Zombie Summer

I dragged myself through another day at camp, feeling like a straight-up **zombie**. Three hours of sleep will do that to you. Not that I could sleep, not with Tyler in the bunk below me, his **baseball** glove hitting the floor at 2 AM like clockwork.

"You coming to the courts?" Maya asked, her neon **orange** tank top bright against the pine trees. She was the only person here who didn't treat me like I was built wrong for not worshiping America's pastime.

"Yeah. Coach Davis is making me try **padel** today instead of batting practice."

"Good. You'll actually have fun."

Fun wasn't really allowed in my family's world of sports. My dad had played college ball. My brother was the star pitcher. Me? I couldn't hit anything if my life depended on it, and the pressure to live up to their legacy was like a grizzly **bear** sitting on my chest every single day.

The padel court was different. Smaller than tennis, the walls part of the game. No perfect swing required. Just instinct, speed, not thinking too hard.

Maya served. I returned it off the back wall, a perfect angle. We rallied, my movements fluid for the first time all summer. No overthinking. No memory of my dad's disappointed voice from the last baseball game he'd watched me play.

"You're actually good at this," Tyler said from the sidelines, surprising me. He never said anything unless he was roasting someone.

"Yeah, well..."

"No, for real. You move like you're not in your head. Baseball's all mental with you. Padel? You just play."

The zombie feeling started to lift. Maybe not everything had to be about following in footsteps. Maybe some things were supposed to be different.

"Tomorrow," Maya said, "same time?"

"Yeah," I said, and it wasn't a lie. "Same time."

For the first time all summer, I fell asleep that night without replaying every mistake. Sometimes finding yourself means abandoning everyone else's map.