Before
I clutched the third-place ribbon, disappointed because I knew I was supposed to be.
The plastic medal—adorned with only a cheap sticker—swung in a pendulum as I walked toward our car, a constant reminder that while I wasn’t the worst ten-year-old to pick up a tennis racket, I certainly wasn't the best either.
I slumped into the passenger seat of our SUV, the leather sticking to my sweaty thighs. The car smelled like industrial-strength sunscreen and the banana I ate between matches. Outside, the sun was setting, making the world shine in a way that felt far too cheerful for my mood.
"You should be proud, Alice.” Mom’s hands gripped the wheel. She didn't look at me as she navigated the parking lot of angry parents and exhausted players. "Third place is progress."
I flicked the ribbon. "It’s basically a participation trophy.”
Mom sighed. "It doesn’t matter what place you got.
Not yet. What matters is that your footwork has vastly improved since last month.
However," she paused, and that pause carried the weight of countless group classes and private lessons. "We need to carve out time for that backhand. You’re still slicing when you should be driving through. You’re not returning with topspin. Especially on cross-court shots."
And there it was.
I leaned my head against the glass window. My calf was twitching, and my elbow ached from overuse, but I still had the drive-home lecture to survive.
"I know, Mom. I was tired."
"Fatigue is just a lack of preparation," she replied.
My parents met at Vanderbilt, both scholarship athletes with a shared love for small towns and big ambitions.
They had their heads squarely on their shoulders at all times, unlike Grant and I who—according to them—didn’t know how easy we had it and might very well watch our heads roll off from lack of use.
As we neared town, I let the window down and breathed in the smell of the river. The rushing wind made it feel cool outside, even though spring in Holly River was already hot enough to fry eggs on asphalt.
The gazebo was wrapped in colorful artificial flowers, and every window box along the square was planted with real ones in preparation for Easter.
The sight made me smile despite today’s results.
Soon, all the little kids would race through that same gazebo searching for what the Bunny brought, and Sarah-Beth and I would walk around watching them and eating frosted sugar cookies from the bakery, because we were way too old for the Easter Bunny.
Mom rolled up the window, and my smile vanished.
“It’s making my ears ring,” she explained.
I sighed and shoved an arm into my backpack, my fingers searching for the dog-eared copy of The Cowboy Alchemist. I needed magic.
I needed lassos. I needed a world where nobody cared about the velocity of a yellow felt ball.
Inside the pages of a book, there were no expectations.
No disappointing looks. There was a life vastly different from my own, one where character flaws were celebrated instead of criticized.
But as my fingers closed around the paperback, Mom held out her phone, wiggling it.
"Actually, jelly bean, watch this instead," she said. "I filmed your last match. It’ll be helpful to see your backhand for yourself."
I gritted my teeth and tapped the play button. My own ponytailed silhouette stood at the baseline, looking small and perpetually late to the ball. Watching myself play, my cheeks burned with shame. Every technical flaw, every mistake, was suddenly glaring.
"Can I please just read?" My voice shook.
Mom frowned, reaching over to pat my leg. "Just watch it, Alice. You’re going to have to outwork the competition, and that means watching while everyone else is reading."
Wonderful. A metaphor and a veiled insult in one.
Outwork the competition was code for: you don’t have natural talent.
By the time we pulled into our alleyway, I was over tennis and beyond starving. My stomach gave a cavernous growl that sounded like a tectonic plate shift (I learned about that in science!).
When I glimpsed Dad’s truck in the driveway, I shot upright. "Did Dad make dinner?"
"He said he was picking something up.” Mom turned off the engine.
Best thing I’d heard all day.
I unbuckled, grabbed my tennis bag, and sprinted for the front door. When I burst inside, the scent of grease and salt nearly buckled my knees.
"Oh, my god, that smells so good.” I headed toward the kitchen, dropping my bag. “Mom told me you—"
I froze.
Dad was leaning over the granite island, shoving fries into his mouth. My older brother, Grant, was slumped at the kitchen table, wearing a grass-stained football jersey and stretching out his hamstring with an obnoxious groan.
But it was the third person who stopped me mid-stride.
Sitting next to Grant was a boy I’d never seen before. He was older than me—my brother’s age, I figured—with shaggy, dark blonde hair that fell over his forehead, and brown eyes that appeared startled by my entrance. He was wearing a high school practice jersey, same as Grant.
When our eyes met, he didn't look away. Instead, he gave a small smile that made me suddenly very aware that my hair was a frizzy mess being held back by a sweaty pink headband.
Grant barely even looked up. He just flipped a limp hand in my general direction. "My sister. The dork."
"I’m not a dork," I snapped, though my heart wasn't in it. My eyes were darting between the greasy white paper bags that littered the table. "Where’s mine?"
Dad tipped his head back, still chewing. "Your brother invited a friend over. And I didn’t know what time y’all’d be back."
"So you gave him my dinner?" My voice went so high it cracked.
"I can make you a grilled cheese or something.” Dad reached for his drink, pointing the straw at me like a conductor’s baton. “You should talk to Colt. He’d be a good influence on both of you."
I glared at Colt. He was looking down at his lap, his ears turning a faint shade of pink.
"You kids don't know what real work looks like,” Dad continued, launching into his favorite monologue while scratching his beard.
"Colt here spent his whole summer working on one of our client’s farms before two-a-days started.
That kind of work ethic translates to the field.
And the court," he added as Mom walked in behind me, dropping her keys on the counter.
I didn't catch the rest of the sermon on manual labor.
I was too busy staring daggers at the good influence squatting in my chair, eating my dinner.
Colt seemed to feel the heat of my gaze.
He shifted, his chair creaking, and grabbed the box sitting in front of him.
There were four nuggets left, growing cold in a bed of crumbs.
I snatched my tennis bag off the floor, ready to storm into my room, but stopped when I heard the boy speak. “Hey, kid. You can have the rest.” I turned to find him standing up halfway, holding out the box to me. "I'm done."
I looked at the nuggets. Then I looked at him. Then I looked at Grant, who was currently seeing how many fries he could fit in his mouth at once.
The indignity was too much. I was third-place Alice. I was no-topspin Alice. And now, I was pity-nugget Alice, which maybe I deserved. Trophy Kid was probably at their favorite restaurant right now, a still-warm cheeseburger and fries presented to them on bended knee and a silver serving dish.
"I don't want your leftovers," I hissed.
"Alice, don't be rude," Mom warned from the sink.
I spun away from the boy’s consolation prize and marched down the hallway. I didn't stop until I’d closed my bedroom door behind me, barely restraining myself from slamming it because that’d only earn me another lecture.
Flopping face-down onto my bed, I groaned.
Behind me, my room was a graveyard of potential.
There were trophies on the shelf—mostly from camps I’d attended, nothing won.
There were posters of professional players mid-swing, their form perfect, their wrists locked in the exact position Mom wanted.
In the corner, my desk was buried under an avalanche of library books and smooth river stones I’d painted to look like monsters.
I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.
Then I reached for a basket nestled in my nightstand that held resin figurines I’d collected since kindergarten.
I’d been awarded one each time I did my homework unprompted, but they’d quickly become repetitive.
Now, I had eight or more replicas of each animal, though the colors and sizes varied slightly.
I started organizing them into groups. The ducks—white and yellow both—gathered near my knee, the elephants next to the opposite one.
When I placed the rabbits halfway between the other two, I decided maybe all the animals were traveling somewhere.
I began rearranging them into one long line, and then my hand stilled, imagining what my parents would say if they caught me doing this instead of checking my homework.
In my head, I could hear Mom’s voice: If you don't brush up the back of the ball...
And then Dad’s: Colt is disciplined. He isn’t afraid to put in the work...
Most annoyingly, I saw Colt’s face. That shy smile. The way he’d offered me his dinner like I was an orphan in my own home.
I swept the animals back into the basket, picturing them begging for more playtime as I tucked them away. Instead of caving to their tiny demands, I rolled off the bed and trudged to my desk. After shoving hand-painted rock monsters aside, I grabbed my math folder.
If I couldn't have topspin, I’d at least have this algebra worksheet completed well before its due date. I sat down, stomach rumbling with hunger, and began to work. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the boy laughing and gripped my pencil so tightly it nearly broke.