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First place.
The team erupts. The specific explosive joy of an outcome nobody was fully confident about landing exactly right anyway — the specific disbelief of a group of athletes who rebuilt something in thirty minutes and watched it somehow work better than anyone had a right to expect. I’m crying before I’ve fully registered why — the tears arriving somewhere between pride and grief. The specific complicated relief of having made the hardest right choice of my entire life and watching everyone else succeed without me anyway, which is its own particular ache, gratitude and loss occupying the exact same space in my chest.
“We won,” Priya says, disbelieving, throwing both arms around me. Delaney piles in a second later, still catching her breath from the routine, medal already around her neck, her whole face lit up with the specific glow of someone who just did something enormous and is still catching up to the reality of it. Kara joins the pile a moment after, then Ethan, the whole group collapsing into one enormous celebratory hug with me somehow in the middle of it despite not having competed at all.
“I know.” I hold onto her, laughing and crying at the same time, surrounded by people who fought for this win in a way none of us expected to have to fight for it. “I know we did.”
Later, after the medals, after the team photo I stand at the edge of instead of the center, Coach Torres finds me by the equipment bags.
“You did the right thing,” she says again, quieter now, just for me. “I want you to actually believe that, not just hear it. You could have gotten up there today. You could have gambled and probably nothing would have happened. But probably isn’t good enough when it’s not just your body anymore.”
“Thank you for not being angry.”
“I was never angry.” She looks at me for a long moment, something warm and steady in her expression. “I was scared for you. There’s a difference. You’ve been carrying something enormous for six weeks. You still showed up to every practice. You gave this team everything you had until the exact moment it stopped being safe to give any more. That’s not weakness, Margo. That’s about as strong as I’ve ever seen a person be.”
I don’t have an answer for that either. I just nod, and let myself finally, fully cry — for the first time all day, without managing it, without performing composure for anyone watching.
Delaney finds me a few minutes later, still in her competition uniform, medal still around her neck. “Hey.” She hesitates, uncertain of her welcome. “I wanted to say thank you. For trusting me with the flyer spot. I know that wasn’t easy for you, today of all days.”
“You were incredible,” I tell her, and I mean it completely. “I watched that extension and I’ve never been prouder of anyone on this team.”
“I was terrified the whole time.”
“You didn’t look it.” I squeeze her hand. “That’s the whole job, honestly. Looking like you’re not terrified even when you are.”
She laughs, surprised, and I realize I’ve just handed her the exact philosophy I’ve been trying to unlearn for six weeks. Something about the irony of that isn’t lost on me even as the words leave my mouth.
We won. I wasn’t on the mat, and we won anyway, and somewhere in the specific ache of that contradiction I feel something shift — not resolved, not fixed, but different. The biggest external pressure of the last six weeks has finally, actually ended.
Whatever comes next, I get to face it without this particular weight on top of everything else.
Priya finds me on the walk back to the staging area, falling into step beside me without a word, and after a moment she bumps her shoulder into mine.
“Proud of you,” she says. Simple. “Not for the medal. For pulling out. That took more than any stunt sequence ever could have.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“But you did.” She squeezes my hand. “That’s the part that matters.”
Nationals in Daytona means an actual trip — the drive down two days ago, Kara behind the wheel of my car with Delaney and Priya crammed in alongside the coolers and duffel bags, the rest of the squad on the team bus a few hours ahead of us. Kara insisted on driving so I wouldn't have to, waving off my protests with the specific stubbornness she brings to everything, and the four of us spent the drive trading a chaotic playlist and the specific exhausted delirium of eight hours on I-95 with a team that's spent all season becoming something closer to family than teammates. We're staying through tomorrow morning, the whole squad booked into a beachside hotel a few blocks from the arena, two to a room, banquet and awards ceremony tonight before the long drive home. I’m sharing a room with Priya. She’s already back at the hotel by the time I get there, showered and changed, her medal draped over the lamp on the nightstand like she couldn’t decide where else to put something that significant.
“You should be so proud of yourself,” she says, the second I walk in. “Pulling out like that — Margo, that took guts. I don’t think people fully get that yet, but they will.”
“I don’t feel like it took guts. I feel like I let everyone down and then watched them succeed without me.”
“Both things can happen.” It’s the same thing Kara said to me earlier, and something about the accidental repetition makes me smile despite everything. “You want to talk about it? Whatever’s actually going on?”
“Not yet.” I sit on the edge of my bed, still in yesterday’s clothes, the whole day finally catching up to me all at once. “Soon. Just not yet.”
She doesn’t push, which I’m grateful for — Priya’s never been the type to push, one of the reasons she’s easy to be around even when I’m carrying something I can’t fully explain.
The team decides to go out that evening, after the banquet — some boardwalk restaurant with a view of the ocean, a celebration dinner the whole squad’s been talking about since we booked the trip. Priya changes into something nice, does her hair, asks twice if I’m coming.
“I think I’m going to stay in,” I tell her. “I’m exhausted. Emotionally, mostly. I just need a quiet night.”
“You sure? Nobody would blame you for wanting to celebrate too.”
“I’m sure. Go. Have fun. Tell everyone I said congratulations, I mean it completely, I just don’t have it in me tonight.”
