Sweating It Out

My palms were basically waterfalls. Standing at the padel court while Trevor watched — I mean actually watched, not just looking around but staring — felt like standing naked in the cafeteria line.

"Your grip's too tight, fam," Trevor said, tapping his own racket handle casually. Like he hadn't just won regionals last weekend. Like his Instagram wasn't literally verified now.

I adjusted my grip. My palms were still sweating through the overgrip.

The palm trees framing the courts swayed in the breeze, mocking me. Everything in Florida was designed to look chill while secretly being impossible. This sport, this heat, trying to become friends with the most popular guy in sophomore year without looking like a total try-hard.

"Larsen says you're actually good at tennis," Trevor added, bouncing a ball against his racket strings. That was... not what I expected. I'd assumed this was a pity invite.

"I mean, I'm okay," I said, which was absolute bull. I was trash at tennis. But admitting I was trash felt worse than pretending.

First ball came at me. I missed.

Second ball. I missed worse.

Third. I swung, connected with something solid, and watched it sail directly into the palm tree behind Trevor's back.

Silence.

Then Trevor started laughing. Not mean laughing — the real kind, where you're actually surprised.

"That was tragic," he said. "Like, impressively bad. You committed to that failure."

I felt something unclench in my chest. "Yeah, well. I never claimed to be good. That was Larsen talking."

"Larsen also says I'm 'chill,'" Trevor said, rolling his eyes. "He's a " He caught himself. "He doesn't always get it right."

We played for an hour. I missed probably 70% of the shots. My palms stopped sweating somewhere around the third game, when Trevor hit a ball directly into his own forehead and we both lost it completely.

"Same time next week?" he asked afterward, like it was normal. Like we were already people who did this regularly.

"Yeah," I said. "Same time."

Walking home, I realized my phone had blown up. Trevor had posted something — a picture of us at the court, captioned "teaching @newkid the fundamentals (he's hopeless btw)."

My hands were steady for the first time all day.