Sweaty Palms & Sweet Spots

Sixteen and I still hadn't mastered the art of being chill.

"Bro, your form's tragic." Jace's voice carried across the padel court, half-exasperated, half-amused. He'd been playing since we were twelve. I'd started three weeks ago, solely because **palm** trees lined the courts and maybe, just maybe, certain someone would notice me from the gym window.

"Shut up, I'm getting better." I wiped my **palm**s on my shorts – always sweaty, always nervous, always sixteen.

The real issue wasn't my backhand. It was that my **friend** had become something more, except neither of us had said it out loud. Every serve felt like a confession. Every point, a question.

My phone buzzed in my bag – charging cable frayed again, refusing to connect. Like my thoughts about her: tangled, messy, impossible to straighten out.

"You need these." Jace tossed a **vitamin** C packet at me during our water break. "You look like death."

"Thanks, man. Really feeling the love."

"What's up with you anyway? You've been off all week."

I could've told him. Should've. Instead I said, "Just tired. Summer school's killing me."

Lame. We both knew it.

Then she walked past the court – Maya, with her perfect undercut and that laugh that dismantled my entire nervous system. She waved. I waved back, racquet slipping from my grip, clattering against the fence.

Jace stared at me, then at her retreating figure, then back at me.

"No way."

"What?"

"Dude. You're down bad for Maya Chen."

My **palm**s got sweaty again. But maybe, just maybe, this was the moment.

"Think she likes padel players?" I asked, trying to sound casual and failing.

Jace grinned. "Only ones with terrible form. Ask her already."

So I did. And she said yes. And my serve actually landed in.

Sometimes sixteen feels impossible. Sometimes it's just finding your sweet spot.