Sweaty Palms & Social Pyramids

My palms were sweating so much I could practically water plants with them. Which was unfortunate, because I was holding a padel racquet and standing across from Tyler, who sat at the very top of Creekwood High's social pyramid.

"You okay, man?" Tyler asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet like it was the most natural thing in the world. "You look kinda... zombie-ish. Late night?"

I nodded, because 'zombie-ish' was generous. I'd spent three hours watching Zendaya's latest TikTok until my eyes burned, then accidentally liked a post from 2019 because my thumb had its own death wish. I was basically the walking dead at this point.

"Yeah," I managed. "Just tired."

This was it—my chance to finally climb out of my social irrelevance. My cousin's friend's brother said Tyler needed a fourth for padel after school. Padel. The sport everyone was suddenly obsessed with, the one that somehow made you cool if you played it. The pyramid of popularity had a new level, and I was trying to claw my way up from the basement.

"Game point," Tyler called out, hitting the ball against the glass wall. It ricocheted back at me.

I swung and missed. By a lot. The ball bounced off my shoe and rolled away while Tyler and his friends exchanged that look—the one that said, nice try, but also, please never speak to us again.

"My bad," I said, face burning hotter than July asphalt. "I'm—uh, not great at this."

"Nobody's great at first," Tyler said, and for a second I thought he was being nice. Then he added, "except maybe Jake. He's been playing since, like, Spain. You know his family has a second house there?"

"Right," I said. "Spain. Cool."

We played three more games. I didn't score a single point. My palms stopped sweating eventually, mostly because I'd accepted my fate as eternal benchwarmer in the game of high school hierarchy.

Afterward, as I was walking away—running away, really, before someone could suggest we 'hang out again sometime'—Tyler called my name.

"Hey!"

I turned. He was jogging toward me, still in his knee pads.

"You said you watch Zendaya's stuff?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"She dropped a new video twenty minutes ago. It's actually insane." He pulled out his phone. "Wanna watch it now?"

I stared at him. The social pyramid suddenly felt a lot less like a pyramid and more like... I don't know, just people standing on different floors of the same building.

"Yeah," I said, my palms sweating again. "Yeah, I'd love that."