Matteo POV
Tuesday mornings during summer break felt different now. Not lazy-different like they used to when I was younger and thought summer vacation mostly meant cartoons, cereal at weird hours, and bothering my parents until somebody told me to go outside. Now Tuesdays had structure to them.
Monday practice was still fresh enough in my head that I could replay almost every drill perfectly if I focused hard enough, while Wednesday training was close enough that I could already feel the anticipation sitting quietly in my chest before breakfast even started.
Volleyball had somehow taken over my entire weekly routine without anybody fully noticing when it happened.
At first it was just "the sport Matteo likes." Then it became club tryouts, practice schedules, watching games during dinner, reorganizing my volleyball bag every night. Therapy sessions with Dr. Elizabeth had even been moved to Tuesdays so they wouldn't interfere with Stormbreaker practices on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Mom worried about overscheduling me at first. I could tell.
Adults always got that expression when they thought something might become "too much" for a kid. But honestly, I liked the structure. Routine made my brain quieter. Knowing exactly what happened on certain days made everything feel easier to organize in my head instead of having thoughts constantly bouncing around everywhere at the same time.
That Tuesday morning, sunlight poured through the kitchen windows while Mom packed fruit into containers near the counter. Pasadena already felt warm even though it was barely eight in the morning.
I sat at the kitchen island wearing athletic shorts and my Stormbreaker Volleyball Club t-shirt while eating cereal one-handed because my volleyball was tucked beneath my other arm. At some point the ball had basically become part of me.
It followed me around the house automatically now. Sometimes Mom found it beside my bed. Once Dad found it sitting on the bathroom counter. Another time I accidentally left it in the refrigerator beside the orange juice because I walked into the kitchen distracted and apparently set it down without noticing.
I still thought they overreacted about that one.
"You're eventually going to drop that directly into your breakfast," Mom warned while zipping my lunch bag for later.
"I have very good hand control."
Dad looked up from his coffee immediately. "You walked into the pantry door last week."
"The lighting conditions were misleading."
"The pantry light was on."
"The reflective angle changed unexpectedly."
Dad laughed into his coffee while Mom gave me the exact same exhausted smile she always gave me whenever I started talking like somebody's tiny sleep-deprived college professor before eight in the morning.
Honestly, this had kind of become normal in our house.
Me talking too much before breakfast.
Mom trying unsuccessfully to slow my brain down enough to exist like a regular eight-year-old for at least twenty consecutive minutes.
Dad finding the entire situation hilarious almost every single time.
"You still have therapy this afternoon," Mom reminded me while sliding apple slices into a container.
"I know."
"And then practice tomorrow."
"I know."
"And Dr. Elizabeth said you need to stop replaying every mistake from training in your head."
"I don't replay every mistake."
Mom raised one eyebrow slowly.
I thought about that for maybe two seconds.
"…I replay most mistakes."
The rest of the morning passed pretty quietly after that. Summer break still felt weird sometimes because my brain kept expecting school structure during certain hours of the day. Instead, I spent most mornings reading random things online, watching volleyball clips, bothering Dad while he worked from home, or trying unsuccessfully to convince myself not to reorganize my volleyball backpack again.
That lasted until around eleven-thirty. Then I reorganized the volleyball backpack again.
By lunch, my brain had already drifted back toward Monday's practice for probably the fiftieth time. I sat at the dining room table sketching court formations onto the corner of a notebook page while eating grilled cheese. Tiny stick figures covered the paper alongside arrows showing defensive movement, serve receive spacing, and transition positioning after first contact.
Dad walked past the table, stopped halfway through the room, then slowly looked down at the page.
"You're drawing rotations during lunch."
"I'm visualizing defensive systems."
He stared at the notebook another second before pulling out the chair across from me. For a moment he just watched while I adjusted one of the arrows slightly farther cross-court.
"You really like this team, huh?"
I looked down at the paper again and shrugged even though the answer was obviously yes.
Stormbreaker already felt familiar in my head. I liked the coaches. I liked how organized everything felt. I liked that nobody there treated defense like it mattered less than hitting. Even the sound of the gym already felt comfortable to me somehow — the squeaking shoes, volleyballs bouncing across multiple courts, Coach Daniel's whistle echoing through the building while kids shuffled between drills.
Most importantly, volleyball people talked about volleyball constantly. That probably sounded obvious, but it mattered to me a lot.
Regular conversations with kids still felt confusing sometimes because there were invisible rules nobody explained properly. Volleyball conversations were easier. If somebody talked about platform angles or serving zones or defensive positioning, there were actual answers. Actual structure. Nobody expected me to magically understand hidden meanings all the time.
The drive to Dr. Elizabeth's office later that afternoon felt warm and quiet. Summer sunlight reflected brightly across car windows while traffic rolled steadily through Pasadena streets lined with palm trees and little cafés. I leaned against the passenger door watching the world pass outside while Mom drove.
For a while neither of us talked much.
Then eventually she glanced over at me. "You've been thinking all day."
"I always think all day."
"You know what I mean." I picked at a loose thread on my shorts for a second before answering.
"I don't know if the coaches think I'm weird yet." Mom's expression softened immediately.
"Why would they think that?" "Because sometimes adults think I'm trying to show off when I'm just answering questions."
That happened a lot actually. Especially in sports.
If I explained something too specifically or noticed patterns too early, adults sometimes got this weird expression like they thought I was trying to sound smarter than everybody else. I never really knew how to stop doing it because my brain noticed things automatically before I could decide whether I should say them out loud or not.
Mom reached over and squeezed my knee lightly.
"Coach Mia seemed to understand you." That helped more than I expected it to.
Dr. Elizabeth's office didn't feel little-kid-ish anymore the way it used to when I was five. There were still games and magnetic tiles and sensory toys around the room, but now sessions were more conversational. Well, conversational for me, which still meant building things with magnetic blocks while talking because staring directly into somebody's eyes for forty straight minutes honestly sounded horrifying.
That afternoon we mostly talked about volleyball.
Or technically —
what volleyball meant to me now.
"I think I like it because everything makes sense," I admitted while stacking magnetic tiles into uneven towers beside the couch.
"What makes sense about it?" Dr. Elizabeth asked.
"The movement. The systems. Everybody has jobs." I rotated one of the magnetic pieces slowly between my fingers. "And people usually say exactly what they mean."
She nodded carefully.
"That feels easier than regular conversations sometimes?"
"Way easier."
I stayed quiet for another few seconds before speaking again.
"And if I'm too intense there, it's kind of okay because everybody else is intense too."
That made her smile a little.
The rest of the session stayed calm after that. Nothing dramatic. Dr. Elizabeth had learned years ago that my brain worked better when people didn't turn emotions into giant serious speeches constantly.
By the time Mom drove us home later that evening, my chest felt lighter again. Not completely calm. But steadier.
Dinner happened in the living room because Brazil was playing Japan in the Volleyball Nations League and there was absolutely no universe where I was missing that match. The VNL happened every summer and had a bunch of the best national teams in the world playing international matches before major tournaments and the Olympics. Dad explained it to me a couple years ago and now I basically treated it like sacred television.
The second the broadcast started, I moved onto the floor directly in front of the couch with my plate balanced beside me. The arena on TV looked enormous beneath the lights while thousands of fans screamed after every rally. Players rotated across the court so fast it almost looked unreal sometimes.
Then Brazil's libero made a ridiculous diving save halfway through the first set and I physically sat forward so fast I almost dropped my fork.
"Oh my god."
Dad laughed from the couch. "You okay down there?"
"That was insane."
"You've replayed the same rally twice already."
"I'm studying it."
Every few seconds something else happened that made my brain light up immediately. A perfect dig. A setter dumping the second ball. A serve targeting seam position between passers.
At one point I pointed toward the TV before the serve even crossed the net.
"They switched rotational defense."
Dad blinked. "You saw that already?"
"The libero moved early."
Mom stayed quiet after that.
I didn't notice at first because I was too focused on the match, but eventually I looked back toward the couch and realized she was watching me instead of the TV.
"What?"
Her expression changed immediately like she hadn't realized she was staring.
"Nothing."
I narrowed my eyes slightly.
"That usually means something."
Dad laughed quietly.
Mom shook her head before smiling softly at me. "You just look happy."
And honestly? She was right.
I was happy. Not regular-kid happy where you get excited about something for twenty minutes and forget about it later. This felt bigger than that. Volleyball made my brain feel organized in a way almost nothing else ever had. When I was on the court, everything moved fast but somehow made sense at the same time.
And tomorrow I got to go back again.