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CHAPTER THIRTEEN. watch my shattered edges glisten
( tw! may contain mentions of suicide and self harm )
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BREATHE IN. . . BREATHE OUT
That's what Marina Diaz continued to tell herself while she walked out into that large and open hall filled with screaming karate fans with the rest of her dojo and their Sensei's at her side. Lights were flashing, the roaring cheers echoed throughout the room, bouncing off the walls in the process while the presenter continued to announce the rival karate dojos hoping to get their chance at victory. The girl stopped in her tracks and stood in between Tory and Kyler, her hands placed behind her back, an uneasy feeling bubbling in the pit of her stomach.
Breathe in. . . breathe out.
Marina knew she should be happy, excited and exhilarated all at once. She was finally competing in the All Valley Tournament. She had got the girl of her dreams only the night before. She stood up to the one girl who made her life a living hell. But she couldn't help but feel the continuous hammering against her ribcage, almost like her heart was about to explode out of her chest at any given second if she didn't control the crippling anxiety shaking the girl to the core the second she stepped out into the grand hall.
Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her and Robby haven't talked about what happened last night at the party, or how she still hasn't confronted Miguel about what their mom had told her, or maybe she was just nervous about the possibility of letting her dojo down after all the work that had been poured into her training. Marina didn't exactly know. But what she did know was that she needed to stuff her dark cloud of anxiety to the back of her mind for now, knowing that she couldn't let nothing and no-one get into her head. There was too much on the line for even a single screw up.
Breathe in. . . breathe out.
Those words continued to echo in the back of Marina's mind, sounding almost like a broken record when she caught her brother's gaze, her eyes locking with his own from opposite ends of the mat. Marina was instantly reminded of her conversation with her mother; how Miguel was the one who found after she tried to take her own life, which explained why he was so distant and cold with her, why he was trying to hard to make things right in the beginning, why he struggled to apologise. He was so racked with guilt that he didn't know how.
