"Hi, Ms. Diaz. Is Miguel home? He hasn't been answering my calls and I wanted to check on him." Miguel was no where to be found after the Valley Fest. I tried calling and texting him, but he was ignoring me completely. I finally gave in and went to his apartment so I could explain myself.
"Yeah, sweetie. He's in his room." She held the door and allowed me to walk to Miguel's room. Ms. Diaz was a real one. I stood in front of Miguel's room contemplating on what I was going to say. I couldn't decide so I gave up and knocked on the door.
"Come in." He called out. I slowly opened the door and walked in. He was laying on his bed looking at something on his phone.
"Hey...I just wanted to check on you. You weren't answering my calls." I sat down on the edge of his bed, keeping a good distance between us.
"Yeah, I was ignoring them." He was not happy with me.
"I'm sorry for leading you on Miguel. That was never my intention and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. That's why I was so careful about taking our relationship slow." I waited for him to say something, but he stayed quiet. "I was also afraid that I didn't truly like you. I think I just liked the idea of liking you. I know it sounds bizarre..."
"It doesn't." He looked up at me and sighed. "I liked the idea of liking you too. We were going through such similar situations that I felt like if we dated it would solve all our problems. It was wrong of me to force us together."
"No it wasn't. We tried and it didn't work. That's not either one of faults." I smiled at him, and he finally smiled back. "So can we go back to sulking about our exes?" I asked laughing.
"That sounds good to me."
"This is going to make quite a story one day." I was feeling so much better.
"Remember when we kissed? That was weird." We were laughing so hard that my stomach was cramping. I loved that it was so easy to talk to Miguel.
"You know I love you, right?" I said to him.
"I love you, too Vito." He replied to me.
"Now let's get our asses to class before Sensei makes us do push ups for being late."
~
Miguel and I were stretching on the floor before class and Kreese was standing above us, telling the group about his war experience.
"Can you believe this guy?" Miguel whispered to me. I think we shared the same opinion about Sensei's sensei.
"Why do I feel like he's always lying to us?" I responded.
"They were outgunned, we were outmanned. I tell you Rwanda was no joke."
"Don't you mean Somalia?" Miguel questioned his story. "Mogadishu is in Somalia, Rwanda's a whole different country." Kreese turned around, annoyed with Miguel for calling him out.
"Of course, Somalia. I've spent so much time in the sandbox, it all kind of bleeds together, you know?" He covered up his lied. Miguel and I seemed to be the only ones who didn't trust him.
"Listen up!" Sensei came out of the back room to start our daily lesson. We all took our spots in the front of the class. I stood beside Hawk, which I hadn't done since our break up. He didn't even notice or if he had he pretended like he didn't notice. Hawk was making me so confused. He kissed me one day but ignored me the next. "I see we've got new recruits. "Time to see what you're made of." Johnny made his way around the room to inspect the newbies. It gave me flashbacks to when he attacked Eli for his lip. I shuddered at the thought.
"I thought my last group of recruits were pathetic. But if you do what I tell you to do, you'll at least have a chance of becoming a fighter. But to do that, you gotta fight. So, which one you has the balls to take on the champ?" The room grew silent and Miguel and I smiled at each other. I loved the feeling of dominance.
"I'll take him on." A girl voice came from the back of the dojo. The group spread out to reveal her.
"Oh, you will, huh?" Sensei questioned her.
"I saw your little demo at Valley Fest. You guys can put on a show. Can you actually fight?" Sensei was slowly walking up to her. I was offended by what she said and I'm sure Sensei was too.
"This sounds like a challenge." He said to her.
"I like a challenge." She had a lot of guts. I couldn't tell if I liked her or not.
"Mr. Diaz, show Little Miss Hotshot here what Cobra Kai is all about." Everyone moved to the sides of the mat and Miguel walked up to the mystery girl.
"Look, are you sure you wanna do--" Miguel was always cautious when fighting girls, but the one standing in front of him took advantage of the moment. She kicked him back, striking first. "Alright, game on." She approached him with several punches, but Miguel blocked every single one. They went at each other for a minute. Miguel was giving her tips during the fight. It was making me laugh. Miguel took her down and offered her a hand up. "I'm Miguel." He introduced himself.
"Tory." The mystery girl had a name now. She grabbed Miguel's hand to stand up, but took him by surprise and flipped over onto his back. The whole class went quiet because of the defeat of our champion. I found it hilarious though. He always had a weakness for girls. He should have learned with Aisha.
"Alright, FALL IN!" Sensei commanded. Miguel stood up and quietly joined my side to finish the class.
"That was great fight." I mocked him.
"Shut up." He was embarrassed, but it was sweet. After class, I went to introduce myself to Tory. She was by the door, about to leave.
"Hey, Tory. I'm Olivia. You have great technique! Have you ever taken Karate?" I put my hand out for her to shake it. She took my hand, but squeezed really hard. "Oh, geez what was that for?"
"Nothing, It's nice to meet you Olivia." She said my name slowly as if she was mocking me.
"What's your problem?" I was shocked by her bad attitude.
"I'm just making myself known." She shrugged like it was no big deal.
"Look, I don't know who you think you are, but you better not expect to be able to just walk in here and take over the place." I put her in her place.
"And what if I wanted to?"
"Well, good luck. Some of us have been here since the beginning. And you're gonna have to train a little harder if you want to take me down. I'm not as easy to fight as Miguel." I threatened.
"Challenge excepted, bitch."
"Excuse me? If you think--" I was ready to rip her head off but was unfortunately interrupted.
"Miss Vito, my office." Sensei called me.
I glared at Tory and took the last words, "This isn't over." I stared her down until I was completely turned around. Hawk and Miguel and been watching and they were smiling at how angry I was. I rolled my eyes at them and walked into Sensei's office.
"What was that?" He asked me.
"What are you talking about?" I was confused.
"That thing going on between you and the new girl. What was that?"
"Are you kidding me? I went to introduce myself, and she threatened me. I was simply standing my ground as Cobra Kai's top girl."
"Things seemed to get heated pretty quickly. Why don't you try being nice?" Was he joking with me?
"Sensei, you allow Hawk and Miguel to nickname the newbies 'Ass-face' and 'Douchebag' but I can't stand up for myself with the new girl? You taught me to not be a pussy." I was even more pissed now.
"All I'm asking is for you not to scare her off. We could use her skills on the team."
"Don't you think you're being a little sexist, Sensei?" I called him out.
"Yes and I don't care because chick rivalry freaks me out and I don't want to deal with it in my dojo." I took a deep breathe and decided to be civil.
"Fine. I won't scare her off, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let her walk all over me. She needs to know whose in charge." He was grinning at me now.
"Why can't you be normal, Vito?" He chuckled.
"If I was normal, I'd be training with my family at Miyagi Do." I scoffed. This took him by surprise, but in the end we were laughing together.
"You make a good point. You can go, Vito." He dismissed me, so I went searching for my friends. Neither one of the boys were there any more. When was I going to find the time to talk to Hawk?
~
My plans had changed for the day when Amanda called me out of the blue and invited me to their family day at the pool. She claimed it would be "therapeutic" for Daniel, Sam, and I. My initial reaction was to avoid the confrontation, but my morning had been so tense at the dojo that I thought I would treat myself to a pool day. After all, I couldn't spend all summer worrying about the boys in my life. I pulled in and I saw Daniel's banana boat parked in the front. I smiled remembering all the memories Sam and I had in that car. After parking, I grabbed my bag and made my way around the building to the pool. Amanda spotted me first.
"Olivia! I'm so glad you made it. I've missed seeing your sweet face." She wrapped her arms tightly around me, almost suffocating me. "Sam and Robby are over there." She pointed to the other side of the pool. The two of them were sitting together, laughing about something, so I made my way over. When Sam noticed my presence, she dropped her smile and rolled her eyes.
"What are you doing here?"
"You're mom invited me. She thought it would be good if we talked." Sam wasn't looking at me so I talked to Robby. "Hey, Robby. How's the shoulder?" The last time I had seen was when Hawk injured him at the tournament.
"It's all healed up. Thanks for asking." Things got quiet, so I pulled a chair over next to Sam's and I put my towel out.
"Can I sit here, or are you two mad at me."
"You crashed our demonstration!"
"I nothing to do with the idea Sam. I simply did what my Sensei told me to do. I'm sorry." She still didn't respond. "What happened to not letting our dojo's rivalry ruin our summer? I thought we promised that to each other." She took a deep breathe and finally smiled.
"Okayyyy, but this doesn't mean I forgive Cobra Kai." I sat down in the chair.
"You have to admit, though, our show was pretty badass." I nudged her in the side and Robby chuckled. His laugh sounded just like his Dad's.
"So what have you been up to? Other than Cobra Kai of course."
"I actually have a lot to update you on." I was excited to finally tell her everything, even if it was about Miguel. I wasn't going to lie to her about it. I started to talk, but stopped when I realized that Robby would be listening.
"Can you keep a secret?" I asked him.
"I only ever talk to Sam, so yes." He was so kind.
"Okay, so the last thing I told you was that Hawk and I broke up, but I still had feelings for him--"
"Wait, you dated that punk who kicked me when my back was turned?" Robby asked surprised.
"Yes, I dated that punk. And I fell in love with him, too." He looked satisfied with my answer so I continued my story. "Well, he started dating Moon, which hurts like hell. But it caused Miguel and I to get closer because, you know, we were both going through rough break ups." I paused, getting myself ready for the difficult part of the story. "One thing led to the other and he kissed me one day. I know, it's breaking girl code or cousin code or whatever code we have and I'm sorry." Sam looked at Robby and then back at me.
"It's okay, I'm done dating Cobra Kai's." She announced with confidence. I didn't believe her.
"Nothing else happened other than a kiss though, because I ran out on him. I didn't know what else to do."
"You're telling us that you just ran away from him after he kissed you?" Robby asked me. He was invested in the story.
"Yep."
"That had to hurt his ego."
"Well, I made up for it because I talked to him the next morning. I told him that I didn't want to start anything serious, you know, because I still love Hawk."
"I can't believe you still like him. Wasn't he a jerk to you?" Sam asked.
"We have a deep history that just can't be ignored. I think that's why I have such a soft spot for him." I shrugged it off. "Anyway, he's still dating Moon right? But at Valley Fest, he takes me by surprise by kissing me. And I haven't talked to him since." I left some unimportant details about Miguel. I already felt bad enough for telling Sam that we kissed.
"Do you know why he kissed you?" Robby was as confused as I was about it.
"Nope. He ignored me all throughout class today. I didn't really get the chance to talk to him."
"Weird." Robby added. Sam had left the conversation. She was spaced out, looking at someone. I followed her gaze and saw her looking at Aisha.
"Go talk to her." I pushed her up from her chair.
"But, what about everything that happened at Valley Fest?"
"If you can forgive me, you can forgive her." I encouraged her. She took my advice and walked over to Aisha. I thought I would give them some space to talk, so I sat back in my chair and started soaking up the sun. I was finally relaxed. I had too much energy to sit still for long, though, so after a couple minutes I started wandering around looking for the girls. They were standing at a table, giggling about something. I walked up to the conversation and stole a strawberry from Sam's plate.
"Robby actually moved into our house." Sam announced. I almost choked. I wondered if Johnny knew about that, but decided it wasn't my place to get involved.
"Your parents let that happen?" Aisha asked, shocked.
"So you're pretty much spending all summer with him? He's incredibly hot, Sam." I admitted.
"There's nothing going on. We're just friends." She rolled her eyes as if I was being ridiculous.
"Well, I'm still not gonna tell Miguel." Aisha announced. I shifted, uncomfortably.
"Hey! Look what I got." Tory came out of nowhere and showed a full bottle of Vodka that she had hidden in her purse.
"Where'd you get that?" Aisha asked calmly. She must have brought her.
"I swiped it from the bar."
"You should put that back. You'll get into big trouble." Sam advised. Tory looked away from Aisha and spotted me for the first time.
"Hey, Olivia." I didn't respond and grabbed another strawberry to eat. I was trying to keep my anger controlled. "And you are..." She was talking to Sam.
"Oh. Sam, this is Tory. Tory, Sam." She introduced them, and I stayed quiet.
"Come on. Like anyone's gonna miss one bottle of vodka. I could swipe half of the silverware in this place before anyone would notice." Tory said confidently.
"You shouldn't steal anything." Sam was right.
"What are you, a nun?" Tory trashed on Sam. I scoffed at her rudeness. "Are we going to drink or what?" She asked Aisha.
"Okay, one drink." She and Aisha left the table to find private place to drink.
"How do you know that?" Sam asked me, referring to Tory.
"She joined Cobra Kai this morning. Isn't she lovely?"
"So you have to spend all summer together?" She asked, feeling sympathy for my situation.
"Yep. I get to spend all summer with her, while you tan by the poolside with a literal model."
"Oh, shut up." She said laughing. We walked back to our chairs to join Robby, forgetting about our encounter with Tory.
~
"Hey, have any of you seen my wallet?" Amanda asked our group. We were packing up, ready to leave the hot sun.
"Wait, you're missing your wallet?" Robby tensed up beside me.
"It's gotta be around here somewhere. Can you just spread out? I'm sure it will turn up." Amanda asked us.
"I'll check the beach." Robbie announced. He dropped his bag and quickly walked away. Sam's attention was pulled by Aisha and Tory laughing loudly. She stomped away so I followed.
"Hey. My mom's missing her wallet." Sam spoke to Tory. I didn't like where she was going with this.
"Sucks for her." Tory laughed. I couldn't even stand her laugh.
"You wouldn't know anything about that?" She accused Tory.
"Wait, what are you saying." Aisha wasn't following.
"Just give me the wallet, and I won't tell Security." Sam threatened.
"Are you freaking kidding me." Tory took a step forward.
"Sam, she probably didn't do it." I put my hand on her shoulder to calm her down. I might not have liked Tory, but I wouldn't have accused her of something like this.
"Right. And she didn't steal a bottle of vodka and wouldn't steal half the silverware in here." Sam quoted her from earlier.
"Listen, I didn't rob your mom, bitch." Tory got into Sam's face, but she backed off. "Let's go." She was done with the fight. However, Sam wasn't ready to back down. As soon as Tory had her back to us, Sam reached for her bag. Tory quickly responded by pushing Sam back causing her to lose her balance. Sam fell straight into the buffet, getting food all over herself.
"Real classy, Tory." I spit at her. Her and Aisha ran off, leaving me to help the sticky Sam off the ground.
"Are you okay?" I asked her while picking her up off of the ground.
"I hate the Cobra Kai's." She was pissed all over again.
Great. Now Tory was going around, creating enemies. I was going to have to deal with her.