CHAPTER 6

Though Miguel went to sleep that night happy as his feeling of helplessness was gone, his frustration returned the next morning when he couldn't do anything. Literally anything. Having to be sponge bathed, changed, shaved, pushed around in a wheelchair and treated like he was no older than an infant was an awful way to start the morning, and by time he had been wheeled back and helped into his hospital bed, he was seething in anger and humiliation.

Another awful part of his situation was the boredom. Miguel had always been kind of a loner, so he always found ways to occupy himself. But having to sit in the same bed, staring at the same surroundings, for more than 24 hours made him feel like he was in prison with no way to get out. Seconds dragged on like hours as Miguel sat on his bed, attempting to read the book the hospital had given him for entertainment, but putting it down every couple of seconds as he felt his mind blur and lose attention. He knew that all of his friends were at Cobra Kai morning training as during the summer, they had always had an extra morning session from 8-10 on Sundays and Miguel doubted that Kreese was about to cancel the session now that school had started.

At around 10 in the morning, the elderly nurse taking care of him walked into the room and smiled at him.

"Hey Miguel, how are you feeling? Do you need anything?" She asked. She came and asked that question practically every hour on the dot, and although Miguel knew it was the nurse's job to do so, it was still getting very frustrating and annoying. They were treating him like a baby, and there was nothing Miguel hated more.

"I'm fine." Miguel grunted, quietly to her. "Do you know when I'm allowed to go home?"

The nurse nodded.

"Yeah. We just have one or two more tests to do to make sure everything's okay, but you should be able to go home by tonight!" The nurse exclaimed. "Anyways, as your tests have been scheduled for 6 in the evening, you have the rest of today to yourself. Here, let me turn on your TV."

Miguel's mind was extremely tuned out and he wasn't really listening to what the nurse was saying. In fact, he didn't even notice the nurse turn on the TV and put the remote on the table beside him.

"So… yeah. You have today to do whatever you want. Just don't go anywhere!" The nurse joked. The joke was carefree enough, but it caused a flash of rage to rip through Miguel's body. Who the fuck was the nurse to make a joke like that? It was NOT funny at all, as he was the one sitting in the hospital bed! But Miguel was polite, and he forced a quiet laugh onto his lips.

"Yeah, whatever you say." Miguel murmured through gritted teeth, and the nurse left the room moments later. As she left the room and Miguel was left alone on the hospital bed with nothing to do and nowhere to go, Miguel's rage at the nurse for her insensitive joke boiled over once more, and he threw his water bottle at the door where the nurse had just left from. "Fuck you." He growled, trying to release some of the stress and anger in his body, before resting his head back against the bed and turning his attention to the TV that the nurse had turned on for him. He needed something to pass the time with and surely TV couldn't be that bad. Oh how wrong he was. Miguel did a double take as he read the headlines…

WEST VALLEY TEENAGER AWAKE FROM COMA, NEW FOOTAGE OF FIGHT EMERGES

It took Miguel a few moments to realise that the headline of the local news was indeed about him, and then Miguel was forced to watch as a camera phone video probably taken by one of the students during the fight was displayed on the screen. Miguel immediately noticed that it was of his fight with Robby, as the two of them had just made it up to the second floor. Miguel's heart started pounding and he could feel bile begin to rise in the back of his throat. He knew how this video ended, and he was suddenly being pulled into a flashback as his eyes locked onto the small TV screen, unable to look away…

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Miguel had Robby down on the ground, and was sending knee strike after knee strike to the other boy's abdomen. Miguel was absolutely exhausted. His whole body screamed in pain but he forced himself to keep fighting as he knew that one slip up would cause Robby to take advantage and win the fight.

Sure enough, as Miguel hesitated for a split second as he stared down at Robby, Robby immediately swung into action, reversing Miguel's strike and sending Miguel crashing to the ground with a back-kick, elbow combination. It was Robby's turn to take the dominant lead in the fight, and both boys stared at each other, pure loathing in their eyes.

"THAT'S FOR TAKING ADVANTAGE OF SAM!" Robby yelled.

"I would never!" Miguel growled, springing to his feet and charging at Robby.

"THEN WHY'D IT HAPPEN?!" Robby bellowed.

"Come on, turn off, turn off!" Miguel whispered, spamming the power button on his TV remote but for some reason, it wasn't working. Instead, Miguel was forced to watch as the news cut back to the news presenters.

"So, Bob, from this footage, I think we can gather that something clearly happened between Miguel Diaz and Robby Keene's girlfriend." One of the TV presenters, Sarah commented. "Wow, such animosity between Keene and Diaz. But I think the question burning on all of our minds is how exactly did this fight end? We know the end result obviously, but how did we get there?"

"Well, Sarah…" Bob started. "It's actually interesting. Look at this."

Suddenly, the news cut back to the school fight, but it had fast-forwarded in time to when Miguel had Robby's arm pinned.

"As you can see here Sarah, Diaz clearly has the upper hand at this time. He has Keene's arm locked in a figure four arm lock. One small twist and Keene's shoulder is separated. There's no way for Keene out of this."

"So how did he get out of it?" Sarah asked, intrigued.

"Well, believe it or not, Diaz actually gets up and let him go! Look at this…

Miguel was seriously panicking at this point, thrashing around in his hospital bed, trying desperately to turn off the TV but to no avail. He was forced to watch as the news presenter resumed the footage…

"Arggghhhh!" Robby snarled under Miguel's grip, trying desperately to wriggle his way out of the lock, but he stood no chance. Miguel had him locked tight, and any sudden movements would cause a flair of pain to shoot up Robby's arm. Listening to Robby let out a mixture of shouts of anger, frustration and pain, Miguel's mind raced. In that moment, he felt his mind taken back to various moments of the past year. He thought back to all of Johnny's lessons, imploring him to be the bigger man in his fights, show mercy when he had clearly won the fight.

"NO! NO! PLEASE STOP! FUCK, PLEASE STOP!" Miguel cried in his hospital bed, smashing his TV remote against the table in his efforts to try and stop the TV from playing what he knew it was about to play. But it didn't work. Nothing did. Miguel's heart raced as he watched the camera zoom even further in on him and Robby. There would be no avoiding watching what happened next…

Miguel, after several moments of being extremely torn on what to do, eventually let go of Robby's arm and stood up.

"I'm sorry." Miguel could be heard whispering into Robby's ear as he stood up and began to limp away from Robby.

"ARGHH!" Robby bellowed, seething with the fury and the humiliation because of his loss to Miguel in front of almost the entire school. He couldn't let that stand. As Miguel had his back turned, Robby leapt to his feet and lunged at Miguel, sending a vicious strike to the back of Miguel's head, sending him stumbling backwards, then a kick to the back of Miguel's leg to send him down to his knees. And then the final blow…

And then… the CRACK!

Miguel sat in the hospital bed with his head in his hands. He couldn't turn off the TV. He couldn't walk the 3 fucking feet to make it to the TV and manually turn it off. The remote was now in pieces as Miguel had smashed the crap out of it so Miguel had to just helplessly watch as the news presenters commentated over the footage.

"Ooh, that looked brutal." Bob, the News presenter, remarked. "Listen to that sound."

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Miguel watched as the news channel repeated the second that Miguel crashed onto the banister 4 more unnecessary times just to hear the "sound" of it. He closed his eyes, the heaviness in the small of his back suddenly feeling more prominent.

"Ouch! He really is lucky to be alive, isn't he Bob?" Sarah said.

"Yeah, he really is. And to think that he had already won the fight and had let Robby go when this happened… well, he must be really regretting that move, huh?"

"Yes, he really is." Miguel chuckled to himself, the worst of his panic attack over, and now just numbness overtaking him as he watched the screen. He had gotten over the hump of it and was now intrigued to see what the presenters had to say next.

He watched as the two news presenters went back and forth as to whose fault Miguel's coma was. Sarah, correctly so in Miguel's opinion, seemed dead-set that it was Robby's fault. Robby had thrown the kick. Robby had struck Miguel after the fight was already over. Robby had sent him over the balcony and into the hospital. But Bob… Bob was less sure. Bob believed that it was partly Miguel's fault for turning away from Robby when Robby wasn't knocked out or injured.

Miguel couldn't help but chuckle as he listened to the two radio presenters debate what the fight could have been over, based on the 10 seconds of dialogue that they had heard between Miguel and Robby. And Miguel was practically in tears of hysterical laughter when Sarah suggested that Sam had gotten pregnant, and had told Robby - her boyfriend - that he was the father when Miguel was actually the baby's daddy. Robby had found out the truth a couple of months into the pregnancy and blew up because of it. That was the only thing that the presenters could come with that could warrant a massive brawl like the one they had just watched. If only it was actually something that big, and not something WAY smaller and less significant.

Suddenly, as Miguel was watching the TV, he heard a knock on the door. Miguel turned his head towards the doorway and saw someone he never expected to see - Sam…