Brooke Lawrence Episode Four - This takes place in season one, episode four.
Characters in scenes (in order of appearance): Brooke, Carmen, Miguel, Johnny, Trey, Cruz, Robby, Demetri, Eli
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☆ Scene One – After the Halloween Party, 12 AM: ☆
I peer my head out of the front curtains, for more then one reason. Actually, for a lot of reasons. I can't sleep. That's the big one. It's Friday night, Halloween, and I'm sitting inside worried and jittery. The other reasons being that my dad left about 2 hours ago and hasn't returned which worries me, and also because I'm waiting to see what's happening in Miguel's house. See, there's a gap in his curtains so I can see just enough of what's going on in his house. I can see his mom frantically pacing around in a hurry. I can't help but wonder if she's pacing out of anger and frustration, or if she's getting things to help Miguel.
Moments of earlier in the night flash through my head. Me desperately banging on Miguel's apartment door as my dad holds a bloody and tired Miguel in his arms. His mother opening the door and screaming, throwing her hands up in her face. My dad getting scolded and told off by Mrs. Diaz. Miguel screaming for his sensei, and as the door slams he screeches out, 'Cobra Kai Never Dies.' Then my dad stumbles into our apartment, mad at himself. He talks to me about clearing his mind. Of course, I let him go, he's upset about this too, but I didn't think he'd disappear. I try to shake away the memories, but it's hard. I poke my head out of my front curtains and flop onto the couch.
"Where are you, dad?" I mumble to myself, squeezing my eyes tightly shut. "God, what the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" I sigh and get up from the couch, heading over to the kitchen for a snack. I look at the fridge, there's a picture of me and my brother Robby. We were probably about 7 in the picture. I take it off of the fridge and look at it. "Where are you when I need you?" I catch myself feeling upset.
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☆ Scene Two – The Next Morning: ☆
I wake up passed out on the couch, my body curled up in a ball from having no blanket. In the distance, my dad's on the phone. His voice sounds groggy and tired. I pull myself up-right as I listen to his conversation, trying to wake myself up more.
"Robby hasn't been to school in two months?" I hear him exclaim, picking up his half-spilled can of beer. He takes a sip of it. "Oh, don't worry. He'll be back." My dad instantly pulls his crappy flip-phone away from his ear and hangs it up.
"Dad? What was that?" I ask. His head flings towards me, but you can tell he instantly regrets it because he grabs his forehead in pain. "What's wrong with Robby?"
"Your brother lied that we were on a family trip. He hasn't showed up at school in 2 months." My dad grumbles. "I need to go talk to him." I get up from the couch.
"You do?" I ask, instantly getting a burst of energy.
"Yeah, I do, why?" My dad looks at me, raising an eyebrow. He studies the expression on my face. "You want to go talk to him?"
"I talk to him, you talk to mom." I state. My dad takes a step back in shock, thinking through the plan.
"What for? I don't want to talk to your mom! She's gross!" My dad exclaims in disgust.
"You can convince her to have Robby live with us! I mean, obviously you're a more fit parent in that sense! You make me go to school every day which is good for my future!" I explain.
"Woah, you're getting ahead of yourself. I don't have the money for two kids." My dad shakes his head lightly.
"Well, yeah, but if we get more students for the dojo-" He cuts me off.
"There is no more dojo." My dad sighs.
"What?" I exclaim. "Wait a second! That's not fair!"
"Life isn't fair, and after last night's incident, I've decided to shut down the dojo." My dad explains, as I shake my head. I want to go on a tangent to my dad about how I love karate and how I didn't even get to learn anything new, but I can't do that now. Not yet. Robby needs me.
"Then I'll get a job! I'm eligible." I tell him.
"I don't need you to do that." My dad sighs again. I feel my face tense up.
"Well then what do you want? For your son to become a high school drop-out and to not fight for him with all that you've got? Strike first and strike hard!" I shout, trying to get my dad riled up. My dad lets out a sigh. He gives no fight back because if anything, I think he agrees.
"Fine, I circle the nearby bars and find your mom, because God knows she's not home with your brother, and you walk to your brothers and talk to him." My dad sticks out his hand for me to shake. "Shake on it." I grab his hand and give it a good tug.
With that, I get ready and prepare to go talk to my brother, who I haven't seen in almost three years.
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☆ Scene Three – Talking to Robby: ☆
I walk through the halls of an apartment I no longer can call my home, but I'm not upset about that. I was miserable here. I was either bored out of my mind, alone at home waiting for my mom to come home, with no food in the fridge and sometimes no electricity from late bills, or I was getting made fun of and scolded by my mom. The only saving grace about this place was Robby. He was a good brother, but overtime, as the world started being unfair towards him, he changed. Not towards me, but he changed. He started hanging out with the wrong people, so God knows where he is now.
I reach his apartment door. My body feels heavy and tired, my heart racing. I can already hear loud, blasting music from inside the apartment, so Robby's obviously home. I gently knock on the door before standing back waiting patiently. Nobody comes so I knock on the door a bit louder.
"Robby?" I shout from outside the door, but again, nothing. I begin banging on the door. "Jesus, since when did you become deaf?" I grumble, before just grabbing onto the doorknob and wiggling it. After about a minute of struggling, I let go of the doorknob and bend down, lifting up the cheap, messed-up 'Welcome' mat that sits right in front of the door. I suddenly spot the spare key, grabbing it, and yanking it out from under the mat. It's been there ever since we moved here. It's an easy place my mom can find the key if she forgot hers and she's wasted. I stand back up straight and, with no hesitation, I unlock the door. I swing the door open and walk in. I get the instant smell of smoke, the music blares as two idiots surround themselves around a laptop and talk about, and I quote, 'If her ass is real.' Robby's sitting down at the kitchen table laughing at their conversation.
"What the hell is this?" I ask, loud enough to grab Robby's attention. His head flicks over in my direction and he raises his eyebrows, his expression instantly frustrated. He gets up from his chair and takes a step closer to me.
"Don't you knock?" He asks. "I mean, since you don't actually live here anymore."
"I was knocking and yelling for you for five minutes. This was my only option." I cross my arms. Robby's friends stare at me, full of confusion.
"Who the hell is this?" One speaks up and asks. "You're girl?" I make a disgusted face as Robby turns towards him.
"No! Dude, this is my sister!" Robby shouts out, also disgusted. He points to me and the guy, with his ugly mustache, leans in and examines our facial features.
"Oh! Okay, I can see it now." The man chuckles and Robby's other friend hits him the shoulder.
"Dude, shut up!" He shouts to the guy with the mustache. I roll my eyes as Robby walks up closer to me.
"What do you want?" Robby asks as he scans me up and down.
"Dad heard about you not being in school." I come clean as Robby begins to lightly laugh.
"Yeah, you know, I'm not really sure what a family vacation looks like, so I had to make one up." Robby shakes his head. "But, you can tell Dad that next time, he can choose where we don't go."
"Robby, this isn't about your relationship with Dad! This is about your education." I take a step closer to him. We look like we're about to have a face-off. "You need to go back to school."
"What for? Mom doesn't care if I go or not?" Robby raises and eyebrow.
"Mom is also an emotionally abusive drunk who's out right now probably getting screwed by some random guy!" I shout.
"Don't talk about mom like that!" Robby's whole body suddenly tenses up. "Just because you're mad at her, doesn't mean you get to be mean to her." Robby grumbles, but I can't help but laugh.
"'Mad at her?'" I let out another chuckle. "I'm not mad at her. I hate her! Why do you think I left? What good did she ever do for me? And what has she done for you?"
"More then dad." Robby states.
"He wants to fix that." I explain, trying to soften my tone.
"How could that bum fix anything?" Robby asks. "He's a piece of shit." I shake my head, I can't help but get mad. I love my dad. He was there for me. He let me in when I needed help.
"Why are you being such an asshole!?" I exclaim. Robby's friends gasp at my comment. I finally realize that they've been listening intensely this whole time. "Who even are you anymore, because you sure as hell aren't acting like the Robby I knew and loved. The Robby that I felt guilty about leaving! The one who I've needed and wanted hundreds of times in the past three years!" I shout, getting up into Robby's face. "I want to help you! Dad and I made a plan to help you, but no! You'd rather ruin your life by doing drugs, skipping school, stealing, and surrounding yourself with idiots who watch porn!"
"You left! You felt guilty, but you still left! How do you think that made me feel!?" Robby and I definitely have the same anger as our father. Always holding grudges, full of frustration.
"I couldn't stand another minute of mom bitching to me about how terrible I was and how 'overweight' I was! Constantly blaming me, making me scrounge up money to pay the bills, always starving from having no food! She made me hate myself. I was exhausted of her making up excuses to leave the house! I didn't want to be surrounded by the booze and men, and there's nothing wrong with that!" I groan. "Robby, I'm sorry, I really am but-" Robby cuts me off.
"I'm not going back to school, and there's no way I'm letting dad help me." Robby doesn't budge.
"Robby, I'll do anything! I just want you to be okay. You can be happy living with dad and me." I try to explain.
"In your dreams." Robby laughs. "Now, I really think you should go."
"Robby-" He cuts me off again. It makes me want to punch him.
"Go away. I don't want to keep talking to you." His anger begins to die down at the end of the sentence. Instead of it sounding meaner, it sounds desperate and disappointed. Suddenly, one of Robby's friends butt in.
"Ayo, baby-cakes, if you keep frowning like that, you'll get wrinkles. Don't want to mess up that face of yours." He calls out. I look at him, grossed out.
"I'm a minor, and I don't care what I look like. Now go back to your stupid Porn-Hub, dumbass." I grumble and turn to head out the door. "Have a nice life, Robby. I can't say that I at least didn't try now."
And with that, I slam the door.
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☆ Scene Four – In the Library: ☆
"So what happened?" Miguel asks me as Eli and Demetri listen intently.
"My brother said he didn't want to live with us, it's as simple as that. Once I got back to tell my dad what happened, he also had a depressing story about how he failed to fight for my brother." I explain, chewing on the end of my pen and staring at my geometry homework. "It was a really awkward evening. I don't think either of us said anything to each other at dinner." I let out a sigh as the memories of last night flash throughout my head.
"Sounds like a fun father-daughter dinner." Demetri says sarcastically.
"I really thought I had a good plan, and not just that, but everything with the dojo too. I just can't stop thinking about it. Why is this happening all at once?" I groan.
"Maybe it's a good thing that all the karate garbage is done and over with." Demetri explains. "I mean, it gave Miguel confidence and made you go crazy with Kyler."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Miguel asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Hell, no." Demetri mutters. Suddenly, Kyler and Brucks appear from around the corner. He's not on my end of the table, he's opposite of me, which is probably good or I'd bash his face in.
"Well if it isn't my favorite group of people, shit-lip, 'Rhea, lame-ass, and the psycho." Kyler laughs. "What are you freaks doing?" Kyler places his hands onto Miguel and Eli's shoulder, digging his fingers into their skin.
"Nothing much, we're just talking about how shitty of a human-being you are!" I put on a fake smile. Eli and Demetri look at me in fear, worried I might say something wrong. I take a breath and try to think through my actions. "Now, please remove your hands from my friends shoulders, and we'll leave... Or, if you'd like to settle this in some other way, I'd be happy to help." With a glare, Kyler reluctantly takes his hands off of Eli and Miguel. We all get up and grab our belongings.
I begin leading the pack out of the library, and I can't help but chuckle to myself as I hear Demetri call out from the back of the library, "Wait, no! I just threw a yogurt away in the trash! That'll ruin my backpack!" And then the sudden sound of the backpack falling. I don't hate Demetri, we just think very differently.
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☆ Scene Five – At the dojo: ☆
"So, all of these trophies are yours?" I ask, gently placing a trophy into a cardboard box full of karate awards. My dad nods.
"Yeah." He smiles slightly. "Those were the good old days. Me and my buddies were the coolest kids in all of the valley. We had all the moves and all sorts of hot babes." I watch my dad stare longingly at the box and the contents inside. I can tell he doesn't want to give up the dojo. "But, it's fine. We don't need karate! We're good with or without it." My dad tries to reassure me, but if anything, I think he's saying that more to convince himself the best he can.
All of a sudden, I hear the dojo door open up. My dad and I look at each other confused before leaving the office and seeing who came in. It's Miguel, and he looks super happy. He walks to the center of the mat before actually saying something.
"Guys! My mom said I could keep training!" Miguel exclaims.
"Are you serious!?" I shout with joy.
"She really did?" My dad says right as I finish my sentence. Miguel nods as I turn in my dad's direction. Miguel and I stare at him, knowing he has to say we can keep training. There's a moment of silence, and then all of a sudden, he says something. "Okay, both of you, fall in!" He exclaims. I run over next to Miguel as my dad begins talking. "Miguel, you got your ass kicked because you didn't have any defense, so today, I'm going to teach you the best defense." My dad stops right in front of us and crosses his arms. "And the best defense, is more offense! Are you both ready to train?"
"Yes, sensei!" Miguel and I yell.
"Then are you ready to learn how to kick some ass!?" My dad shouts even louder.
"Yes, sensei!" We repeat.