Serving Up Friendship

The rumors started third period, spread through TikTok by lunch, and became full-on lore by the time the final bell rang: apparently, cats were the new multivitamin. Not cat vitamins—actual cats. Like, petting them somehow boosted your immune system.

"Bro, it's literally science," Marcus insisted, abandoning me at our usual lunch table for the popular crowd. Again. "I'll catch you later."

He didn't.

That's how I found myself at the park courts at 4 PM, watching Sasha Chen absolutely destroy everyone at padel. She'd transferred in two months ago and somehow knew everyone already.

"You gonna just stand there, or you wanna play?" she called, bouncing a ball off her racket.

"I don't play."

"Neither did I, like, three weeks ago. Come on."

Twenty minutes later, I was sweating through my shirt, missing every shot, and kind of loving it. Sasha didn't make fun of me when I tripped over my own feet. She didn't check her phone once. She just kept serving the ball back.

"Marcus left," I said between points. "Like, emotionally left. Started like, last month."

She nodded, didn't push. That was the thing—she just got it.

"My old friend group, back in Chicago? Same thing. One day you're everything to each other, next day you're background characters in their main character moment."

She nailed a serve into the corner. "Anyway, my aunt studies immunology. The cat thing? Actually kind of real-ish. Something about stress reduction and immune response. Not exactly a vitamin, but."

"So the rumor's technically based on something?"

"Everything is, Leo. That's the problem."

Her phone buzzed. She didn't check it.

"You're good at this," I said. "The friend thing."

"I'm good at padel. The friend thing's basically showing up and not being terrible. Low bar, honestly."

The next day at lunch, Marcus sat with the popular crowd. Sasha sat with me. We talked about nothing important, but for the first time since forever, I didn't feel like I was waiting for something to change.

I was busy making it change.

Oh, and Sasha rescued a kitten last weekend. Named it Vitamin, obviously. It's perfect, actually.