Smashed Rackets and Vitamin Water

Maya's mom swore that those chewy **vitamin** gummies would fix everything. Your GPA's tanking? Take a vitamin. Got cut from the team? Vitamin. Social life nonexistent? Have you tried vitamins?

Now Maya stood at the edge of the **padel** court, clutching a borrowed racket like it might bite her. The new kid, Javier, watched from across the net with that easy confidence that made her simultaneously want to impress him and disappear into the bleachers.

"You ever play before?" he called out.

"Uh, sure?" she lied. In reality, she'd spent the last three years trapped in her dad's **baseball** obsession—catching fly balls that no one else cared about while her friends posted TikToks from the mall. The baseball diamond had been her prison, complete with orange dirt stains and weekend tournaments that killed her social life.

"Nice!" Javier grinned. "Let's rally."

The first ball came at her like a comet. Maya swung, missed spectacularly, and somehow managed to hit herself in the shin with her own racket.

"Smooth," someone muttered from the sidelines. A group of eighth graders snickered.

Her face burned. This was it. Another sport to fail at. Another thing to add to the list of things Maya Did Wrong. Already she'd played through: piano (quit), dance (quit), softball (forced to stay), and approximately four hundred social friend groups that somehow dissolved without her.

But then Javier started **running** toward the net, laughing, not at her but with that genuine "we've all been there" sound. "Dude, your grip's all wrong. Here—"

He spent twenty minutes teaching her the basics, and for once, nobody was watching. No dad screaming from the bleachers, no coach comparing her to her older sister, no pressure to be the perfect athlete. Just her, some guy she barely knew, and the satisfying THWACK of a ball hitting the wall exactly how she'd intended.

When her phone buzzed—MOM: DID YOU TAKE YOUR VITAMIN?—Maya actually smiled.

Some things, she realized, you couldn't fix with a supplement. But some things? Some things you figured out on your own terms, smashed rackets and all.