They called her many names after the fact: crazy girl; punk wench; psycho bitch.
Nobody was calling her Little Miss Hotshot anymore, that was for certain.
Tory told herself she could put up with that. It was just name-calling, after all. She'd heard worse in her seventeen years. She was tough as nails. She'd had to be for a long time now. She could withstand it because she had Cobra Kai. She still had her friends. She had the pillars of strength to keep her standing tall.
Then the first pillar fell. Aisha was leaving.
"Why did I avoid her calls?" Tory asked herself in her room the night she got the text. She knew why. She could withstand the media shitstorm as it hit her, as terrible as it was following that fight. But she couldn't face Aisha's disappointment, her sheer concern.
Tory what happened? What was that? Please text me back. Have you heard anything about Miguel? Tory? Text me back, let's talk, please!
Now Aisha was gone. From Cobra Kai. From the school. Maybe soon from the Valley itself.
Her fault.
The second pillar fell. She was being expelled.
The LaRussos insisted the school do it. She'd started the fight. She'd hurt their pampered princess. She was out of control and needed to be thrown out before she could harm anyone else. There was nothing her mother could say to change the school's mind.
Tory didn't want to admit she was scared. She didn't know who else to turn to but her Sensei.
"It feels like the whole world is against you right now, doesn't it?" remarked Sensei Kreese. "But you'll survive it. You're as tough as any boy, aren't you?"
She reminded herself he meant it as a compliment. "Yes, Sensei."
"Don't forget, those boys out there are your brothers. You aren't alone here. You are all Cobra Kai, and you are all in this together."
His words provided the shred of comfort she wanted, even if they didn't quell her fears. Because at the end of the day, they were back in school. She wasn't. Her mother was beside herself with grief.
Her fault.
The third pillar fell. She was going to lose her job.
Tory ran to her Sensei again for help. "My boss wants to talk. I'm worried. I think he's going to fire me. For what happened at school. I really need this job."
Sensei Kreese understood she needed time off from practice to see to this, reminding her, "Expect no mercy from this world."
And Sensei was right. The world showed her no mercy. Her boss fired her on the spot. She was a public relations nightmare, he said. Starting a massive school fight that ended in a boy with a broken spine and dozens of traumatized kids, they didn't want to touch that.
Who cared about her trauma, right?
Her fault.
The fourth pillar fell. Miguel might not walk again.
That was the news from Hawk. Miguel was awake. Finally. It relieved Tory to finally hear that. She wanted to see him. But what could she say? What could she possibly say to make him understand she never meant for that to happen? Of course she hadn't. Yes, he'd hurt her. But just the thought of him never getting out of a wheelchair again….
"Just go talk to him," Hawk told her, like it was the obvious choice. "He's still the same Miguel."
Nothing was the same anymore. Nothing ever would be.
"I will, later," she kept saying. But later was nothing more than a fantasy at this point. All that mattered lately was the now, and Miguel had no part in the now.
Her fault.
Tory held on as firmly as she could. She refused to let the world defeat her. She wouldn't let them see her fail. That's what they wanted. It's what people like Samantha LaRusso always wanted when they tried crushing her under the heel. Remember your place.
But Tory did know her place. It was the place she fought and clawed every inch to climb onto.
The fifth pillar fell, knocking her off that place. Without a job, she couldn't afford lessons at Cobra Kai anymore. Worst of all, her family might lose their apartment now.
The landlord had looked almost gleeful when he told her that.
"I have to quit," she told Sensei Kreese. She hated that word. Quit. She wasn't a quitter. She knew, deep within herself, she would never quit fighting if she could just keep standing. But there were no more pillars holding her up. She was just one girl against a whole world that wanted to destroy her. It was her fault. Crazy. Punk. Psycho. She started the fight, she would face the consequences.
Her fault.
She told him everything. That all of his lessons about the world showing no mercy were right. If she had Cobra Kai, she might have been able to keep fighting. But she had no more money. She would be lucky if she didn't end up homeless.
Sensei had a look in his eyes at that.
Then something weird happened a few days later. Her landlord backed off. He said he'd work out a deal with her and her mother. A deal that would let them stay. And Tory couldn't help but notice the man's beat-up face.
Then Sensei Kreese showed up. He said he knew what it was like having the world against him. "They made you suffer," he said. "Now, you'll make them suffer."
He wanted her back in Cobra Kai. Don't worry about paying for the lessons. Cobra Kai was there for her. Because Cobra Kai wasn't a club. It wasn't a hobby. Cobra Kai was her brothers. She was their sister. And Cobra Kai never died.
Sensei Kreese would be the only pillar she needed to keep standing.
And when Tory came back to class, he greeted her with a firm smile and a knowing nod. "Welcome back, Little Miss Hotshot."