The Day I Stopped Running

I felt like a **zombie** most of that summer—dragging myself through the humidity, phone screen my only light. Mom kept signing me up for stuff to 'get me out of the house.' That's how I ended up at the community center's **padel** clinic, standing next to Tyler Evans, who somehow made sweat look like a fashion statement.

'You gonna hit that ball or stare at it?' Tyler smirked, and my face went full radiator.

I'd been **running** from this exact moment since sixth grade, when I realized sports weren't my thing and popularity felt like a language everyone else fluently spoke. But here I was, racket in hand, about to embarrass myself in front of the one person whose opinion actually mattered.

'Watch this,' I said, channeling confidence I absolutely did not have.

I missed the ball entirely. My racket clattered against the fence. Tyler laughed—not mean, but genuine, like we were sharing a joke. Then he hit the ball toward me so gently it practically floated.

'Your form's actually sick,' he said. 'You just need to stop overthinking everything.'

Afterward, a group of us hit the **pool**. I stayed in the shallow end, still learning to be comfortable with people seeing me—really seeing me. But then Tyler splashed me, and suddenly I was underwater, surfacing to find everyone laughing, including me.

That was the day I stopped running from who I was. Maybe padel wasn't my sport, and maybe I'd never be effortlessly cool. But I could be the person who missed the ball and laughed about it. The person who showed up.

Some days I still felt like a zombie, but at least now I was a zombie who knew how to live.