Zombie Mode at the Courts

I walked into the padel club feeling like absolute zombie — three hours of sleep will do that to you. The air conditioning hit my face, but my mouth tasted like sand. I needed water, like, yesterday.

"You made it!" Chloe called from court 4, waving her racquet like she'd been waiting hours instead of minutes. Her orange headband matched her neon sneakers, which was *so* Chloe. Everything about her was bright and loud and confident, while I was over here functioning on 10% battery and pure anxiety.

"Yeah," I managed, grabbing my water bottle from my bag. "Traffic was insane."

Total lie. I'd spent twenty minutes in my car having a full-blown panic attack about whether my shorts were too short, whether my serve would embarrass me again, whether Chloe would finally notice I'm not actually good at sports — just good at pretending.

"Let's go! Court's open!"

We walked onto the blue court, and I swear my heart was hammering louder than the music they'd blasting over the speakers. Padel wasn't even supposed to be serious — it was just tennis' cooler, younger cousin that all the kids were into. But somehow it felt like everything.

Chloe served, and I barely got my racquet on the ball. It sailed past me, hitting the glass wall with a *thwack*.

"You okay?" she asked, tilting her head. "You seem off."

"Just tired," I said, but my voice cracked. Great. Now I sounded like I was going through puberty again instead of being halfway through tenth grade.

She walked to the net, suddenly serious. "Hey. You know you don't have to be perfect at this, right? Like, we're literally just hitting a ball around for fun."

I looked at her — really looked at her — and realized her mascara was slightly smudged, like maybe she'd been rubbing her eyes earlier. Like maybe she wasn't as bright and confident as she seemed.

"I know," I said, and surprisingly, I meant it. "Can we just play for real though? No overthinking it?"

She grinned, and something in my chest loosened. "Game on."

We played for an hour, and I stopped counting every mistake. The orange sunset flooded through the windows, turning everything golden and warm. By the time we collapsed on the bench, dripping with sweat and grabbing our water bottles like our lives depended on it, I felt more alive than I had in weeks.

"Same time next week?" Chloe asked, wiping her face with her orange headband.

"Absolutely," I said. And for the first time, I wasn't worried about what that meant. I was just glad to be there.