The Padel Panic

Maya's palm was literally sweating through her grip on the rental padel racket. This was fine. Everything was fine. Except that she'd never played padel in her entire life, and somehow Chloe—the Chloe who sat two rows back in AP Bio and had that perfect effortless curl—had convinced her to be her partner for the charity tournament.

"You've got this!" Chloe beamed, bouncing on the balls of her feet like this was just a casual hang and not Maya's impending social doom.

Maya's iphone buzzed in her back pocket—probably her group chat blowing up about how she'd ghosted their plans. She'd deal with that later. Assuming she survived the next hour without making a complete fool of herself.

Across the court, Tyler Chen was stretching his arms over his head, and Maya felt that lightning-strike feeling in her chest that she'd been trying to ignore since September. He caught her eye and smiled. She immediately looked away, probably making the weirdest face ever. Smooth.

"Game point!" someone shouted.

The next thing Maya knew, a bright yellow ball was sailing toward her at approximately the speed of panic. Her body just moved—years of dodgeball trauma finally paying off. She swung, connected with a satisfying *thwack*, and watched the ball ricochet off the back wall at an impossible angle.

"WHAT!" Chloe screamed, tackling her in a hug. "Did you see that?!"

Tyler jogged over, grinning. "Nice shot, Maya. Where'd you learn to play like that?"

"Uh, running away from my problems?" The words slipped out before she could stop them.

Chloe snorted. Tyler laughed—an actual, genuine laugh. And for the first time since she'd moved to this school three months ago, Maya felt like she might actually belong here.

Her palm wasn't even sweating anymore. Mostly.

"Same time next week?" Tyler asked, still smiling at her.

Maya grinned. "Absolutely."