CHAPTER 52
Hey, so quick note. I know I said before that Emily goes to a private all girls school. I'm gonna change that. She goes to West Valley High now, for the sake of the story's plot. Cheers
"Hey." Tory snarled, her tone cold as ice. The former couple had been on insanely frosty terms ever since Miguel returned from rehab all those months ago, Tory's inside burning with loathing for her traitorous, backstabbing ex. She almost hated him as much as she hated Sam, and that spoke volumes.
"What… what are you doing here?" Miguel stammered. Tory scowled at him.
"I work here. You know, I actually have to work multiple jobs to provide for my family. I'm not a weak-ass princess bitch that can fall back on mommy or daddy's credit card whenever I want." She stated. Miguel's body filled with anger at the backhanded stab. Tory loved to do this: play the victim and excuse herself from taking any responsibility for her actions because of the fact that she had a tough life. While he sympathised about what she was going through, the amount she used that 'tough life' excuse was more than PTSD-ridden veterans in Afghanistan.
Emily, although she was an extremely down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth person, grew up in Encino so despite the fact that she had no idea who Miguel was talking to, she took extreme offense to the comment.
"Woah, woah, woah who do you think you are to say that?!" Emily exclaimed. Tory, for the first time, turned towards her and saw her there.
"Tory, this is Emily. Emily, this is Tory." Miguel murmured.
"Tory?" Emily knew she had heard the name before but her mind was blanking from where. Then, moments later, realisation dawned on her. "Oh… Tory. Like your, um…"
"Ex-girlfriend." Miguel murmured quietly.
"And let me guess… you must be Miguel's new girlfriend." Tory snarled.
She wasn't catty, or not over Miguel or anything. She was just absolutely fuming at him for everything he had done. Honor and loyalty was the most important part of society, and Miguel had NONE of that. He had betrayed her. He had betrayed Cobra Kai. He had betrayed everyone who helped him so much just to play hero on the side of the pussy Miyagi-Dos.
"Some advice…" Tory growled. Miguel's blood ran cold. This was not going to be good. "Hold Miguel tight and don't let him go."
Emily was taken aback at the almost affectionate advice given to her by the girl she had immediately assumed to be a real bitch.
"Wow, um… thanks. I didn't realise you, um… still cared about Miguel that much." She stammered. Tory laughed mirthlessly.
"Oh, God, no, I really don't!" Tory remarked. "I meant that advice literally. Don't let Miguel out of your sight for even a moment or he'll be running off making out with Sam Larusso."
Miguel's heart stopped. This was not good. Not good at all. His face paled and his mouth ran dry. Tory noticed his terrified expression on his face and raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, my God… she doesn't know, does she?" Tory remarked to Miguel. Emily's heart started pounding, putting two and two together. Was Miguel really not the person she thought he was?"
"Know what? Miguel, what's going on?" She stammered. Tory smirked at Miguel.
"Tell her, Miguel. Tell her why we broke up." Tory demanded.
"Why you and him broke up? Miguel, I thought you said it was because you and Tory had different interests." Emily snapped angrily. Tory laughed loudly once again.
"Yeah, I guess it was. I was interested in him. He was interested in his ex. And he was so interested that he couldn't wait until he had broken up with me to go after her."
Emily's heart shattered. So Miguel was a cheater? It had taken her a year to manage to trust a guy enough to go on a date with her, and she had already been lied to. Miguel was a liar, a cheater, and after everything that had come before with her ex, she wasn't about to put herself through that hardship again…
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"Hey, look, I'm really, really sorry."
Miguel ran after Emily as she stormed out of Golf n Stuff, wanting to get home and get away from Miguel as soon as possible.
"I'm really not in the mood to hear it." Emily snapped as she continued to walk away from him. Miguel finally caught up with her and ran in front of her so they could face each other, but she stayed staring right at the floor, refusing to look up at him. She couldn't let him see how heartbroken she was.
"Please. Just one minute of your time." Miguel begged. "Then, if you want, you can turn around and leave and never hear from me again."
Emily scowled at the ground for several more moments before looking up at him, tears glinting, threatening to spill down her gorgeous lashes.
"One minute." She growled. This was it. The hail mary. Now or never.
"Look, I am so, so, sorry, Emily." Miguel began. "I should've told you about what happened with me and Tory. You deserved to know. I shouldn't have even kept you in the dark about it, let alone lied and made up a bullshit reason instead. I should've told you the truth."
"So why didn't you?" Emily couldn't help but asking.
"Because…" Miguel took a deep breath. Full honesty. Here it goes. "Because I was scared how much I liked you, okay? I met you and that night, I immediately knew that I wanted to be with you. I didn't have that with either of my exes. So I was scared after you mentioned that you dumped your old boyfriend for cheating, if you found out that I also cheated on my ex, you wouldn't want to be with me."
"Miguel, my ex had a lot more issues than just cheating." Emily murmured softly.
"Yeah, so I just got scared and acted stupid. But the truth is I did cheat on Tory. I kissed Sam at a party while I was dating Tory. It was one of the worst things I've ever done in my life and I still have nightmares and regrets about it sometimes. But the fact of the matter is I can't change what I've done in the past. All I can do, all I have done, is change who I am as a person. And that person is someone who would never in a million years cheat on you."
Emily looked Miguel right in the eye for several, agonisingly long moments after he was done talking, trying to gauge whether he was telling her the truth or still just lying through his teeth. A long silence overtook them for what seemed like an interminably long time but Emily broke it a long while later.
"You talk really sweet." Emily remarked. Miguel's head shot up. Maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the end after all. "There's just one small problem though."
"Oh? What is it?" Miguel asked, desperate to do whatever it took to get her back. Emily took a deep breath and looked her in the eye when she responded.
"I just don't believe what you say to me anymore…"
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So that was the end. That was it. Miguel and Emily's relationship shot down before it even properly started. Miguel's mistake had cost him what could have been a once-in-a-lifetime shot of happiness and truth be told, he had deserved the end result. He fucked up, he suffered the consequences. That didn't change the fact that he was absolutely devastated. He hadn't seen anyone the whole weekend, not even George. He had just spent the whole time in his room, rueing the idiotic decision he had made to lie to her.
He didn't see any of his friends until after school on Monday. It was his first day of the second semester, and the day had dragged on so much because his mind wandered to Emily during every single class. He was definitely looking forward to training that afternoon, as he needed something to fully engage in and could take his mind off the girl who got away.
Miguel arrived early to training that afternoon, making a beeline for the large punching bag to try and beat away some of his frustrations. THUD! THUD! THUD! The punches flew ferociously and incessantly at the bag, causing it to swing violently around the pole it was attached to. Miguel was always most powerful when he was angry, and this was no frustration. Weirdly, he wasn't angry at Emily. He was more mad at himself. And that triggered him to let out harder and harder kicks and punches. As Miguel threw one final terrifying roundhouse at the target, he heard cars begin to pull up to the dojo.
The first person to arrive was George, and as Miguel's best friend walked into the dojo and saw the state of him, George raised an eyebrow.
"Jeez, you look rough. Tough date on Friday?" He asked. Miguel sighed and nodded, before recounting the story. When he was done, George winced.
"I'm sorry, man. That sucks." George commented. Miguel shrugged.
"Eh. Not like it wasn't all my fault." Miguel remarked. "Yeah, now I'm just trying to forget about it but it's not proving so easy."
George nodded.
"You know what I do when I want to forget about something?" George said. Miguel groaned, knowing what was coming.
"Please don't say get wasted." Miguel begged.
"Get wasted!" George finished, completely ignoring Miguel's reluctance. "Come on! It'll be fun! And good for you to take your mind off this girl! We'll go down to the canyon, crack open a couple of cold ones. Okay, maybe more than a couple. And just have a fun night."
Miguel looked at him for a few moments before sighing in defeat.
"Fine, let's do it." Miguel replied. George grinned.
"YES! Awesome! You can start forgetting what she looks like from tonight!" George exclaimed. "I mean, what are the odds of you seeing this girl again anyways?"
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Earlier that day…
It was Mary's first day in her new school in L.A and she was nervous. Moving school for her last 6 months of high school, to a public school no less, was a big risk, and she was extremely anxious about it, but it was made a lot easier by the fact that her two closest friends were going to be at school with her. Both Miguel and George, although they were taking different classes to her, also went to West Valley High so she would have at least two friendly faces to hang out with as she got to know the school.
When she arrived at the school for the first time, she was slightly unnerved as she went through the security x-ray scanner and bag check. This was something she would have expected a prison to have, not a high school, so it was all pretty scary. Sucking her worries in however, she walked into the school admin office and sat before the teacher there.
"Ah, Ms. Mary Dawson. Welcome!" The lady cheerfully exclaimed. "My name is Counsellor Blatt. I am the vice principal here at West Valley High."
"Nice to meet you." Mary said, shaking her head.
"And you." Counsellor Blatt replied. "So… you've got class in less than half an hour so let's cut right to business. Here's your timetable. I have one of our school prefects taking you around today so if you have any questions or need any help with anything, feel free to ask her. She should be here at any moment."
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, a girl walked into the office, smiling warmly at Mary and waving at her as she stepped inside. Though the sunny appearance, this girl was deep down still crushed about a certain date that happened on Friday but she forced herself to hide her sadness.
"Hi!" The girl exclaimed, energetically shaking Mary's hand. "I'm Emily Cahill. I'm going to be helping you out today, and helping your transition to West Valley be as smooth as possible. It's really great to meet you…"