Taylor knew Maya was lying because she had heard the same lie from herself.
“I’m not tired.”
They were sitting in the parking lot before sunrise.
Maya had one shoe on.
The other was somewhere beneath the passenger seat.
Her hair was still wet from a shower, and an unfinished piece of toast rested on a napkin beside the gearshift.
Taylor looked at the clock.
5:42 a.m.
Practice started at six.
“What time did you go to sleep?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maya.”
“Like midnight.”
Taylor waited.
“One.”
She kept waiting.
“One-thirty.”
“What were you doing?”
“Homework.”
“Until one-thirty?”
Maya found the missing shoe.
“And watching film.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to get better.”
Taylor leaned against the car.
“You’re falling asleep sitting up.”
“I’m fine.”
There it was.
The lie.
Maya was sixteen and halfway through the most important summer of her volleyball life.
At least that’s what everyone kept calling it.
College coaches could begin contacting athletes in her recruiting class.
Every tournament seemed important.
Every practice seemed important.
Every video mattered.
Every email mattered.
Every ranking update mattered.
There was always another athlete committing somewhere.
Another highlight posted online.
Another player announcing an offer.
Maya had started waking up every morning feeling behind.
So she did what ambitious people often do when they feel behind.
More.
More practices.
More lifting.
More film.
More tournaments.
More emails.
More private lessons.
If someone trained five days, Maya wanted six.
If someone arrived thirty minutes early, Maya arrived forty-five.
Her answer to every problem had become the same.
More.
Taylor recognized it because she’d done the same thing years earlier.
“Take today off.”
Maya laughed.
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You can barely keep your eyes open.”
“I drove all the way here.”
“Then drive home.”
Maya slammed the car door.
“Why are you trying to make me soft?”
Taylor didn’t answer.
Maya started walking toward the beach.
Taylor followed.
“I asked you a question.”
“I heard you.”
“Then answer it.”
Taylor stopped.
“Because I don’t think destroying yourself is the same thing as being determined.”
Maya turned.
“I’m not destroying myself.”
“Okay.”
That made her angrier.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Acting like you know everything.”
Taylor almost laughed.
“I definitely don’t know everything.”
“You act like it.”
“And you act like exhaustion is an accomplishment.”
That ended the conversation.
Maya walked toward practice alone.
She trained terribly.
Her first ten serves included four misses.
She got caught under sets she normally reached easily.
Her reactions were slow on defense.
During a transition drill, she dove for a ball and stayed face down in the sand longer than usual.
Coach Jordan walked over.
“You good?”
Maya pushed herself up.
“Fine.”
Jordan looked at Taylor.
Taylor said nothing.
“Water,” Jordan said.
“I don’t need water.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Maya walked off the court.
She hated both of them.
Twenty minutes later, she was back.
The rest of practice wasn’t much better.
Afterward Jordan gathered everyone.
“Tomorrow is optional.”
Maya immediately asked, “What time?”
Several athletes laughed.
Jordan didn’t.
“You’re not coming.”
The laughter stopped.
“What?”
“You’re taking tomorrow off.”
“You can’t make an optional practice mandatory to miss.”
Taylor covered her mouth to hide a smile.
Jordan almost smiled too.
Almost.
“Apparently I can.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re exhausted.”
“I’m not.”
Jordan looked at her.
“Maya, you fell asleep during film yesterday.”
“I was resting my eyes.”
Taylor couldn’t help herself.
“That’s impressive.”
Maya shot her a look.
Jordan continued.
“Tomorrow, sleep.”
“I don’t need a day off.”
“Then consider it practice.”
“Practice doing what?”
“Nothing.”
Maya stared at him.
“That’s stupid.”
Jordan nodded.
“You might be terrible at it.”
The next morning Maya woke at 5:17 without an alarm.
For several seconds she didn’t know why.
Then she remembered.
No practice.
She reached for her phone.
Three recruiting emails needed responses.
A teammate had posted training clips.
Another player had announced a commitment.
Maya opened the post.
Congratulations filled the comments.
Her stomach tightened.
She got out of bed.
By 6:10 she was dressed to run.
Her mother found her tying her shoes.
“Where are you going?”
“For a run.”
“I thought Coach Jordan told you to rest.”
“He told me not to practice.”
Her mother looked at the running shoes.
Maya sighed.
“Running isn’t volleyball.”
Her mother poured coffee.
“I’m staying out of this.”
“Thank you.”
“But if you’re looking for a loophole at six in the morning, you probably already know the answer.”
Maya untied her shoes.
At 8:30 she was still home.
It felt wrong.
At ten she cleaned her room.
At eleven she reorganized her volleyball bag.
At noon she watched film.
Then remembered that probably defeated the purpose and shut the laptop.
By two, Maya was losing her mind.
She texted Taylor.
This is horrible.
Taylor responded:
What is?
Nothing.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
You’re losing to nothing?
Maya laughed.
Shut up.
Taylor sent another message.
Come to the beach.
Maya stared at it.
I thought I’m not allowed to practice.
We’re not practicing.
When Maya arrived, Taylor was sitting near the water with two sandwiches.
No volleyball.
No net.
No workout clothes.
Maya looked suspicious.
“What are we doing?”
“Eating.”
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
Maya sat.
For ten minutes they talked about nothing important.
A terrible movie.
Someone Taylor had gone on a date with.
A dog that kept running into the water and then acting surprised every time a wave hit it.
Eventually Maya asked, “Don’t you ever feel behind?”
Taylor stopped eating.
“All the time.”
“Then how do you deal with it?”
“Badly, usually.”
Maya laughed.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“When I was seventeen, I thought every day had to move me closer to something.”
“That’s how it works.”
“No.”
Taylor shook her head.
“That’s how I thought it worked.”
“What changed?”
“I got hurt.”
Maya looked over.
Taylor rarely talked about her playing career.
“Bad?”
“Bad enough.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing dramatic. My body just stopped cooperating.”
Taylor picked sand from her ankle.
“I had been training through pain for months. I thought taking a day off meant somebody else was passing me.”
“Were they?”
“Probably.”
Maya looked surprised.
Taylor smiled.
“That’s the part nobody wants to hear.”
She continued.
“Someone will always be doing more than you.”
“Someone will train while you sleep.”
“Someone will play a tournament while you’re at your cousin’s wedding.”
“Someone will lift while you’re studying.”
“Someone will send emails while you’re having dinner with your family.”
Maya looked toward the ocean.
“So how do you keep up?”
“You don’t.”
Maya frowned.
“That’s terrible advice.”
“It’s the best advice I have.”
Taylor looked at her.
“You build a life you can actually keep living.”
They sat quietly.
A few minutes later Maya noticed two kids playing near the water with a volleyball.
They couldn’t have been older than ten.
There was no net.
They had drawn a line in the wet sand.
The rules appeared to change every thirty seconds.
One kid caught the ball.
The other complained.
“You can’t catch it.”
“You could last time.”
“New rule.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Fine. You can catch it too.”
They kept playing.
Maya watched them longer than she expected.
“When did volleyball get so serious?”
Taylor smiled.
“Probably around the time adults got involved.”
Maya laughed.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
The next day Maya returned to practice.
She expected to feel behind.
Instead she felt good.
Really good.
Her feet moved faster.
The ball looked slower.
During serving, she hit the same seam four times.
Jordan walked past.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“Apparently doing nothing works.”
Maya rolled her eyes.
“Don’t get excited.”
Two weeks later, Maya played one of her best tournaments of the summer.
She and Brittney reached the final.
They lost.
Maya was furious for approximately seven minutes.
Then Brittney asked if she wanted tacos.
Maya did.
They sat on a curb afterward still covered in sand.
Brittney pulled out her phone.
“You see who committed?”
Maya looked.
A player they both knew.
A school Maya had emailed twice.
For a moment, the old feeling returned.
Behind.
Maya almost opened her email.
Instead she put the phone face down.
Brittney looked at her.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Maya paused.
Then smiled.
“Actually, I’m tired.”
Brittney laughed.
“That’s allowed.”
Recruiting didn’t suddenly become easy.
There were still unanswered emails.
There were still tournaments where Maya played badly at exactly the wrong time.
There were coaches who watched her worst match and missed her best one.
There were schools she loved that didn’t love her back.
Once, after a particularly difficult weekend, Maya cried most of the drive home.
She still wanted it badly.
That never changed.
What changed was her belief that wanting something badly required sacrificing everything else.
She began taking one evening each week completely away from volleyball.
At first she hated it.
Then she protected it.
She went to birthdays.
She slept.
She occasionally ignored her phone.
She played volleyball with younger kids without coaching them.
Sometimes she went to the beach without touching a ball.
Nothing terrible happened.
She didn’t become lazy.
She didn’t lose her ambition.
She became harder to exhaust.
Months later, Maya received a call from a college coach.
The conversation lasted nearly forty minutes.
Volleyball came up, of course.
So did school.
Family.
Books.
What Maya wanted to study.
What she liked doing when she wasn’t playing.
The last question caught her off guard.
“Who are you without volleyball?”
A year earlier, Maya wouldn’t have known how to answer.
Now she did.
The answer took several minutes.
Volleyball was still in it.
Just not all of it.
After the call, Maya found Taylor.
“How’d it go?”
“Good.”
“Offer?”
“No.”
“You disappointed?”
“A little.”
Taylor waited.
Maya smiled.
“But I’m not going to go train.”
Taylor pretended to look shocked.
“Who are you?”
“Apparently somebody with hobbies.”
“What hobbies?”
Maya thought.
“I haven’t gotten that far.”
They laughed.
Years later, Maya wouldn’t remember how many practices she attended that summer.
She wouldn’t remember how many serves she hit.
She wouldn’t remember most of the recruiting posts that once made her feel as though her future were disappearing one commitment at a time.
She would remember the practice Jordan made her miss.
She would remember sitting beside Taylor eating sandwiches while two kids invented rules near the water.
And she would remember discovering something ambition had nearly hidden from her.
Sacrifice matters.
There are mornings when you have to get up while everyone else is sleeping.
There are parties you’ll miss.
There are difficult practices you have to finish.
There are days when commitment means doing the work even when you don’t feel like doing it.
But sacrifice without judgment can become its own kind of fear.
Fear that stopping means failing.
Fear that resting means weakness.
Fear that someone else’s progress means you’re running out of time.
Maya still worked hard.
Maybe harder than before.
She simply stopped measuring dedication by how much of herself she could give away.
Some days, becoming better required another hundred serves.
Some days, it required putting the volleyball down.
Learning which day was which turned out to be one of the hardest skills she ever learned.
Leave a comment