Before I Forget

A New Dojo

SLUT!

The word was painted on the door of her locker with red, huge, angry letters, like a scream that echoed in the hallways.

It felt like a punch in the face, the pain was sharp, piercing and sudden, and Sky froze on her feet for a couple of agonized heartbeats. The key in her fingers was trembling. Some people were laughing and pointing at her, and somewhere behind her eyes, she felt the tears, burning as they threatened to break free.

"Who did this?" Cody asked, his voice suddenly void of all emotion.

His words broke the spell. Sky drew in a sharp breath and struck the key in the lock, opened the door, and stuffed her books in the locker. She took her time searching for the ones she'd need next, to win a moment before she had to answer.

SLUT!

Her hands were still trembling, her heart was ticking in her throat. Stupid, so fucking stupid. She should have been used to this by now, so why did it hurt so much? Why did she even care? Why was she so embarrassed that Cody had seen that word, as if he didn't already know that it was true?

"Cobra Kai," she muttered, not looking at him. "Or if I had to be more specific, Kyler."

There was a short, heavy silence.

"Kyler?"

"Yeah, well, he never misses an opportunity to slut shame someone." Sky found her Macbeth and her math book and picked them up, took another deep breath to regain her cool.

"He's giving you a hard time?"

Letting out a sigh, Sky closed the locker. It was hard not to look at the SLUT! painted on the door as she locked it, but somehow she managed and turned her back to the lockers.

"He's always been a jerk. But— I might have gone to their dojo and told them they are a bunch of cowards and assholes. Kyler didn't like it."

"Shit, Sky—" Cody groaned silently, running a hand through his hair. "Why would you do that?"

"They beat the crap out of you. I had to do something."

"You shouldn't have. Now they're gonna come after you."

Sky glanced at Cody as they started walking away from the lockers - she wanted to get far away from the red, painted word on the door. There was nothing she could do about it now, but that didn't mean she had to stand next to it and hear how people laughed at her.

"Don't worry about it, I can handle it," she assured, but Cody didn't seem convinced. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then didn't and the moment of silence grew between them. Sky could see that he wasn't happy about the fact that she had gone to the dojo, but to be fair, it was none of his business. She wasn't going to apologize for standing up for him, even if it somehow hurt his manly pride.

They reached the lobby, and Sky stopped walking, leaning her back against the wall next to some potted plants, hugging her books against her chest. The hall was rather crowded, a lot of kids were just hanging out and talking, waiting for the bell to ring and force them to their classes and no one paid any attention to Sky or Cody, which was great.

She didn't want to think about the word painted on the door of her locker, but there it still was, at the back of her mind, like a never-ending scream. She didn't want to think about the messages she'd received from some anonymous Instagram accounts, telling she'd pay for what she had done, that sluts like her got what was coming for them.

The Cobras could threaten her all they wanted to. It still had been the right thing to do to confront them about what they had done to Cody, and she would do it all over again if she had to.