The Art of Missing Everything

I'd been running from myself since seventh grade. Okay, that sounds dramatic — let me rephrase. I'd been strategically avoiding anything that might expose me as the most uncoordinated person at Northwood High. This included: dodgeball, the annual talent show, and pretty much any social situation requiring rhythm or grace.

Then Maya decided I needed to learn padel.

"It's basically tennis but shorter," she'd said, waving her phone at me where some TikTok showed people looking effortlessly athletic. "My cousin's cousin has a court at their country club. We're going tomorrow."

"We?" I'd asked, already calculating exit strategies.

"You, me, Tyler, and his friend." She'd wiggled her eyebrows. "The cute one from algebra."

So there I was, standing on a blue padel court at 7 PM on a Friday, holding a racquet like it was a dead animal I was trying to dispose of discreetly. Across from me stood Cute Algebra Boy, whose name I'd learned was Liam, looking unfairly athletic in those mesh shorts that should be illegal for their distraction potential.

"Ready?" Maya called from the sidelines, already dripping sweat and living her best life.

I nodded, because what else could I do?

The first ball came at me. I swung like I was fighting off a swarm of bees. Missed completely.

"Your grip's all wrong," Liam said, stepping closer. "Here, let me —"

Our hands touched. For approximately 0.4 seconds, my brain short-circuited, my heart attempted to escape my chest cavity, and I forgot how to stand properly. Then I remembered I was holding a racquet I didn't know how to use, on a court I didn't want to be on, pretending to be someone I definitely wasn't.

Something inside me snapped. Not in a good way — in a mortifying, irreversible way.

"I can't do this," I blurted, stepping back. "I literally cannot do this. I don't know what I'm doing here, I'm terrible at sports, and this is — this is so stupid."

Before anyone could respond, I did what I did best: I bolted.

I ended up at the pool behind the clubhouse, sitting on the edge with my legs in the water, fully prepared to transfer schools the following Monday. The water was cool against my skin, and I watched my reflection distort in the gentle ripples, thinking about how many times I'd run away from things because I was scared to look bad.

Footsteps behind me. I didn't turn around.

"Hey," Liam said.

I kept staring at the water. "Hey."

He sat next to me, close enough that our arms almost touched. "Maya said you'd been dodging her padel invitations for weeks."

"Because I'm embarrassingly bad at anything athletic."

"Yeah, I noticed." He chuckled. "You held the racquet upside down for, like, ten minutes."

I groaned. "Please stop talking."

"But here's the thing," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. "I was watching you, and I was thinking... I've never seen someone commit that hard to missing a ball. It was kind of impressive."

I turned to look at him. He was already looking at me.

"What I'm saying is," he continued, "maybe being terrible at something isn't the worst thing that could happen. Maybe it's better than never trying at all."

I thought about all the things I'd never tried because I was scared of looking foolish. The audition I skipped freshman year. The conversation I never started. The person I hadn't let myself be.

The water lapped gently against my legs, cool and steady.

"I'm still not going back out there," I said.

"Good." Liam stood up and held out his hand. "Because I was thinking we could just walk to the convenience store down the road instead. I hear they have those slushie things you teenagers like."

"You're literally seventeen."

"Details." He smiled, and something in my chest did that fluttery thing that Maya had described approximately five hundred times. "So? Coming?"

I took his hand, letting him pull me up. My bare feet dripped water onto the concrete, leaving small, temporary marks that would disappear within minutes.

And somehow, that felt exactly right.