Chapter 26 #2
Our instructor, an old-school type, clapped his hands together loudly and shouted, ‘All right then, listen up!’ He didn’t talk.
He communicated at a level of decibels that was entirely unnecessary.
‘We’re starting with ju-jitsu today. We’re going to take you through your paces.
See what your strengths and weaknesses are. ’
I glanced around the room. I was not the only one doing that.
Everyone was sizing each other up, taking in the competition, and it was not lost on me that each time someone’s eyes landed on me, they stayed there a little longer than they should have.
Not because they were checking me out, but because they felt awkward at the prospect of wrestling a girl.
And then the instructor’s gaze fell on me, and lingered there longer than anyone else’s.
‘Uh . . .’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Maybe you can sit this one out. We’ll call in another woman from the year above to wrestle with you later.’
‘I can hold my own, sir.’ I stepped forward onto the mat.
The soft sound of laughter spread through the room.
I took another step forward. ‘Come on, which one of you is brave enough to fight me? Or are you all scared you’ll lose to a girl?’ I said it as defiantly as I possibly could, but inside I was quivering.
The laughter got even louder. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of something.
Blue eyes. Amid the sea of smirks and jeers, there was one person who wasn’t laughing at me.
Instead, he was watching me curiously, like I was a complicated puzzle that he couldn’t quite figure out.
Our eyes locked for a split second, and something twisted in my stomach.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, stepping forward.
The room erupted in cheers and whistles, and I rolled my eyes when someone shouted, ‘Don’t hurt her, Cam!’
This Cam person glanced over at the instructor as if to ask his permission. The instructor sighed, almost irritated that I had put him in this position, and then gave a small, displeased nod.
Cam-with-the-ridiculously-blue-eyes, who I’d seen on orientation day but hadn’t spoken to, walked towards me. He had an easy, almost lazy manner about him. Chilled, like he already knew he was going to win.
Asshole.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Don’t hold back,’ I snapped. ‘Wrestle me like you mean it.’
He did laugh this time, and so did everyone else. ‘Fine, it’s your funeral.’
‘I like funerals.’ Not my best comeback, admittedly, but I hadn’t quite honed my sharp sense of sarcasm yet. I was still learning, and over the next two years, I would practise a lot, on Cam.
His first move was pathetic. He didn’t even try. I slapped his hand away so hard that the sound echoed through the room. A loud ooh rose from the spectators, not to mention a few guffaws.
‘Don’t you dare treat me like a girl,’ I hissed at him. ‘Fight me properly or I’ll put you on the ground. Or in it. Six feet under maybe.’
Cam stopped moving and just stared at me for a while. Unnerving. Especially because it was impossible to read his emotions. I suspected shock, anger . . . he was definitely curious, and wait, was that amusement?
I needed to wipe that off his face immediately, so I took a swing at him.
The sound of my fist connecting with his arm echoed through the room; it seemed to bounce off the walls, the ceiling, and off the mat a few times for good measure too.
I felt the room take a collective in-breath.
Cam looked at me and rubbed his arm. At least the smirk had gone.
‘All right, if that’s how it’s going to be,’ he said, finally adopting a proper fight position. And that was when I knew he wasn’t going to hold back.
Fuck, what had I got myself into? A bolt of panic gripped me.
I wasn’t sure if I could do this, and I didn’t want to fail.
I couldn’t fail; it wasn’t an option. This was the moment that was going to seal my fate here for the next few years.
This was the moment when I either lost the respect of everyone in this room and was never taken seriously again, or I didn’t.
But there was no time to dwell on that, because Cam suddenly lunged at me.
And this time, he meant it. He tried to grab my arm, but I ducked quickly and twisted away.
I hadn’t told anyone I’d been doing ju-jitsu for years, but the expression on his face told me he now knew.
The thing about ju-jitsu is that it’s not about brute strength and force, which I had in abundance anyway.
But it was also about balance, counterbalance, trying to get your opponent into a submission there’s no way out of, no matter their size and strength.
And that was exactly what I intended to do.
He stumbled, but recovered quickly and lunged again.
He locked his arms around my waist, but I wriggled free quickly and then hooked my leg behind his in an attempt to trip him.
He shifted his weight just in time to avoid what should have been a full-on takedown.
The room erupted in cheers as we went for each other.
‘She’s actually good!’ someone yelled. They sounded half shocked, half impressed, and very amused. Soon the entire room seemed to be on my side, cheering me on.
Cam was faster than I expected for such a muscular man, and he definitely wasn’t holding back any more.
But I wasn’t just good – I was relentless.
And now I also had something to prove. We ended up on the mat, our faces only inches away from each other as we rolled.
He looked down at me with his blue eyes, and just for a second, the world outside disappeared.
But I couldn’t let that distract me, so I kneed him as hard as I could and then somehow managed to get him into an arm hold.
‘Give up,’ I said, trying to blink the sting of salty sweat from my eyes.
‘Not a chance.’
I tightened my grip, and he grimaced. An arm hold is so painful, that once you’re in it, it’s all you can think about.
‘Tap out.’ I increased the pressure.
‘Not a chance,’ he said confidently, even though I could hear the obvious pain in his voice.
Fuck, fuck, I didn’t actually want to hurt him. Not really, anyway.
‘Tap out,’ I said again.
He let out a chuckle despite the pain. ‘Not a chance in hell, little girl.’
‘What?’ I snapped, but he only smiled at me smugly.
‘I thought you said you didn’t fight like a girl?’
‘I don’t,’ I spat.
‘So prove it,’ he said, and then looked at me in the strangest way. ‘Prove it,’ he whispered, and I knew that was meant for me and me alone.
‘What do you—’
‘Come on. Do your worst.’ He turned his head away from me, closing his eyes tightly as if he was bracing himself for something. So I closed my eyes too and increased the pressure, and that was when it happened. A loud snap.
Cam screamed. A high-pitched wail that cut through the room like a blade.
‘Shit, sorry . . . I didn’t mean to . . .’ I stumbled backwards, shocked by my own strength, I hadn’t meant that to happen.
‘Holy shit. You broke my finger!’ Cam rolled around on the mat holding his hand in what looked like agony.
The room fell silent, and I could feel them all watching me.
Waiting. And so I did what I had to do. I straightened up, and with all the pomp and ceremony I could muster, I cracked my neck from side to side, followed by my knuckles.
‘Who’s the girl now?’ I said. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand; it came away drenched.
‘And next time, maybe you should sit it out.’
The room erupted into laughter, but the instructor didn’t look happy.
‘All right, Brown, point made. Let’s get him to the medic.’
‘So when a woman beats someone, she’s trying to make a point, but when a man does, he’s just good?’
You could have heard a pin drop. The instructor turned to me slowly.
He was calm, but I could see in his eyes that he was seething.
I held his gaze. I had to; I couldn’t show weakness, not now.
Not after I’d challenged him like that. My spine locked, my feet dug into the mat and I stared back at him.
I knew I’d proved my point, but I also knew that I’d made an enemy that day – probably not the best career move in retrospect, but fuck that.
Men like him needed to learn that women weren’t just here to be agreeable, or decorative.
We deserved the same respect – if not more, because we’d had to fight twice as hard just to be standing in this room.
I straightened my clothes, wiped the sweat from my brow one more time and then turned and walked off the mat. One of the hardest walks of my life, knowing that every single eye was on me.
But once I reached the bathroom, my bravado crumbled.
‘Shit,’ I whispered as the tears started to come.
I tried to blink them away, tilting my head up, trying to fight the gravitational pull, while a strange feeling rose inside me.
The feeling was impossible to understand, a mixture of triumph, horror and something else.
Accompanying it was a physical feeling of nausea every time I replayed that awful snapping sound in my head.
I retched over the sink, but nothing came out.
I stared at myself in the mirror. Red face, glossy eyes, tear-stained cheeks.
No one could ever see me like this. No one.
Because the second they did, it would be over.
That was the thing about being the only woman in a room full of men. You had to earn your place and prove you deserved to be there more than anyone else. And if that meant I had to break someone’s finger, then I guess that was what I was going to have to do.
I knew the second she had me in that hold that she could break something, and I also knew that the only way to avoid that was by tapping out.
And I could’ve tapped, stood up, made a joke about it – something that would have made all the guys laugh but also left them wondering if she could really have done it.
But I saw her face. She needed this, and for some reason I didn’t understand, I wanted to give it to her.
So I didn’t tap.
I let her break my finger that day.
Truth was, I’d probably let her break every one of them if it meant watching her win like that again.