Palm Sweat on Court Three

My mom stood at the kitchen counter, surrounded by more supplement bottles than a pharmacy.

"You need this vitamin D complex, honey. It's crucial for bone density during adolescence." She shoved an orange tablet toward me like it would solve everything.

"Mom, I'm fifteen, not falling apart," I muttered, swallowing it dry because refusing meant a ten-minute lecture about skeletal health I'd heard a thousand times.

The real problem wasn't my bones. It was that in twenty minutes, I'd be at the community center watching Skylar play padel with her friends. Again.

My hands were already getting that familiar clammy feeling—sweaty palms, because apparently my nervous system had decided that being within fifty feet of my crush was a life-or-death situation.

When I arrived at court three, Skylar was already there, stretching in that way that made my brain stop working properly. She caught me watching and flashed that smile that had basically ruined my entire semester.

"Hey! You gonna join or just stand there looking intense?" she called.

"I'm... observing. Strategically."

"Right."

Her fox-like grin was pure trouble. That was the thing about Skylar—she moved like a fox, all quick and clever and somehow always three steps ahead of everyone else. Last week at lunch, she'd somehow talked the cafeteria staff into letting her customize the "fixed" menu, claiming it was for "educational purposes." Whatever that meant.

"You should play," she said, bouncing on her toes. "We need a fourth."

"I don't play padel."

"Exactly. It'll be hilarious."

Twenty minutes later, I was somehow on the court, holding a racquet like it was an alien artifact. My palm was sweating so badly I was worried I'd fling the racquet at someone. Skylar kept laughing every time I whiffed the ball, but not in a mean way. In a way that made me want to try harder, even though I looked like an absolute disaster.

"You're actually not terrible," she said afterward, as we sat on the bench drinking water. "For someone who plays like they're being attacked by the ball."

"I'll take that."

"Tomorrow same time?"

Something in my chest did that thing where it felt too full and too empty at the same time. I thought about my mom's vitamins, about how she thought pills could fix things. But some things you couldn't fix with supplements.

"Yeah," I said. "Tomorrow."

Walking home, I realized my palms weren't sweating anymore. Some things, you just had to live through.