Drowning

A New Sensei

For the first time, Finley was finally understanding what the heck her math teacher was talking about. Typically it was a subject that required extra studying on her part, outside of class, in order to understand how she was supposed to solve things, but this year she was finally understanding it. The teacher just had a way of explaining things so that her brain easily grasped the concepts. Miguel on the other hand was struggling, in large part because he had been absent for so much of the semester. Finley had offered to help him, knowing that she would hope someone would offer the same to her if she was in his position.

He had told her to just meet him at his apartment after practice and they could work on it then. So Finley had shown up, on time, and was sitting on the wall that was in the middle of the courtyard. She would have been perfectly fine sitting and waiting there, but Carmen saw her through the window and had invited her inside to wait. She had offered the girl something to drink, but Finley politely declined.

"So how's school going for you?" Carmen looked over at Finley, who was sitting at the kitchen table, while she worked on prepping dinner.

"It's good. Probably the hardest year so far, lot of work and stuff."

Carmen smiled and nodded her head. "That seems to be Miguel's thoughts too."

"I can't imagine being out for half the semester, but he seems to have a handle on it." A smile crossed onto her face as she added, "Nerd that he is."

Carmen smiled to herself as she continued chopping the tomatoes. Whatever she was about to say was cut off by the sound of muffled yelling seeping under the front door. Carmen quickly wiped her hands on a towel and walked to the front door, opening it, but staying silent. Finley stood to her feet, but she stayed where she was, not wanting to get in the way of what seemed like was going to be a family thing.

"No, you don't think I can do it!"

Finley craned her neck to look around Carmen, and saw Johnny squared off with Miguel.

"You almost hurt yourself with one kick! One kick!" He paused for a moment, looking at Miguel and only able to see his best student lying in that hospital bed once again. "What do you think is gonna happen in a real fight?"

Finley sucked in a slow breath through her nose. Miguel needed karate, or at least he thought he did, in order to get back to normal. If he couldn't do karate, he was still injured. Being back on his feet wasn't good enough.

"Look, you already proved you could win." Johnny continued, trying to make him see how dangerous this could be.

"And I need to prove it again!" The words rushed out of Miguel like the fountain of truth. He paused, taking a second to process the look of disbelief on his Sensei's face. This time when he spoke, his voice was broken. "You said you'd always be on my side."

Johnny called after him, but the boy brushed past his mom and ignored his Sensei. Finley watched as he kept his head down, readjusting the strap of his duffel bag on his shoulder as he stormed to his bedroom. The sound of his bedroom door slamming echoed back up the hallway and Finley looked to Carmen. However, the mom took a step outside and closed the door softly behind her as she went to talk to Johnny. Well what the heck was she supposed to do?

She couldn't leave, not with the adults talking outside, and she didn't think that Miguel was gonna be in the mood to talk, let alone do homework. On the other hand, she couldn't exactly leave him like this when she had witnessed it all, that would just be a little rude. So what to do... what to do?

Miguel was frustrated that Johnny seemingly didn't believe in him, even though Finley didn't think that was the case. That man seemed to care about Miguel like he was his own kid, well, even more so considering he had kind of ditched Robby. The process of training his first student and the process of learning to stand up for yourself was a bonding experience for those two unlike anything else. Miguel also needed to prove he could still do karate, and that he was just as capable as before. How was she supposed to give him that feeling back without being obvio- ... she sucked in a breath before letting out a heavy sigh.