The Padel Pyramid Scheme

The thing about high school is it's basically a pyramid, right? Popular kids at the top, everyone else stacked awkwardly below, and then there's me — somewhere in the basement, holding the whole thing up with zero credit.

"Bro, you coming to the padel courts?" Jordan asked, bouncing a tennis ball off my locker. "Chloe's gonna be there."

Chloe, as in the Chloe who sat at the apex of the sophomore pyramid, the one whose Instagram stories basically dictated our school's social calendar. The one I'd been lowkey crushing on since orientation.

"I don't even know what padel is," I said.

"It's like tennis but gayer," Jordan shrugged. "Smaller court, walls, you don't have to be actually athletic. Plus, Mr. Henderson says whoever organizes the best tournament gets extra credit."

Extra credit. That's how they got you.

*Outside the courts*:

So here's the thing about padel — it's chaos. You're hitting this ball off walls, your racket is this stubby little paddle thing, and you're basically tripping over yourself the whole time. But Chloe was there, wearing this aesthetic tennis dress that made me wonder if she'd secretly been practicing her whole life.

"Want me to show you how to hold it?" she asked, appearing beside me like she'd teleportated.

My brain short-circuited. "The paddle?"

She laughed. "Yeah, the paddle. What'd you think I meant?"

*And then the dog showed up*:

This golden retriever came BOLTING onto the courts like he'd just escaped prison, grabbed everyone's balls, and started running in actual circles. We all froze.

"That's Buster!" some freshman girl yelled. "BUSTER, NO!"

Buster did not care. Buster was living his best life, creating absolute mayhem, and suddenly Chloe was laughing so hard she was crying, and I was laughing, and even the guys at the top of the pyramid were cracking up because this dog had just dismantled everyone's cool in three seconds.

"I'll get him," I said, and somehow I tackled Buster, who was SO happy about it, and when I stood up with this drooly, incredibly excited dog, Chloe was looking at me different.

"You're good at this," she said.

"Tackling dogs?"

"Everything."

The pyramid was still there the next Monday. But somehow I'd moved up like three levels, and I couldn't tell if it was the padel or the dog or just — maybe the pyramid wasn't as solid as I'd thought. Maybe sometimes you just had to let a golden retriever ruin everything to see what was real.

Or maybe Chloe just liked dogs.

Whatever. I'd take it.