennis and squash had a baby that was actually fun. The walls, the angles, the way you had to think three moves ahead. My ADHD brain kind of vibed with it.

But here's the thing: padel wasn't a thing. Not at school. The social hierarchy was clear: lax bros at the top, baseball and soccer in the middle, everything else was basically NPC energy.

"You coming to practice?" Nate asked at lunch, gesturing to my backpack where my glove was probably gathering dust from neglect.

I started to say yeah. The word was literally forming in my mouth. But then I thought about the padel court. The way my heart didn't hammer out of my chest when I played. The fact that I laughed—actually laughed—every single time.

"Actually," I said, and my voice sounded weirdly steady, "I think I'm gonna take a break from baseball."

Nate's face did that thing where someone doesn't know how to react so they just kind of blink. "Oh. Cool. Cool."

The next day, I showed up to school wearing the ugliest hat I'd ever seen—a bright yellow padel cap I'd ordered online at 2 AM. People stared. Maya whispered, "Bold choice, bestie." I felt my face flush.

But here's what nobody tells you about choosing the thing that makes you weird: it's actually kind of electric. Like, yeah, I wasn't a baseball player anymore. I was the padel guy. But that guy? He actually existed.