The second day of the National Championship in Monterrey was the moment the physical reality of high-level competition hit Ángel with the force of a sledgehammer. Despite being only fifteen years old, with his enviable genetics and a bone structure seemingly designed for combat, his body was beginning to pay the price for years of a Spartan regime, of relentless training under the scorching Mexicali sun, and the accumulated stress of having compressed three years of high school into just two.
When he woke up in the Athletic Village, every movement reminded him of a previous battle. He had a bruise, almost black with yellowish edges, extending across his left ribs—the result of an accidental knee to the head in the round of 16. Furthermore, the skin on his shoulders and neck burned with a dull fire; the constant friction of his tights, soaked not only with his own sweat but also that of his opponents, had caused abrasions that felt like sunburn. However, his mind was a separate ecosystem. Accustomed to remaining cool and collected during eight-hour comprehensive exams and all-night study marathons, Ángel's mind was in a state of absolute concentration, a kind of trance where pain was simply another piece of information to process, not an impediment.
The semifinal was scheduled for eleven in the morning against the Jalisco team, a wrestler everyone on the circuit called "The Wall." The nickname, far from being an exaggeration, fell short of reality. The man from Guadalajara was a prodigy of biomechanics: he had a defense that seemed built of reinforced concrete and an isometric strength in his arms that drained your energy and will to fight as the seconds ticked by. Entering a hold with him was like trying to move a bronze statue.
The match began and immediately became a war of psychological and physical attrition. During the first three-minute period, the score remained unchanged at 0-0. The sound of their foreheads colliding as they sought the neck tie was sharp and violent, an echo that resonated through the beams of the Nuevo León Unido gymnasium and sent shivers down the spines of the spectators in the front rows.
"Move it, Ángel! Don't just stand there in front of him, he'll eat you alive!" Víctor yelled from the corner. The trainer was red with rage, the vein in his neck bulging with tension, as he pounded the mat with a towel, trying to rouse his pupil's aggression.
Ángel felt as if the air inside the gym had solidified, a mass of humidity and carbon dioxide that burned as it entered his lungs. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision, and each deep breath sent an electric shock from his injured ribs to his brain. He knew, with his characteristic mathematical logic, that he couldn't beat El Muro in a shoving match; The guy was simply too heavy at his base, and his legs were like immovable tree trunks.
At the start of the second period, Ángel decided to apply one of the maxims he'd read in his biomechanics books: use the opponent's inertia against him. He feigned an explosive attack to both legs, a suicidal move that forced the man from Jalisco to react instinctively, lowering his center of gravity and pushing forward with all his weight to block the attack. It was exactly what Ángel had calculated.
Instead of colliding with the mass of flesh and bone, Ángel took a quick side step, a dancer's pivot on a giant's body. He trapped his opponent's left arm in a lock that didn't loosen an inch and, using his own torso as leverage, spun with centrifugal force that lifted the man from Guadalajara completely off the ground. The "Wall" from Jalisco flew through the air in a perfect parabola and landed on his back with a dull thud that seemed to shake the very foundations of the arena. His opponent was stunned, the air escaping his lungs in a dry groan. Ángel gave him no room; he controlled him on the mat with suffocating pressure until the final buzzer sounded. The final score was a resounding 5-0. Ángel González, the kid from Mexicali who was already a high school graduate, was in the national final.
That night, the silence in his room at the Athletic Village was only broken by the distant sound of Monterrey traffic. The pain in his ribs was no longer just a nuisance; it was a constant throbbing that prevented him from finding a comfortable position to sleep. The door opened gently, and Roberto entered. He didn't bring empty congratulations or fanfare; he brought a jar of sports ointment and a roll of new bandages.
"Okay, take off your shirt. Let me see that bruise," Roberto said in his characteristically calm voice, sitting on the edge of the bed as he had done so many times when Ángel was a child and came home from the park with scraped knees.
Ángel let out an involuntary groan as his father applied the cold ointment. The scent of menthol and camphor quickly filled the room, an aroma that for Ángel would always be his father's language of love. Roberto began to bandage his torso with almost surgical precision, tightening it just enough to support the muscles but allowing him to breathe.
"It's going to hurt more tomorrow, son. That's how this sport is; there's no way around the pain, you can only go through it," Roberto commented as he cut the bandage with a pair of scissors. "But you're almost there." Tomorrow, don't worry about the color of the medal, or what the newspapers in Mexicali say, or what your teammates expect. Just step into that circle and finish the job you came here to do.
"I feel strange, Dad," Ángel confessed, staring at the damp patches on the ceiling. "For the first time in years, my head is empty. I don't have to review physics formulas, I don't have to think about what exam is next on Monday or what assignment I still need to turn in so I don't lose my scholarship. I feel like... like all I have left is the fight. It's like the rest of the world has disappeared."
"That's because you've already fulfilled your first big responsibility. You've taken that weight off your shoulders, and now you've earned the sacred right to worry only about winning," Roberto replied, giving him a gentle, fatherly pat on the arm before getting up. "Rest as much as you can. We'll stop by early tomorrow for some strong coffee and a light snack before the final weigh-in."
Ángel nodded, feeling the warmth of the bandage supporting his injured body. He was left alone in the dark, listening to Linkin Park's "Somewhere I Belong" at a barely audible volume to soothe the buzzing of his nerves. He took out his phone and saw the last photo Carla had sent him from the sewing workshop: it was his high school diploma, already framed and with gleaming glass, hanging in the place of honor in the living room, right next to his first medals from elementary school.
Below the photo was a message from Mónica: "There's still an empty space on that wall. Tomorrow we need the last piece of metal for this year to complete the collection. Give it your all, my champion. I'll be waiting for you here."
Ángel closed his eyes and let the phone fall to the side. He was no longer that boy who hid in the corners of the school library to avoid being teased for being too tall or too serious. He was a fifteen-year-old man with a degree in his hand and his eyes fixed on the top of Mexican sports. The final exam wouldn't be on paper and ink; there would be no multiple-choice answers or answer sheets. Tomorrow's exam would be graded with blood, sweat, and willpower; it would be a test of who could endure the most pain and who craved that place at the top of the podium the most. As he drifted off to sleep, he felt the Mexicali desert, with its relentless sun and granite-like hardness, coursing through his veins, granting him a resilience known only to those who have learned to flourish where nothing else survives.