CHAPTER 8

"You know your yaya has cooked up a storm. Vats and vats of dulce de leche." Carmen said.

"That sounds great, mom." Miguel murmured, quietly as they made it out the doors of the hospital. He was still brooding about what had occurred over the past 24 hours. He had lost two of his closest friends - Sam and Johnny - for just the reason that they weren't fans of Cobra Kai. He had done absolutely nothing to them! It was just because THEY had something against the KARATE dojo he trained at! It sounded even more ridiculous when he put it like that.

Miguel was finally able to go home that night, and as Carmen wheeled him out the hospital, he felt a strange sense of melancholy. He thought that he would have been extremely delighted to be leaving the hospital, which he was. However, his happiness was dampened by the uncertainty he was feeling. Sure Kreese had said that he would help pay for Miguel's rehab, but even with the financial help, it would still probably take Miguel more than a month to be able to stand upright. What was going to happen to him until then? Would he have to go back to school in a wheelchair? How was he supposed to go back to his regular life when so much of it would be impossible to do without lower body movement? His point was emphasised moments later, as Miguel and his mom made it to the car and once Carmen opened the door, Miguel suddenly realised just how much of a challenge life would be now.

"Miggy, do you need help up?" Carmen asked, concerned, starting towards him to help carry him into the car. Miguel shook his head, furiously.

"NO!" He snapped, before realising the volume of his voice and so he quietened significantly. "Please, no, mami. I need to be able to do this myself."

And so for the next couple of minutes, Miguel managed to agonisingly slowly shift himself from his wheelchair in his car seat. He nearly fell on his face several times before he managed to pull himself up and into the car. As he pulled the seatbelt across his waist, Miguel wiped the beads of sweat that were trickling down his forehead, and he panted for breath. That was A LOT harder of an ordeal than he could have ever imagined it could be.

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Needless to say, Miguel was in pretty low spirits by the time they made it home, and it only got even lower from there. From the second they arrived home, Miguel struggled at everything he had to do, but he refused to accept help from his mom or yaya. He needed to learn how to do all of this stuff himself, as there was no telling how long he would be in a wheelchair for.

It was a relief when they finally sat at the table and began to eat. It was almost a sense of normality again. Like nothing had changed. Yaya made her godly food. Carmen did 90% of the talking. Yaya complained about Miguel being too skinny and forced him to have a third helping of food.

But unfortunately, that state of normalcy was eventually broken at the end of the meal, as all of them were about to go their separate ways for the night.

"Oh, by the way, if all of you could be awake by 9 tomorrow morning. I have someone coming in to do some work on the house."

"Who? Why, what's going on?" Miguel asked, curiously. It had obviously been a while since he had been here at home, so he wanted to know everything that he had missed.

"Well, he's not actually doing any work. He's just inspecting the bathrooms, and he's giving me an estimate of the price and how difficult it would be to put a chair in the bathroom, and have a lower sink and bathroom counter put in so you can access it easily."

Miguel raised an eyebrow.

"Why are we doing that? Isn't that a bit pricey?" Miguel commented.

"It might be. But it's an investment." Carmen replied. Miguel bit his lip. He could feel that now very familiar frustration begin to boil up inside. He could tell exactly what his mom was thinking about, and Miguel was NOT enjoying that thought process. So he decided to continue fighting in this argument and not stand down.

"An investment? For only a couple of months of use?" Miguel said, his tone beginning to shorten in frustration. Carmen looked him right in his unyielding eyes and sighed.

"Look, Miggy, I just want everything to be as easy and as comfortable for you as possible for the time you're in the chair." Carmen said. Miguel glared at her.

"How stupid do you think I am? I wasn't born yesterday, mom." Miguel snapped. "You don't think I'm going to recover, do you? You wouldn't be planning all of this if you had faith that I would recover!"

"No! Miggy! Of course I think you are going to recover!" Carmen exclaimed. "But we still need to think about the worst possible situation…"

"Mom, don't you get it? The worst possible situation is that it takes me three months to recover, the best situation is that I recover tomorrow. Because I AM going to recover. There's no other option! I have to!"

"I have no doubt that you will, Miguelito!" Carmen replied. "You are the strongest person I know, and I have full faith in you!"

"And yet you are spending a small fortune on changes and permanent renovations to the house!" Miguel shot back, his anger rising and causing a pounding headache between his temples. "Excuse me."

With that, Miguel rolled out of the living room and into the bathroom, where he used all of his strength to pull himself upright and perch on the side of the bathroom mirror. As he looked at the dishevelled, weak, pale, sickly looking teenager staring back at him, Miguel realised why his mom was thinking about making those investments. He didn't look very well at all. He looked like he was closer to dying than he was to recovering.

Before he knew it, Miguel felt that anger and frustration bubble up inside him for about the thousandth time. He couldn't help him. It was like some animalistic, mercurial rage inside of him that he had no way of controlling. He could feel it rising higher and higher like a tsunami wave, conquering and eviscerating all common sense and self-control. Miguel felt himself getting riled up and more agitated with every passing second. Soon, he could take it no longer. Miguel threw himself at the bathroom wall, smashing his head against the mirror before he could stop himself.

SMASH!

As Miguel's forehead hit the mirror, a large portion of the mirror cracked, and blood trickled down Miguel's face, into his mouth. Tasting the raw, metallic taste of blood thankfully managed to pull him out of the madness, and Miguel let go of the bathroom counter he was gripping onto, sending himself crashing back onto his wheelchair.

Suddenly, Miguel heard loud footsteps rushing towards him, followed by a loud knock on the door.

"MIGGY! ARE YOU OKAY?!" Carmen shouted, worried, about to break down the bathroom door and charge into the room as she thought her son was hurt.

"Yeah, fine! I just tripped! I'm fine!" Miguel called back. Eventually, Miguel heard his mom's footsteps slowly recede away, leaving him alone in the bathroom.

Tears pricked in Miguel's eyes, not from the small gash on his head, but because of the searing, agonising pain in Miguel's mind. Emotions ripped through his whole body, causing aching pains to be felt not only in his brain, up and down his arms as well. The helplessness tore through him again like a chainsaw. Look at him. He couldn't even stand in his own fucking bathroom! His life was at rock bottom. His heart thudding and rattling against his chest uncontrollably and sweat pouring down his face and back, Miguel felt like he was about to collapse and pass out because of the intense pain he was feeling. If anything, the stinging sensation he was feeling on his forehead from his headbutt with the mirror actually helped, as it dulled the emotional pain with this new sensation, if only for a moment. He needed more of that, dulling the pain, otherwise he didn't know how long he could possibly last before he finally gave up on his life.

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Meanwhile, in the living room, Carmen sat on the couch, her heart aching because of the pain she felt for everything her son was going through, and she didn't even know the half of it. Carmen and Miguel's grandmother had moved from Ecuador in hopes of finding a better life in the U.S. They fled, leaving everyone and everything they had behind, hoping beyond hope to find safe haven in the land of the free and the home of the brave. They had been through many situations where it looked like there was no hope for them, and they were going to be sent back to Ecuador, but somehow, they always managed to find a way to push through.

Then Miguel grew older, and watching him getting bullied every single day for being who he was made her question if she had even made the right choice by moving. His life clearly was lacking a father figure, and although a drug gang member of a father wasn't good at all, a small part of Carmen wondered if keeping Miguel back home in Ecuador could have lessened the amount of abuse he got from fellow students. He got bullied about his skin color, about his ethnicity, about his timidness. He was made to feel like he didn't belong in the place where he was born and spent his whole life.

But then, last year, everything changed when he began Karate. Karate had done so much for him than just made him stronger. It had made him confident in who he was. It gave him just as much emotional strength as it did physical strength. Miguel found friends, two girlfriends even. It absolutely turned his life upside down, and Carmen would be ever grateful to it for that. But even if Miguel miraculously made a full recovery, Carmen couldn't let her son continue with a sport that had very nearly gotten him killed. Why couldn't he just have done soccer like every other Ecuadorian boy in the world? He had been so good at it up until age 12, when he quit. Or he could've done basketball, baseball, a musical instrument, anything that would have gained him the same skills without sending him to the brink of death like Karate did.

Carmen knew that if Miguel somehow recovered, he would for sure be asking her to let him rejoin, and she really didn't have an answer yet. She was torn. She definitely knew the positives as to him doing Karate, but there were a lot of glaringly obvious negatives too.

Carmen eventually forced the debate out of her head. What she needed to do now was celebrate the fact that her boy was home, alive and well, if slightly physically disabled. She had a while to think about her opinion on Miguel rejoining karate yet. Miguel wasn't about to be fully recovered tomorrow.

As if on cue, at that very moment, Carmen heard a doorbell. She slowly got to her feet and walked to the door, opening it to reveal a slightly elderly looking man with a sympathetic look on his face. However, rather than smiling at him politely, Carmen's face immediately was etched with a scowl as she saw the man's jacket. Pinned to his lapel was none other than the Cobra Kai snake that Carmen had seen on Miguel's gi about a million times.

"You are Cobra Kai? What do you want?" Carmen snapped. Kreese nodded, his tone ever polite and courteous when he responded…

"Mrs. Diaz, I'm really sorry for the intrusion and for disturbing you. I am Retired Army Captain John Kreese. I'm the new lead Sensei of Cobra Kai. If it's okay, would I be able to have a minute of your time to talk? It's about Miguel…"