Sweaty Palms & Security Blankets

Maya's palms were literally sweating through her paddle grip. Not paddle — **padel**. The sport everyone at her new school was obsessed with, the one she'd zero experience with but had claimed to play "competitively" because the cute guy in homeroom had asked.

"Your stance is all wrong," Carlos said, not unkindly, watching her miss the ball for the fifteenth time. "Here."

He moved behind her, correcting her form. Maya's heart did something embarrassing. Her **palm** was slick against the racquet handle, and not just from the July heat.

"You good?" he asked.

"Just warming up," she lied, wiping her hand on her shorts.

The truth was, Maya had never even held a padel racquet before yesterday. She'd spent the entire summer before sophomore year holed up in her room, binge-watching reruns on the old **cable** box her dad had refused to upgrade because "the new streaming services are just passing fads." She'd barely left the house except for family dinners where her mom asked why she didn't "go out and make friends" and her abuela would grab her hand, squint at her palm, and declare in thickly accented Spanish that her life line showed great destiny but terrible timing.

"You're blushing," Carlos noted.

"Sunburn," Maya said, even though they were indoors.

He laughed, and it was the best sound she'd heard since moving to this suburb where everyone already had friend groups and inside jokes and childhood nicknames. She was trying so hard to fit in, lying about hobbies and pretending to understand references to shows she'd never seen, except for the ones she'd watched on basic cable all summer.

"Hey," Carlos said, suddenly serious. "You don't have to be good at this. I just needed someone to hit with."

Maya blinked. "But I told everyone I played competitively—"

"Yeah, I know you're lying," he grinned. "Your form's terrible. But you're trying, which is more than most people. Plus," he dropped his voice, "I tell people I'm on the padel team but I actually got cut last week."

Maya stared at him, then started laughing. Real laughter this time, not the nervous kind.

"We're both frauds," she said.

"Nah," Carlos hit the ball to her gently. "We're just works in progress. Like this game. Keep going, you'll get it."

Her palm wasn't sweating anymore. She hit the ball back. It went in.

Progress, she thought. Not perfect, but real.