Summer of Static

I dragged myself onto the court feeling like a straight-up zombie. Three hours of sleep will do that to you — thanks, Maya, for that 2 AM FaceTime call about nothing.

"Hustle, Leo!" Coach Rodriguez barked, clapping his hands like my survival depended on it.

This wasn't baseball. This was padel, which everyone kept telling me was "basically tennis" but easier. They lied. The walls were supposed to be my friends, but the ball kept ricocheting into places that made zero sense. Meanwhile, the social pyramid at camp was crystal clear: varsity kids at the top, then the regulars, and somewhere near the bottom? The kid who couldn't figure out how to hit a ball without it bouncing back and hitting him in the face.

I caught Chloe watching from the bench. She'd crushed her match twenty minutes ago because she's actually good at sports and also gorgeous and definitely not thinking about me for more than three seconds total.

Then came the lightning moment.

Coach paired us up for drills. "Chloe and Leo. Let's see what you've got."

My stomach dropped through the floor.

But here's the thing — Chloe didn't care that I sucked. She didn't even care that I'd basically been a zombie all week. She just started laughing when I accidentally served the ball backward, and suddenly we were both cracking up, and the pyramid didn't matter, and I wasn't the worst at sports anymore, I was just a guy making a total fool of himself with someone who didn't mind.

"You're not bad," she said afterward, which was definitely a lie but sounded really good anyway. "You just overthink everything."

Maybe that was my problem all along. Not the lack of sleep, not switching from baseball to some sport with walls, none of it. I was just in my head too much.

"Same time tomorrow?" I asked, trying to sound casual instead of absolutely terrified.

She smiled. "Only if you promise not to hit yourself in the face again."

Deal.

I walked back to the cabin already tired for tomorrow, but for the first time all summer? I was actually looking forward to waking up.