Vy laughed, surprised at herself. “Did you learn that as a medic?”
“I learned it from watching people in bad situations,” Ethan said. “The ones who did best were not the ones who pretended they were not afraid. They were the ones who gave the fear a task: check the airway, hold pressure, call for help. Your task is simpler. Breathe. Frame. Reset.”
On the last night before the tournament, Bayview held a short, ordinary class, and that ordinariness felt like a gift. No cameras. No speeches. Just warm-ups, drilling, and light rolling, with people checking in before each round. Vy rolled with Linh Dan, then with a newer student who was nervous about her first tournament as a spectator, let alone a competitor. Vy slowed down for her, talked her through positions, and tapped early herself to show that tapping was not losing face. It was how you learned.
After class, Mai Lan handed Vy a small notebook, the kind with a soft cover that fits in a jacket pocket.
“For your match plan,” Mai Lan said. “Not for anyone else to read. Write what you want to remember when the noise gets loud.”
Vy took it home and wrote three lines, in her own handwriting, before she went to bed.
Breathe before you move. Respect the tap, yours and hers. Walk off the mat the same person you walked on as, only more experienced.
She slept, not deeply, but enough.
Tournament day began before sunrise, with the particular quiet of a building that is about to fill with people. Vy arrived early with Linh Dan and Mai Lan, carrying her bag, her water bottle, and the notebook. The venue was a school gymnasium rented for the weekend, transformed by mats laid edge to edge, banners hung from the basketball hoops, and rows of folding chairs that already held jackets and bags saved for friends.
The air smelled of fresh mat cleaner and coffee from a cart by the door. Volunteers in matching shirts directed athletes to weigh-in tables and warm-up areas. A referee in a striped shirt checked the printed rules sheet at the entrance, as if making sure the promises made online would be kept in person.
Vy weighed in, passed her medical check, and warmed up in a corner where she could see the main mat without being in the centre of attention. She stretched slowly, methodically, letting her muscles wake up. She drilled light movements with Linh Dan: hip escapes, technical stand-ups, guard passes at half speed. Her heart was beating faster than usual, but it was the fast beat of readiness, not panic.
Around her, the crowd grew. Families with children. Students from other gyms. A few journalists with notebooks, kept behind a rope line. People from Bayview arrived in a group, wearing their academy shirts, carrying signs that were encouraging without being cruel to anyone. One sign simply read: Respect the Tap. Vy smiled when she saw it, because it was a principle, not a weapon.
Sofia Almeida arrived with her own coach, and the two women found each other before the matches began. They did not pretend to be best friends. They shook hands, wished each other a clean match, and confirmed the details one last time: six minutes, points, immediate stoppage, handshake after. Sofia's coach nodded at Mai Lan, a small professional courtesy between coaches who understood what was at stake beyond medals.
Then the announcements began. The tournament director, a woman named Helen who had been calm and precise in every meeting Vy had attended, took the microphone and read the rules aloud. She did not rush. She said that every tap would be honoured instantly. She said that referees had full authority to stop any match. She said that video review would be available for disputed stoppages. She said that athletes who violated stoppage rules would be disqualified. The crowd listened, some nodding, some shifting in their seats, but no one laughed.
Vy felt Linh Dan squeeze her hand.
“You do not have to be perfect,” Linh Dan whispered. “You just have to be yourself, with rules around you this time.”
The first matches of the day were called, in other divisions, and the gymnasium filled with the sounds Vy knew well: the slap of mats, the sharp breath of exertion, the referee's voice, the applause that followed a clean exchange. She watched a few, not to scout but to let her nervous system learn the rhythm of the day. A tap. A stop. A handshake. Again. A tap. A stop. A handshake. The pattern repeated, and each repetition made the room feel safer.