Out of Place [Cobra Kai OC x Robby Keene]

17- Balance and Anger

TW- talk of trauma

When I was 13 years old, my mom died. She had been battling cancer for three years. She lost... but she didn't go without a fight. I had just turned ten when she was diagnosed. She tried not to show it. She always put on a smile for me and my brothers. Now I realize that she knew she wouldn't make it. She knew she was running out of time, and she didn't want the last thing we remembered about her to be sadness and pain. On the last day I ever spoke to her when she was alive, she told me to never give up. To never stop fighting. She told me she was proud of me. That.. that things would be okay... she told me she loved me... up until that point I had been so deathly afraid of even just asking to compete in musical forms at tournaments. Two years later, I won first place... it was a week before I won the sparring tournament...

Sweat pours down my forehead. My head pounds. My cuts sting and ache at the same time, and hitting them against the bag doesn't help. My hands sting because I forgot to wrap them. But I don't care.

After my mom died, I was always paranoid that the rest of my family would die too, and I would be alone... a year and a half ago, my brothers and dad went on a guy's day out. They went to an arcade- not the one that I went to yesterday with Robby and Sam- and went to get wings and overall it sounded like they were gonna have a good time. My dad promised me over and over again he wouldn't drink...and he didn't... but someone else did, and chose to drive, and my brothers paid the price for it... René, my older brother, seventeen at the time... and Alejandro- or Pollito, as I would call him-, my younger brother, twelve at the time... neither of them even had a chance at making it. My dad was in a coma for six days. It felt like my worst nightmares were coming true... but my dad lived. He pulled through. I thought that things would be better then, now that we only had each other. I thought we were truly lucky to have each other... after what happened yesterday... I guess I was wrong.

I throw all my weight into my strikes, not holding back. Every strike is filled with grief and fear and a dozen other things, but it's mostly... anger... sometimes I feel like I'm not allowed to be angry. Like I have to live up to this image of the quiet, collected, passive person who doesn't get mad or hold a grudge. So I just sit there and take whatever life throws at me. I've spent, months, years bottling up my anger, and now... the pressure to be perfect has just become a little too much.

I'm angry. I'm angry at my situation. I'm angry that I've lost so much and have to pretend like nothing is wrong. I'm angry that people take advantage of my intelligence and kindness. I'm angry at the people who talk about me behind my back. I'm angry at the people who send me DMs telling me I'm a loser. I'm angry at my dad. I'm angry at Cobra Kai. I'm angry at Hawk. But most of all...

I'm angry at myself.

I'm angry that I can't speak up for myself or against those who wrong me. I'm angry that I don't understand why social anxiety has such a firm grip on my life. I'm angry that I'm a slave to my thoughts. I'm angry that I couldn't have done anything to save my family. I'm angry that I've closed myself off from other people so I don't get hurt. I'm angry at the fact that I've bottled everything up. I'm angry that I know so much about how things work but I can't figure out myself. I'm angry that I'm so broken. I'm angry that I don't know how to fix myself.

I'm so fucking angry!

I twist all my power into a tornado kick, sending the bag swinging far to the right. My head throbs. As I put a gentle hand to my temple, I feel hot tears on my cheek. I guess I didn't realize I was crying. I don't think it was a sobbing type... more the type that slips out whether you want it to or not. I wipe the sweat and tears off my face, steady out the bag, then put my guard back up to keep going.