How to be Brave

November 25, 2020

My armpits are slick with perspiration as I hover outside of the boy’s wrestling room. People mill about in the halls, unaware of the mild heart attack I was about to have right there in the middle of the hallway. My mask is fastened tightly across my face like a shield. Thank goodness we still had the requirement to wear masks when they let us back into school.

The door opens, and I jump against the wall to hide myself. A massive man wearing a tank top that reveals biceps the size of tree trunks walks out of the doors.

No, I can’t do this. What was I thinking? I can’t interact with people, let alone wrestle them. A simple hi-five makes my hand shake. I’m the type of person who stays up all night reviewing my Kahoot! slides before a group quiz so that I don’t draw the slightest suspicion of being dumb.

I start walking down the hallway back out the doors where it will be safer. Then, I stop. Is this really how I want to live my life? In the shadows, with the inability to speak?

There were things I wanted to do, like sing and dance and be loved. I can’t have any of those if I don’t change. Surely there are better ways to go about this, though. I’m just a girl. I’m a freshman and bone thin. If I walk into that room, they’re going to think I’m lost and calmly direct me out towards the other end of the gym where the band players practice.

“Are you going in?” a voice asks, and I whip around, instinctively touching my mask to make sure it’s still on my face. It’s my tennis coach, who happens to be the wrestling coach, too. I emailed a few days earlier asking if it was okay for a girl to be on the team. There is no girl’s team.

A team…how delectable to envision having. Belonging on a team, where I would be strong and brave and confident. Me, though? That could never be me.

I hate the life that I’m living right now.

I nod at him, and he smiles, his bald head shining. “We start in a few minutes. Do you have wrestling shoes?” My face burns in shame. I need specific shoes? I shake my head no at him, and he waves me inside. “Come on, let’s find you some shoes. There’s a bunch in the back.”

Against my body screaming at me to run for dear life, I stiffly follow him inside. As soon as I walk in, a mass of boys tilt their heads at me and smile. I look down as if my feet hold all the secrets to the universe.

A raggedy pair of shoes three sizes too large is thrust into my arms.

“These will have to do for now. Is that okay?” he asks. I nod and quickly put them on, my arms shaking as I fasten the laces.

Why did I think this was a good idea? Tears brim my eyes as I feel the gaze of every person in the room on me. Once we start wrestling, that will be the end. They’ll find out how weak I am, how silly it was for me to come. I know nothing about wrestling. I know nothing about people.

Except, they would notice if I walked out now. With dread, I realize that it’s far too late to turn back.

November 25, 2021

Angel takes my arm, dragging me across the hallway.

“Hurry!” he says, his grip firm enough to bruise just like every wrestler I’ve encountered except myself. A familiar pang of excitement and dread courses through my blood. After a year of wrestling, I still feel dread at the prospects of such an activity. I suck, but I’ve managed to hold my own in the daily sprints. “We need to get a match in before practice starts,” he urges.

The heat of the room welcomes me as we push through the doors that I was dragging my feet to just a year earlier.

“You don’t have to do this,” I say quietly.

“You will win a match,” he says firmly, eyes sparkling as he tugs on his wrestling shoes. “You just need some extra practice.”

I smile from underneath my mask, taking my shoes out of my bag. Coach bought them for me after I slipped in my clown shoes during my first wrestling match, when it was clear that my parents wouldn’t be indulging my “tomboy streak” by buying me shoes. A few other boys in the room pedal slowly on the stationary bicycles in the corner, waving at us. I give them a small smile from behind my mask, hoping they see it.

January 20, 2023

Pain. All I feel is pain as I drive my legs forward with my grip on another boy’s thighs. I still haven’t won a match since I started two years ago. My drive slows, and the boy forces his hips down on my shoulders, his bones sending sharp jabs into my flesh. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn a mask. After all, they lifted the requirement a few months ago. Everyone else has their masks off. I just can’t, though. I belong here now, and I won’t let the ugliness of the bottom half of my face ruin that.

After everything that Angel invested in me, it’s straight up disrespectful to give up now. In every spare second–water breaks, right before practice, right after practice, he sneaked in extra practice with me. He’s a senior now and wasted so much time on me when he could have been bettering himself for his final year. My eyes sting with tears knowing that he’s watching this match, one of the few left of his high school career.

I grunt and push forward, testing how far my limits can go. It feels like I’m toeing a line in which I’ll get lost or go crazy if I go too far. None of that matters, though. I need to show something for the belief that I borrowed.

The ref blows the whistle and slaps the mat. I jump up off the boy with my hands up like I’ve been caught stealing sweets. Full nelson? I always forget that full nelsons are illegal in a match. My cheeks burn as I gasp for air, refusing to look my coach in the eye for making such a dumb mistake again.

I need to calm down, take my breaths in a little slower. Coach asked if I had asthma last week because of how hard I was breathing. As I slow my breaths, cheers break through my sound barrier, and I look dumbly at the ref. Maybe I’ll just pass out right here on the mats. That sounds nice right about now.

Suddenly, my wrist is grabbed and raised high. I don’t think I shaved my armpits today, so I mentally beg the ref to put my hand down. At least I’m not facing my teammates, so they can’t see the hair.

The ref turns me around to face my teammates. Well then, I suppose I should have knocked on wood before thinking that.

“Go shake the coach’s hand!” Coach yells at me as I stagger towards him when my wrist is, thankfully, released. I do what I’m told, shaking the other coach’s hand.

“Good job,” he says gruffly, looking far too happy for my success than he should for the supposed enemy.

When I step off the mat, Angel is beside me, shaking my shoulders, making me feel like vomiting all over his hoodie. “I told you,” he says, beaming, and I smile at his smile.

“It’s about time,” Coach drawls, suddenly next to me. Tears brim my eyes as the weight of what happened washes over me. I just won a match. For the first time in the years I’ve been on this team, disappointing the women I was supposed to represent, I’ve finally won something.

Coach smiles and opens his arms. I hesitate for a moment, then crash into them.

February 10th, 2024

Ten red mats are lined next to each other in the biggest gym that I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s the girls state wrestling tournament. We didn’t even have a girl’s team until this year. I’m a senior, now, in charge of the girls who sit chatting excitedly behind me. They didn’t make it. They’re here because of me. How did I get here? It feels like just yesterday I was a little girl looking to be someone else.

Angel sits next to me, holding a paper with my bracket information. He came all the way back here from his fancy college in California to see me. “Will you be my warmup partner?” I ask shyly.

He smiles, pinching my bicep muscle, which is startlingly big for a 115 pounder. They bulge just like his own thanks to his extra help in the gym after practices. He taught me that whey protein is the best and that if I ever want to deadlift heavy, I need a strap so that my back doesn’t break. “I don’t think I can keep up with you,” he says, pulling on his hoodie.

As much as I hate to admit, he does look smaller now. Apparently, being a college student with a job leaves little time to pursue the gym.

I shake my head at him. He’s still better than me in every way. “I can’t do it without you,” I say.

“I’ll be your partner if you take your mask off,” Angel says, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve earned your place here. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

I suck in a breath, knowing I should have taken it off a long time ago. I’m about to graduate, anyways. It will be okay if everyone hates me now because of how I look. I ignore the voice in my head screaming at me to keep it on and unhook my mask.

October 11, 2025

A sharp ringing stirs me awake. I sit up prepared for war, switching my alarm off as soon as I can so as not to wake my roommate. My stomach ties in knots as I triple check that I have my wrestling shoes in my bag before making sure that I’m wearing the Nike uniform that was given in orientation.

Coach, a different coach, is already in the gym waiting when I enter the wrestling room with some of my other teammates. I heard that the girl next to me was a 4x state champion and the girl on my other side was a national champion. It’s surreal to think that they’re my teammates.

January 12, 2026

Just like all those years ago, I’m going nowhere with this sport. All of my teammates are better, faster, stronger, and shorter. With every passing day, I grow more and more aware of how limited my tall, lanky body is. Why can’t I be like Anthony Robles and figure out a way to make it a strength? Angel would be so disappointed right now.

After being the first person on my team to be eliminated from the tournament, as usual, I stagger toward an empty hallway. It’s dark, perfect for me to collapse on the floor without fear of being noticed. In this sport, I wouldn’t be noticed even if the lights were glowing bright red, because I’m nothing. It was so stupid of me to continue. I should have been a runner. I would have been so good at that, engaging in a solitary activity that would have held me safely in the cocoon of social anxiety that I had spent so many years in before I started wrestling.

A girl walks into the hallway, slamming her headgear on the ground. I watch her, still wheezing from the struggle of my last match. She grunts and tears at her hair and starts sprinting down the hallway, then back again.

Oh, I think. Her pain is so real and so palpable. Her emotion is authentic and beautiful, kind of like physical poetry. I remember that this is why I stayed.

February 14th, 2029

I can’t recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror, but I think I like her a lot. She looks strong–really strong, like she can move mountains with her bare hands kind of strong. The girl–no, woman—staring back at me has two frizzy French braids pulled tightly across her head. She has a budding black eye on the right side of her face, and her lip is bleeding. She looks at peace with herself.

“Mara, everyone is waiting for you,” Coach says from the door of the girls locker room.

I nod as if he can see it and say, “I’ll be right out.”

I wish Angel was here with me right now. The Olympics just had to be all the way across the country, and he couldn’t take such a long time off of work. Taking a deep breath, I say goodbye to the woman in the mirror and step away, ready to present her to the public.

“Mara Santos,” the news reporter says as soon as I walk out. “How does it feel to be the first American woman to win Olympic gold?”

“It still doesn’t feel quite real,” I confess, blinking at the amount of lights pointed in my direction. I never did like the spotlight all that much.

The news reporter asks a few questions, which I respond to with ease. Coach had me practice my interview answers when he found out I made it.

“Why did you start?” the reporter asks next.

“Oh, um…” I say, thinking about the real reason for a moment. It’s been so long, I can hardly remember. Finally, I say “I just wanted to learn how to be brave.”