CHAPTER 65

Miguel woke up a while later, immediately groaning in pain as he felt a blinding agony in his head. He had been out for a while, and when he woke up, he was no longer drunk, but instead had a wicked hangover headache. He looked around the dojo and saw that Johnny was nowhere to be found, but as he slowly stumbled his way into the dojo backyard, wincing in pain at the sudden blinding sunlight, he saw Johnny walking in. As Miguel sat on the front steps of the dojo, Johnny walked over to him and passed him a warm parcel.

"Here. Eat." Johnny demanded. Miguel slowly opened the package and immediately puked due to the rich scents of the sandwich colliding with his hangover.

"Not hungry." Miguel murmured, trying to give the sandwich back to Johnny, but Johnny roughly shoved it back into his hands.

"That was not a request. Your mom said you haven't eaten since yesterday morning. Eat." Johnny instructed, standing over him threateningly. Miguel reluctantly nodded and began to eat. The two sat beside each other, not saying a word, as Miguel downed the sandwich, trying desperately to keep the bile and vomit from his hangover down. Once he was done eating, they sat in silence for a while longer before Johnny finally decided to speak.

"Okay, what the hell was that in there, Miguel?" Johnny began. Miguel sighed and looked down.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come here. I was just a bit… out of it." Miguel admitted. Johnny nodded.

"Yeah, well according to your mom, you're a bit out of it almost all the time now." Johnny stated.

Miguel looked at him for several moments, before he did something that Johnny once again did not expect. Miguel broke down, tears rolling down his cheeks in silent cries. Normally if Johnny saw a student crying, he would mock them or bully them until they stopped, but he knew better than to do that now. He couldn't even imagine how badly Miguel was hurting. He had already been through a rough year, but on top of everything this… Johnny had no idea how Miguel was even still standing. All Johnny could do was lay a comforting hand on Miguel's shoulder until Miguel gradually stopped crying on his own.

"Look, Miguel, I know you're hurting. You have the right to be. I know how much you cared about her. But the way you've been living over the past few weeks… it's not been healthy."

"I… I know." Miguel murmured, refusing to look Johnny in the eye in shame. A tear splashed down onto his lap. "It just hurts SO much."

"I know it does." Johnny nodded sympathetically. Miguel shook his head.

"No, you don't actually." Miguel said. "You have no idea what it's like. I was driving the car, Johnny. She died because of a mistake I made behind the wheel. It's all my fault."

"It isn't your fault, Miguel." Johnny murmured. Miguel chuckled mirthlessly.

"You don't know how badly I want to believe that. I just… I can't." He replied. "Every day, I'm in such agony. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, it's just pain, pain, pain. And I couldn't take it very long before I had to find a way to try and numb the pain, before it completely destroyed me. Hence the drinking."

As Johnny heard this, he couldn't help but chuckle slightly.

"My God. I forget how much you and I are alike sometimes." Johnny remarked. "Look, you're right. I can't even imagine what you're going through right now, having lost someone the way you did. But I do know what it's like to lose someone. I thought the exact same thing as you when my mom died. She was ripped off this Earth way too young. And I was hurting just as much as you are now, so I also turned to alcohol."

"So what helped you get over it?" Miguel asked quietly.

"You."

"Excuse me?" Miguel murmured.

"Meeting you. And your family." Johnny stated. "I mean you remember what I was like when we met, right?"

Miguel chuckled and nodded, remembering the drunken boozer Johnny used to be. That's when it hit him… he had become Johnny! He was that always-drunk loser that was the Johnny when he first met him.

"It was only when I started spending a lot of time with people I genuinely cared about that I no longer had that chip on my shoulder, and began to move on from the worst tragedy of my life. You guys helped me deal with my issues, and now it's my turn to help you do the same. Please, let me help you…"

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That afternoon, after a long talk with Johnny, Miguel decided to go for a walk to clear his head a bit. It had been such a rough few weeks that he had neglected to do something extremely important. Something he knew he would regret not doing for the rest of his life. He hadn't gone to Emily's funeral so he hadn't yet said goodbye to her.

So Miguel got the address of the cemetery where she was being buried by George, and as he walked into the vast field, he looked around at the cemetery that had become unfortunately familiar to him after his yaya's death. As always, he was taken aback by how… cheerful the cemetery was, given it housed so much pain. Bar the headstones that stuck out of the ground like needles, it was actually a pretty meadow. Lush green grass blanketed as far as the eye could see. The sun peaked out from behind clouds so it was shining on the field, but wasn't blisteringly hot.

Miguel walked to the back of the graveyard and eventually found the headstone he was looking for. It was at the top of a small hill and was shaded by an oak tree. Walking over to the headstone, Miguel leaned down and looked at it for the first time, tears already pricking in his eyes as he read the name on the front of it.

Emily Cahill. 2003-2020. Rest in Peace

"Hey babe." Miguel whispered…

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Miguel put down the flowers he had brought next to the headstone, before sitting down, leaning on the headstone as he spoke to his girlfriend for the first time in 3 weeks.

"Hey. It's me." Miguel murmured, looking up to the skies above as he addressed his girlfriend. "Sorry to interrupt. I'm sure where you are right now you're probably having a lot more fun. Probably singing with Whitney Houston or something. But I've just… I've just gotta say this. Look, Em, I am so sorry. For all of this. You not being here, you being gone… it was all my fault. I can try and blame the guy who hit us but if I did, I would be lying to myself. I was distracted behind the wheel and I didn't see him coming. I felt… I feel so guilty. I felt so ashamed I couldn't look myself in the mirror, let alone look your family, George, Mary, anyone else in the eye. That's why I wasn't there at your funeral. I didn't have the courage to, and I am so, so sorry. I should've come."

Miguel took a deep breath. This was much, much harder than he even could have imagined. He had no clue if Emily was listening, wherever in heaven she was, but he just had to hope she was.

"You how I've always said that you make… that you made my life so much brighter? Well since you've been gone, everything has gone so dark, so dark I can't see my own way anymore. I threw myself down the exact same hole of depression I was in before I met you. You know three weeks ago, the only life I ever saw for myself before was with you. We technically only dated for like 2 weeks, but still… I knew. I wanted to marry you. Have kids with you. Watch as you became an extremely successful doctor like you always dreamed. Grow old with you. I didn't think I would have another future. But now I have to have one. I don't want one, but now that you're gone, none of that stuff can happen. I'm going to have to go down a different path. On a different journey. But that doesn't mean I'm going to forget you. You're always going to be with me. I love you. SO much."

Miguel's voice trailed off though at this point as he looked up and saw a figure walking across the otherwise empty meadow, towards him. Initially, he thought that the person in the distance was going to visit one of the other graves in the meadow, but they seemed to steer clear of all of them and instead made their way over to Emily's grave, where Miguel was sitting. As they drew nearer, Miguel started to get worried. Who was it? George? Mary? Emily's parents? Because Miguel wasn't sure he would be able to face the latter pair after what he had done.

However, it turned out to be none of them. It had turned out to be someone Miguel didn't think to see there at all. When he saw who it was, his heart dropped and he immediately scrambled to his feet, wary of a fight. For the person who had walked up to him had lowered the hood they were wearing and revealed their face. It was none other than his ex-girlfriend, Tory Nichols!

Miguel knew that with Tory brought instant threat of a fight so he was ready for a fight but reluctant to get into a fighting stance.

"Look, Tory, please. If you want to fight me, can we just do it anywhere but here? Please." Miguel pleaded with her tiredly. He had been through hell in the past 3 weeks and because of that was now exhausted. He didn't have the energy to have anger towards her.

But as Tory came closer, Miguel noticed something disturbing. Rather than looking her normal furious self, Tory looked… devastated. Traces of tears stained her cheeks. Her eyes looked swollen and bloodshot. And rather than trying to fight Miguel, to his shock, she stumbled over and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly.

"Miguel…" She whispered, her body starting to tremble slightly in silent sobs. Miguel was flabbergasted. If Tory was having a breakdown, something must serious be wrong. So rather than shoving her or trying to fight her or anything, he slowly returned the hug.

"Tory, are you okay? What's going on?" Miguel murmured. She looked at him and took a deep, shaky breath, steadying her trembling voice.

"Miguel… it's your girlfriend. I don't think she died that night in the car accident. I think Sensei Silver had her kidnapped…"