The Summer I Put Down My Phone

My iphone buzzed for the third time in two minutes. Another group chat blowing up about something that would be literally irrelevant by tomorrow. I was 15 and entirely exhausted by my own life.

"You coming?" Chloe stood in my doorway, already dressed in those weird padel clothes everyone was wearing this summer. The racquet sport was taking over our suburb — suddenly everyone's older brother was playing, and now us too.

"Pass," I muttered, thumb hovering over Instagram. "I'm busy."

"With what? Doom-scrolling summer away?" She grabbed my ankle. "Come on. It's running club day. Technically. But Coach said we could try padel if we wanted."

Fine. Whatever would get her out of my room.

The court was behind the community center, this weird enclosed space with glass walls. I picked up a racquet, feeling stupid. My phone sat in my bag like a missing organ.

First serve. I missed entirely.

Second serve. I hit it into the glass wall.

But then something clicked. The rhythm of it — the running back and forth, the sound of the ball, the way my body actually *did* things instead of just *watching* things. For an hour, I didn't check my phone once. I didn't think about likes, or who was hanging out without me, or whether my story was getting enough views.

I thought about the ball. The wall. The next shot.

"You're actually kind of beast at this," Chloe said afterward, sweat dripping down her face. We were walking back, my phone still in my bag.

"Bear mode," I said, then immediately cringed. That was something my little brother would say.

But Chloe laughed. "Yeah. Like, actual bear mode. You were scary out there."

That night, for the first time since seventh grade, I left my phone in the kitchen. My room felt quiet without its glow. On my desk sat this old stuffed bear from when I was seven — Mr. Cuddles, the most embarrassingly named thing in existence. I hadn't touched him in years.

I picked him up. He smelled like dusty childhood, like before everything got complicated.

My phone buzzed from the kitchen. Someone was posting something. Someone was having the most fun ever. Someone was being seen.

I put the bear on my pillow. I lay down, and for once, I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

Maybe tomorrow I'd check my phone. Probably I would. But right now, I had bear mode to practice. And that felt like enough.