Tears Mean Weakness

Chapter 2

"...There's always choices, mine were just extremely limited."

"Shouldn't you go first, Jacobsen? You are a lot faster than me. That way we will have a head start," said Rowan. We had five minutes to decide on a strategy for round one. I considered his point. True - I was faster, and I could definitely put us in the lead, but Rowan probably wouldn't have been able to keep us there. I stared at the course.
"No, you go first," I said, still looking at the course in front of us. "Go as fast as you can, and then I'll do the final sprint, hopefully that will keep us in the lead," I said. I finally looked at him.
" Okay, you see the barbed wire over the crawl space?" I pointed to where I meant.
"Yeah," said Rowan,"it's a pretty tight space."
"Watch out or you'll get your backpack caught in it. Take it off, throw it in ahead of you, that way you'll move faster and you won't get stuck," I explained. Rowan nodded.
"Good thinking, Jacobsen." We divided up the materials equally, so that both of the backpacks were of equal weight. I turned around to face the other teams, to see who I was up against.
I heard huge boots walk up behind me. Sergeant.
"Jacobsen?" He sounded patronising. I spun around to face him. It seemed like he was using every excuse possible to talk to me today.
"Yes, Sir?" I replied, standing to attention.
"I sincerely hope you do not expect the other Soldiers to take it easy on you because you are female?" I wanted nothing more than to explode at him. He had always trained me to know that nobody, nobody would take it easy on me.
I remembered when I was around 10 years old, and my father had taken me out to the practice room. He placed a mat on the floor, and began to teach me how to fight. I was still new to fighting and after throwing a pathetic punch, my father threw me to the floor. It was a harsh throw, like I was an irritating insect that he had swatted away from him. My father looked me dead in the eye, and kept his face straight.
"Always remember, Lola, soldiers are shown no mercy. Big, small, young, old - boy, girl - it doesn't matter to them. They have a job to do: wipe out the other team, and they don't take it easy on anyone."
Now here he was, questioning that I was a strong soldier, that I could take the boys.
Losing the little battles wasn't an option anymore. I had to win them all, I had to prove him wrong.
"Not at all. I never have expected special treatment before, and I will not start now, Sir," I replied, with the tiniest hint of attitude in my voice. I didn't dare to talk back to him with a lot of attitude, and normally none at all.
"I train soldiers, not wannabe Rebels." My father's voice rang in my head, and anyone in their right mind would rather die than face punishment for talking back to him.
He nodded, looking down at the ground. Then he looked back at me.
"Good. Keep it that way," he said. "As you were." He stalked away. I turned back to Rowan. He looked at me.
"Wow, Jacobsen," he said in a pitying way.
"What?"
"That would've been bad for any of us...," he paused before saying,"...but that must've been brutal for you."
"What do you mean, Saunders?" I said.
"Well, he's your father, and he doesn't think you can make it," he said. I looked at the ground, thinking.
"Yeah. Which is why we are proving him wrong, Rowan. Let's go," I said moving toward the course. I took in a deep breath. For the first time since I left home, I was going to show my father that what he got rid of, what he sent away - what he was ashamed of being related to - was not a weakling, she was a soldier.
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"Get ready, Soldiers. LET'S GO!" The Sergeant blew his whistle. Rowan began to run, he was running as fast as he could, hurdling over the rocks, ducking under nets. He approached the ropes, and climbed them without much effort. Rowan was in the lead. He had jumped the wall like it was nothing more than a brick on the ground, rather than quite a few feet higher. Now that Rowan was out of sight all I could do was hope that he kept us in the lead. As the second group stood at line, waiting for the whistle, I felt the anger from before. My own so-called father, didn't believe in me. He wanted to forget about me, pretend I didn't exist. However that was pretty difficult. I was the only girl in an Army Base with 99 other boys. I stood out.
Sergeant looked at his stopwatch, and eventually took the whistle to his lips, and blew it.
I shot off like a rocket, sprinting towards the rocks, hurdling clean over them. I ducked under the nets, crawling at quite a speed, and making it through the rounds with ease.
I couldn't see anyone in front of me, but while that meant I was in the lead, it didn't tell me by how far. I couldn't turn around to look at the other trainees, it would A) slow me down, B) let trainees pass me and C) panic me if their were other Soldiers just behind me. In a place like the Army, fear is your worst enemy, if you let it get inside of you.
"For a boat to sink, it has to let the water inside of it. Similarly, for fear to shut you down, you have to let it get inside of you."
My mother sat in her chair, with me in her lap. She twisted a lock of my hair around her finger.
"Never let fear get to you, Lola...,"she looked outside of the window as a few Soldiers ran past,"... especially not here."
I scolded myself for thinking of my mother. I had no time to get sensitive, or to prove my weakness to my father. I had to keep running.