CHAPTER 65

As Robby opened his eyes, it took him a few moments to remember where he was. He had barely had a sip of alcohol at the party the night before, but that whole night had still flown by in such a blur that he hardly remembered it all upon waking up the next morning. Thankfully though, everything seemed normal enough as Robby rolled out of bed. He was at home, at his mom's place, a mostly empty apartment given that Shannon was leaving in less than a week. Most of it had been packed already.

Robby slowly stood up and stretched, and remnants of the night before began to return to him. He remembered the confrontation between Marcos and Hawk. He remembered trying to stop the fight but failing miserably. He remembered them all watching Marcos leaving the house, and then finding his passed out body right outside the front steps of the steps. But wait… if that happened, then…

Yup. Sure enough as Robby stepped out of his bedroom and into the living room, he saw a familiar figure lying on the sofa. When Robby and the other Miyagi-Dos had found Marcos lying on the front porch, barely unconscious, Robby had offered to take him back to his place to recover from the night of heavy drinking. The rest of the group were cautious, but they knew that Robby and Marcos did have some kind of weird relationship in some way so if anyone was going to take him in, it would probably be Robby. He was the least likely to land a fist to the face from the Cobra Kai. So Robby had brought him back to his mom's apartment, which had been conveniently empty as his mom had been in New York for the past 2 days to finalize her living arrangements over there, and helped Marcos over to the sofa to crash.

"Wake up!" Robby called. Immediately, Marcos' eyes snapped open and he jolted upright, as if he had been startled by something in his dreams. Immediately, he felt the aftermath of the night of drinking the night before: the sunlight nearly blinded him and his head throbbed in pain like he had just tried to spar with a Silverback. Not only that, but Marcos could feel himself teetering on the edge of nauseousness, trying to fight back the rising vomit from his throat.

Marcos was forced to close his eyes and lean back a little to fight back the intense hangover. He didn't have long to do so though, as he could sense Robby walking over to him and placing something on the coffee table opposite the living room sofa, where he was lying down. Marcos opened his eyes once more, slowly this time, and he saw that Robby had placed a few pills and a small glass of orange juice in front of him.

"Take these pills." Robby told him. "They're from my mom's partying days so they can cure pretty much any hangover. Wash it down with some of this juice and you'll be good in a few hours."

"Thank you." Marcos grunted in reply, taking both the pills and the juice and then sitting back on the sofa. Robby moved to the chair opposite him and sat down too. "How did I even get here?"

"You don't remember?" Robby asked, not too surprised though. "We found you passed out on Moon's front steps so I brought you here to my mom's place to recover."

"Oh… thanks." Marcos replied, a little taken aback in surprise.

"You were pretty out of it, huh?" Robby remarked. Marcos nodded.

"Can't remember shit from last night." He said. Robby's eyes widened.

"You don't remember anything?" He questioned the Cobra Kai, who in return shook his head. Robby sharply inhaled through his teeth. If Marcos couldn't remember anything from the night before, that meant that he couldn't remember about Hawk or the challenge Marcos had accepted to fight in around 12 hours time.

Robby told Marcos the entire story, from the moment Marcos had walked in to the moment he had been taken to Robby's apartment. And as Marcos heard the story, he put his head in his hands. He was horrified. This wasn't him. None of this was him. He wasn't acting like Marcos Oliviera, the boy who would never touch alcohol, who would never act in such a way to his girlfriend or the other people around him. This was his father all the way. Last night, Marcos had turned into the man he hated most in the world right now, and he couldn't let that persist.

"Do you have Hawk's number?" Marcos asked. "I need to text him and apologize and tell him the fight's off."

"You actually already have it." Robby responded. "You sent him your contact details to let you know the where and when of the fight, remember?"

Marcos groaned as he felt more and more snippets of the night coming back to him, reminded of how shitty and out of character his behavior had been. He didn't message Hawk just yet. Out of respect to Robby, he wasn't about to just pull out his phone and start texting. Instead, Marcos looked around the room and took in his surroundings. He noticed the most obvious thing about the apartment immediately: the number of boxes covering almost every inch of the room.

"You moving somewhere?" Marcos asked him. Robby's face darkened ever so slightly and he froze upon hearing this question. He slowly shook his head.

"No. Just my mom is." Robby replied.

"Damn. I thought for a second I could've had one less competitor to worry about for the Taikai." Marcos joked weaky. Robby didn't laugh at the feeble attempt at humor, but instead he still looked troubled and Marcos noticed. "What's going on? You don't look so good?"

Robby decided to tell Marcos about everything from the past week. He told him about the job opportunity that his mom had taken in New York, and how she would be leaving for an indefinite amount of time and would be leaving him here in Johnny's care. He admitted the things that he hadn't told any of the other students or his friends: that he was bitter. He was bitter that his happy ending of having 2 parents around was going to be ripped away at quite possibly his last opportunity. And the fact that after the baby arrived, Robby very much risked having 0 parents around left.

He had nothing to lose by telling Marcos anyways, and although he no longer felt alone after the conversation the teens had had in the dojo the previous night, it wasn't like Robby's sadness and resentment about his mom had magically gone away. Marcos listened thoughtfully, nodding throughout to show that he was listening and by the end, he sighed.

"That sucks, man. I'm really sorry." Marcos commented. "I wish I could help in some way."

"Any advice for me?" Robby remarked, chuckling drily. Marcos shook his head.

"I wish I had something to say that could help, but honestly I can't. My mom was always around."

Robby raised an eyebrow as he picked up a word of interest from that.

"Was?" Robby asked. It was Marcos' turn for his face to darken a little as the topic turned to his own mother. Marcos also opted to tell Robby about his own mother, about his own upbringing. Robby had trusted him enough to tell him about his, so he owed it to Robby to do the same.

Robby listened to Marcos talk all about his upbringing in the rougher parts of Brazil and he listened to him talk about what had happened to his mother. It was a truly, truly heartbreaking story. One that Robby wouldn't even wish on his worst enemy, he wouldn't even wish on the lowest scum that this world had to offer. He listened as Marcos told him about the suicide, and how it had severely shaken up his family.

"Do you miss her?" Robby asked. Marcos couldn't help but laugh quietly at this comment. Did he miss her? Did he miss her? Seriously?

"Every day." Marcos replied. "In my opinion, there's nobody more precious in this entire world than a mom. The person who brought you into the world is the only person in the entire world who truly has your best interests at heart at all times."

"Well… your dad too, right?" Robby said weakly, to which Marcos' face darkened further as he thought about his own dad.

"How long did it take your dad to get into contact with you?" Marcos asked. Robby didn't need to audibly respond for Marcos to have the answer he was looking for. "Exactly. Not even your father is truly there for you at all times. Not like a mother. I would literally open a vein in my right arm and bleed myself out if I knew it would allow me to have even just one more conversation with my mom. Don't even have to see her for it. Just to hear her voice again in some way, just once would be everything. I would give everything I have for that."

By the end of the conversation, Marcos had done what none of the Miyagi-Dos had been able to do: he had helped completely clear Robby of his funk and feel genuine happiness for his mom. It was a combination between hearing Marcos' tragic story with his own mom; thinking about how much his mom had done for him and how much he owed her for it all; and how much he was happy that she had finally gotten her life back together enough for something like this, that had finally done the trick. He was able to feel sincere joy for his mother overtake any of the resentment he might've previously had about the move, and for that he had the Cobra Kai champion to thank. Despite everything, Robby realized that he was still one of the lucky ones. Late as it might be, Robby now had 2 parents who truly wanted to be a part of his life. Many people - Marcos included - did not have that luxury, nor would they ever would in their lifetime. He should be grateful for what he has, as it can all slip away so quickly.

After their conversation, for which Robby was extremely grateful, the entire day went downhill so quickly for Marcos. If his day was like an airplane, right now a bird was quickly flying towards him and was about to get sucked into his engine, igniting it. Not quite yet, but he could see the bird in the distance, slowly getting closer towards him. He left Robby's house a little while later, first of all going to Sarah's place. Of everyone, he probably owed her the biggest apology for last night. She had been so sweet, so caring, so concerned about him and he had just been an absolute dick to her. The girl had even helped fucking clean up his vomit from the ground at Moon's place! That was how much she cared about him, and he hadn't said so much as a thank you that night. Well he made up for all of that now. He apologized profusely and to his relief, Sarah accepted it. She made him swear to not get that drunk again, something that Marcos immediately agreed to. There was definitely no more drinking for him at all in the near future. Once again, that wasn't him. That was his dad.

Speaking of whom, after Marcos left Sarah's place shortly after, his next destination would be back home, where he knew his father would be waiting. He was TERRIFIED, to say the least. He was actively shaking and quaking in his shoes. Marcos had always been a very non-troublemaking child. He had always followed the rules, never really stepped out of line. Especially given that his father had become physically abusive in the past few days, Marcos knew that he didn't plan on changing that any time soon, not wanting to give his father any chance of getting pissed at him for something. And yet, last night, Marcos already had. He hadn't come home all night, hadn't texted his father, hadn't let him know where he was going or with whom. He knew that his father was bound to be fuming and sure enough, as Marcos' trembling hands slowly turned the doorknob, his fears were proven correct…