"So, what are you and Miguel?" Johnny asked Lee. They were in the waiting room in the hospital.
"I thought best friends." She was still shocked that he wanted to kiss her.
"¿Quieres estar con Miguel?" Abuelita spoke slowly so her friend who was still learning Spanish would understand.
"Ah…" Lee put her head in her hands. "I need air." She walks to the elevator.
Johnny went after her. "Hey, are you alright?"
"I don't know." She walked out of the elevator and went to the exit.
"Where are you going?" He followed her to a bench. She sat down and curled her knees to her chest.
"What's wrong with me?" She took a deep breath trying to calm down.
"What's happening?" He sat down next to her.
"I just found out a great guy has feelings for me and all I could think about is my douchebag ex." She felt like an idiot. Miguel was good-looking, smart, kind, and everything anyone could ask for in a partner. All she could think of was that Hawk's heart would break if he found out.
"Hey, you loved Hawk, probably still do. No one expects you to be over him. Miguel isn't over Tory or Sam. You guys would be stupid to get together now. You have a special friendship, if that develops into something more, great. But, it shouldn't be risked for a rebound." He would hate for them to hurt each other.
"You know Sensei, you're best when you're being yourself." She stood up. "Let's go pray."
"Am I the only one feeling dirty, praying?" Johnny felt like God was going to strike him down.
"It feels weird but I wouldn't say dirty." She never prayed before Abuelita but it made the older woman feel better so she did it.
"Let's go." He led her into the hospital.
"How's our boy doing?" Lee walked past the nurse that was assigned to Miguel post-surgery.
"He still has a lot of doubt. I'm going to get him a chocolate cake to lift his spirit." She didn't know what else to do.
"I'm such he'll love that." She nods before walking into the room. She went to his side to see him scrolling through Hawk's Instagram. He was watching a video of him kicking a log to knock down a plant. The caption was Pussy Bonzai gets no mercy. "Would have been impressive if he kicked the Bonzai off the log." She sat down on the chair by his bed.
Miguel took notice of it right away. She would normally sit on the bed or even lay down next to him. "Look, you don't have to feel awkward if you don't like me as more than a friend. I shouldn't have put you on the spot in the first place." One of the reasons he felt like shit was because he knew he pushed the boundaries with his best friend. The only friend who gave up their social life to be here for him every day. The rest of his friends would come once in a while but all they wanted to talk about was that stupid feud. He was getting sick of everyone but her.
"It's not that I don't have feelings for you. It's just…." She was going to explain the timing being wrong when Miguel interrupted her.
"You still have feelings for Hawk." He scoffs.
"No… I mean I do. I don't want to but I do. You still have feelings for Sam and Tory." She didn't mean to deflect but it was the truth.
He took a long pause before arguing. "So what? Don't they say when you truly love someone, you'll always love them in some way?"
"You have to agree that us getting together right now would be problematic. Eli considers you to be his best friend. I am on friendly terms with Sam." She wasn't ready for the drama that would come with this.
"Stop making excuses. If you want to friend zone me then do it." He snapped. He softened when he saw her jump in fear. "I'm sorry… I'm tired of people treating me like a delicate flower when it comes to bed news." He looks down at his legs.
She got up to get on the bed. He moved over to make room so she could lay next to him. "Our friendship is one factor that is holding me back from jumping headfirst into us. You mean a lot to me. I can tell you anything and there is no judgment. No rude comments like Demetri. No ulterior motives like Eli. I wouldn't want to lose you."
"Why do you think we would break up?" He turned his head to look at her.
She turns on her side, so she is facing him. "Because the timing is horrible. We both just got out of relationships. Your last relationship ended because your ex kissed you. So there are still feelings there. I have a raging jealous ex. And, I'm not sure if your feeling for me isn't muddled with your gratitude for me being here for you." All of these were issues that they had to deal with first before getting into another relationship.
"My feelings for you are real. I always thought you were beautiful. I never entertain the thought because of Hawk. I know it would be hard for him but honestly with his attitude lately, I'm not sure I want him as a friend anyway." He was close to blocking the guy on social media.
"I'm not saying never. I'm saying later. We're young and I'm not going anywhere." She leaned in to kiss his cheek.
"I'm not going anywhere either." He smiles softly.
"So how is Miguel doing?" Moon walks beside Yasmine and Lee in the school hallway.
"He's doing okay." She blushed, thinking about their kiss.
"Oh my god, Miguel kissed you," Yasmine yelled.
"Shut up." She pushed her. She didn't want anyone to know. It was unnecessary drama considering they were going to stay friends. She ends up tripping over her high heels. She landed hard on her face.
"Ms. Cole, we do not tolerate people physically assaulting others. Now, help Yasmine on her feet and apologize." Counselor Blatt ran over when she saw the physical contact.
"I'm sorry, Yasmine. I just panic. I don't want anyone to know." She grabs Yasmine's hands to help her to her feet.
"Who cares if Miguel kissed you?" She held her nose, thankful that it didn't break.
"Can you lower your voice?" She covers her mouth.
"Ms. Cole, hands-off." She orders.
"It was an accident. I didn't mean to hurt her." She put her hands up.
"Yasmine." Moon said sternly.
"It's no big deal, Mrs. Blatt. I shouldn't be yelling her business out. I was shocked. Well, not really, I've been telling her that it would happen. You can't sit on a guy's bed every day and not expect him to make a move." She over-explained herself.
"It seems you guys have resolved this. This is a warning, Ms. Cole. Use your words, not your hands." She gave her a stern look.
Lee was sitting in the cafeteria with Moon, Yasmine, and a few of their popular gal pals. "Are you ready to rock…" Demetri carried a big display that had a blanket over it. "... our earth science presentation?" He put it down on the table.
"I'm ready to go back to a world where we don't talk regularly." Yasmine stirs her clam chowder.
Demetri put his hands up. "Hey! Hey! Hey! My popularity is on the rise, while yours is steadily declining. But, maybe we can meet in the middle, like a sexual Venn Diagram." He made circular motions with his hands.
"Not going to be popular for long with that language." Lee laughed. Yasmine nods in agreement.
"So, what's under the sheet?" Moon giggles. She thought Demetri's crush on Yasmine was cute.
"I'm glad you asked." He stood up to take the sheet off. "Behold… what scientists believed to be the valley when dinosaurs roamed the earth." The girls look at the lego piece in amazement. Lee leaned in to get a closer look at the T-Rex. "Go ahead, press the hadrosaur egg." He nods to his partner.
She pushed down on the nest to hear a bird screeching. The volcano roared and smoke came out of it making all the pretty girls at the table gasp. "Not bad, my parents might not have to pay for my A this time." She smiled at him.
"Your parents will never have to pay for another A again." He looks down at her with smugness.
"So, you build the volcano around a smoke machine." Lee looks into the volcano.
"Hey, don't be giving away the magic." He pushed her back.
Lee put her hands up in fake surrender. "I'm sorry, is anyone supposed to believe that you made legos smoke?"
"It's impressive Demetri, even if we know how it works." Moon put a hand on his shoulder.
"It is a masterpiece." He looks down proudly at his work. "Everything is to scale. It's 8,250 pieces, this meticulously assembled model represents the exact moment before the asteroid hit…" The girls scream when a soccer ball hits the model making lego pieces fly everywhere. Lee recognizes the ball with the Cobra Kai sticker on it.
"I'm sorry, man it looks like my ball got away from me." Hawk picked up the ball. He sounded so sincere that if Lee didn't know him she would have believed him.
"That took me three weeks to build." Demetri glares.
"Eh, it took my ball seconds to destroy." He shrugs. He throws the ball in the air as he walks back to his buddies.
"Do you have another one?" Yasmine asked.
"Did you take pictures of it? You could show slides of it in your presentation." Lee thought of a way they could still get a good grade.
"That's a good idea." Moon nods.
Demetri wasn't hearing anything. All he saw was red as he stared at Hawk's back. "Another week, another pissing contest." He walks over to Cobra Kai's table.
Lee ran to be by his side. "Demetri, it's fine. You're going to get an A no matter what." She read the essay and saw his slides. He didn't need it.
He was done being pushed around. "Although, I shouldn't be surprised since you love pissing so much."
"You landed one kick. You got lucky." Hawk took a step closer to him. The guys surrounded him.
"Demetri, these guys aren't above mobbing you." She whispers. The closeness of it was setting Hawk off more.
Sam came over to back Demetri up. "Better back off or you won't be lucky." She crosses her arms over her chest.
Lee let out a sigh. She was just amping up the situation more. Cobra Kai was blaming her for their star athlete being hurt. They would love to have a reason to kick her.
Hawk let out a scoff at her thinking she was supposed to be intimidating. "Yeah, like you'll start anything, princess… Actually, why don't you sleep around with someone new and break his heart?"
Sam shoved him. Red and Rickenberger caught him when he fell back. Lee tilts her head, she had seen Hawk standstill at harder kicks than that. "What's going on here, Ms. LaRusso? You know our guidelines against physical contact." Mrs. Blatt asked. The non-Cobra Kai members turn their heads quickly to see the counselor standing there. "Did she enter your personal bubble without your verbal consent?"
"Yeah, she triggered me in my safe space." He looks down at his feet.
"What are you talking about? He started it by destroying my science project." He pointed at his ruined work.
"That was an accident." He told her before telling his old friend. "You probably shouldn't bring your toys to school anyways."
"I don't want to hear excuses. I just want you all to respect each other." She is sick of dealing with these altercations every day. They were almost adults, not children.
"She's right, guys. We should stop the aggression. Micro and macro." He glanced between them and the floor like he was scared.
"What kind of counseling is this? You didn't even listen to both sides. You order everyone to respect each other without making anyone talk out their issues. Where did you get your degree in psychology? From Trump university?" Lee let out a bitter laugh. This school was a joke when it came to stopping bullying.
"You missy, that's after-school detention today. I already gave you a warning for pushing Yasmine this morning. I listen to your story, it doesn't matter if she was teasing you about a boy kissing you. There is never a reason to physically attack someone. That's why it doesn't matter if Eli did something or not?" She put her hands on her hips.
"I didn't get detention for pushing someone and making them slam face-first into the ground but, I'm getting detention for talking back to you. So violence is okay, but opinions that go against authority are not? Am I getting that right?" She copied the older woman's stance.
"Do you want another detention?" She raised an eyebrow. It took Lee all her strength to bite her tongue. The counselor turns to Sam. "Consider this a warning, Ms. LaRusso. And pick up these legos, someone could get hurt." She walks off muttering that she didn't get paid enough.
"Can you believe her?" Lee glares at the woman's back.
"Who kissed you?" Demetri asked, making Lee tense up. She looked between Hawk and Sam. Sam was curious while Hawk looked like a raging bull. All kinds of alarms were going off in her head that she was in danger.
"I have to apologize to Yasmine. Her face might never be the same." She walked over to her friend who was completely okay.
Lee was walking out of the girl's locker room. She pulled down the blue spandex shorts that she was wearing along with an orange sports bra. To make up for almost breaking Yasmine's nose, she had to join the cheerleading squad. She could quit after giving it a two-week try. At least being on a sports team means she didn't have to join PE class. She let out a scream when her mouth was covered and she was pulled against someone's chest. Her heart rate went down when she heard a familiar voice telling her to cool it. When he saw that she calmed down, he removed his hand. "What the hell, Eli?" She turns around to glare.
"Who the hell kissed you?" He hissed.
"That's none of your business." She let out a whimper when he grabbed her arm tightly.
"I'm not playing." He glares.
"Look, it doesn't matter. It was a surprise and we talked about it. We are better off as friends." She felt in danger for the first time with him.
"A surprise? A guy pushed himself on you." He let her go. "Tell me who it is Lee and I'll make sure the guy never looks at you again."
"Did you not hear what I said? I handled it. And you're my ex who is going on dates with other girls, so you have no right to be interested in my love life." She wished he could go back to being Eli or leave her alone.
"I don't care what we are to each other at the moment. If someone harasses you then I'll take care of it. I don't care if I have a wife and three kids. If I heard about you being in an abusive relationship I would kill him." He had to take everything to the extreme.
"Well, then you can take care of the guy in the mirror because he's harassing me." She walks to the soccer field.
It was a brutal game of soccer with the two dojos using it as an excuse to assault each other. Lee was stretching next to Yasmine. She was learning how to do the splits. The burning in her thighs was next-level pain. She was out of breath when she looked up to see Hawk making a goal. As he ran past her, he threw her a wink. She was getting dizzy at the way he went back and forth between being the jealous ex and making it seem like she didn't matter.
Demetri took that opportunity to run beside Hawk. "She loved you, you know?"
"Loved, like past tense?" He whips his head around to look at his old friend.
"Yeah, she got that new guy now. She told me everything. Man, you had a good thing going with your dream woman and you ruined it by becoming a loser." He lied. Lee didn't tell him anything that went down between her and this new guy. He was a little hurt, but she said she wasn't going to add fuel to the fire between them. He shoved Hawk to sweep his legs.
"Hey!" The PE teacher warns them.
"I guess that's why the Europeans call it football." He emphasizes foot as he runs back to his team.
Cobra Kai ran to make sure he was okay. Hawk shoves the guy who helps him up. "Get him." Rickenberger went to rush Demetri.
Hawk put an arm out to stop him. "No, wait. Remember what sensei said. Fight smart."
On the sidelines, no one was impressed. "They're idiots if they think they're not going to get in trouble." Yasmine scoffed as the game got more physical. They weren't pretending to play anymore. They were kicking and shoving people, no matter if they had the ball or not.
After Sam kicked someone in the face, the PE teacher blew the whistle. "Everyone to the principal's office now!"
"Idiots. This is why I play the mental game." Yasmine snickers.
Lee was sitting in the history classroom that doubled as the detention room. She was surprised when Hawk walked through the door. "I thought you guys got off from the soccer incident." She sighs when he takes the seat next to her.
"Different offense." He purposely made out with Angela, his flavor of the week, in front of a teacher to get detention, then mouthed off to the authority figure when he was going to be let off with a warning.
A few more students came trailing in. "Now, this will be an hour of silence." Ms. Blatt said from behind the desk. After 20 minutes, she ends up falling asleep.
"It was Miguel, was it?" He whispers. She looked at him shocked that he guessed it. "Do you want to be with him?"
"No, not right now. Everything is a mess." She looks down at her notebook.
"But eventually…." He keeps his voice low.
"I don't know. I've dated my best friend before and that didn't go great." She wished the ground would swallow her up.
"Well, I did the same thing and I thought it was the best time of my life." He said.
She looks at him. His face was relaxed and serious. "Miguel is confused with everything he has going on. I've been the only one going every day to see him. He's just confused." No matter what she didn't want to purposely hurt him.
"I don't think he is. I think he's Cobra Kai. He knows to go after a great girl when he sees one." He felt that fear he had of Miguel at the beginning coming back.
"Please, he's still in love with Sam and has lingering feelings for Tory. Sam visited him once and Tory never. He's latching on to the only girl there. I'm sure a lot of people in his situation have done it." She didn't know why she was trying to convince him. She knew he wouldn't hurt Miguel. He was still considered Cobra Kai. Kreese wouldn't allow them to turn on each other over a girl.
"So, you broke up with me because you didn't want to be with me anymore." His voice crackled. This whole time he thought she must have found someone else. She decides to be with Moon, Miguel, or even Demetri. Figuring out that she broke up with him to be free of him broke his heart all over again.
"The danger of feuding dojos is too much for me. The weeks I've been hanging with the girls made me realize how much I miss being a normal teenager. I don't want to take on childish adult issues. I want to go to Golf n Stuff and wet Yasmine's hair on the bumper boats. I want to go with Moon to do whatever new yoga she is trying out. I want to go to a party without worrying about my boyfriend beating someone up." She felt like she found herself in these weeks. She wasn't Hawk's girl or Miguel's best friend or Johnny's secretary. She was Presley Cole, that felt like enough for the first time in a long time.
"Then I guess we're over." He held back the tears.
"Eli?" She was shocked at the tears in the corners of his eyes. "It's not never, it's maybe later. Us exploring ourselves might help make us stronger in the end. I'm sure you've been having fun playing the field."
"It has been fun." He thought of the other girls. While he physically got there with them, at the moment it was fun, but it felt empty after. It wasn't cuddling and playful pillow talk after. They didn't know when he was pretending to hate something because it was nerdy when he secretly loved it. They didn't know his real name was Eli. They were happy to be going out with Hawk. That should make him happy considering that's what he said he wanted from Lee but it felt wrong.
"That's good, we don't have to be ugly with one another anymore." She smiled, happy that they got to this point.
"Yeah." He looks the other way to hide his bitterness.
