Running from Perfect

The padel court smelled like expensive deodorant and desperation. I adjusted my skirt for the fiftieth time, feeling like a fraud in my borrowed racket. Maya stood across the net, looking effortless in her matching outfit, while I looked like I'd gotten dressed in the dark during a power outage.

"You ready to get destroyed?" Maya called out, flipping her perfect ponytail.

Her laugh track of friends giggled on cue. I forced a smile, my stomach doing that familiar thing where it tried to escape my body through my throat.

Then I saw it—a calico cat padding along the fence like it owned the place. It locked eyes with me, and I swear it nodded. Like, *I see you. This is ridiculous.*

"Game on," someone said, and suddenly a bright yellow ball was flying at my face.

I swung and missed. The ball hit the fence with a pathetic thud.

"That's okay!" my partner, Jenna, yelled too loudly. "You'll get the next one!"

I didn't. I spent the next forty minutes running around like a headless chicken while Maya and her team crushed us 6-0, 6-1. The one point we won was because Maya tripped laughing at my serve.

Afterward, I found myself behind the club building, sitting on an old cooler with my face in my hands. That's when the cat appeared again, jumping up beside me like we were old friends.

"Rough game?" a voice said.

I looked up. It was Tyler, from my history class. The quiet one who always sat in the back.

"You could say that," I muttered, wiping my face. My eye makeup was probably running down my cheeks like I'd survived a natural disaster.

He handed me a bottle of water. "Maya's been playing since she was five. Her dad's some padel champion. It's not exactly a fair fight."

"Great. So I'm pathetic AND I didn't even have a chance."

"You're not pathetic," he said. "You kept playing. Even though you were clearly terrible."

I snorted. "Thanks?"

"I mean it." He gestured to the cat, which was now licking its paw dramatically. "Even the cat knows you've got guts."

The cat chose that moment to knock over my water bottle, sending water everywhere. We both cracked up, and suddenly everything felt a little less terrible.

"Want to get out of here?" Tyler asked. "There's a milkshake place down the street."

I stood up, leaving my padel humiliation behind me. "Only if you promise never to mention my serve again."

"Deal."

As we walked away, the cat watched us go, and I could've sworn it was smiling. Some days you lose the game, win absolutely nothing, and still somehow come out ahead.