XLIII. Heartbreak Weather

The scariest thing. about Odessa wasn't when she was mad, it was how calm she acted when she was mad. She bottled up her emotions and kept them locked in her. She got it from her mom. But you could read her face like a book. When she was angry, she didn't act on it, but you could read her face and body language that she was. That's how she was at the drive-in movie. She sat in the bed of Oliver's jeep truck with everyone else. A blanket was around her and Eli snd they sat with their back against the wall. Grayson and Hailey were cuddled on one side with Oliver and Demetri on the other. But she couldn't enjoy it, not with Robby's words still playing in her head.

Eli had noticed her discomfort with him. "Dessi, what's wrong?" He whispered.

"Nothing's wrong." She answered and her EJ's never left the screen.

His eyes watched the side of her face. It didn't faulted or move. She just stared at the screen with a blank expression. "Did I do something?" He questioned.

She scoffed. "You always do something."

He jerked his head back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Odessa finally looked at him. "Did you bully a little boy at school the other day?"

"What are you talking about?" He quickly asked but he knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Robby said that you and some of the students from our dojos were bullying Kenny the other day at school."

Grayson and Oliver looked at each other.

Eli narrowed his eyes. "Robby? When did you talk to Robby?" He asked and completely changed the subject.

"This isn't about Robby, Eli! This is about you telling me all this bullshit about you wanting to change and be a better person but then I hear that you're acting the same way you used to with a kid younger than us!" She boomed.

Everyone in the bed of the truck was now watching them argue. "Mom and dad are fighting again." Oliver whispered.

Demetri sighed. "Shut up, Oliver."

"You believe Robby Keene over me?" Eli spat at his name. 

"In the moment, yes."

He scoffed and looked at the movie screen again. "Of course you would."

Her jaw dropped open. "Fuck you, Hawk." She sneered and she threw the blanket off her. She hopped out of the truck and stormed off.

"Odessa!" Eli shouted her name.

She flipped him off.

"Uh oh, she only calls you Hawk when she's pissed."  Hailey pointed out.

He closed his eyes in frustration. "Yeah, I gathered that, Hailey."

Odessa walked by herself around the drive in to try and calm down. She was angry. She couldn't shake it off. What pissed her off even more is how he flipped the conversation to make it about Robby. She started thinking about what Addison said to her that day in therapy. Eli knew exactly what to say to hurt her feelings. She didn't want to put up with it anymore.

From a few feet ahead of her, she saw Kenny attempting to carry multiple food items in his small arms. She walked up to him. "Kenny, hi," she greeted with a kind smile.

He peered his head over the bucket of popcorn. "Hey, Odessa." He shrugged to say.

"Here, let me help you with that." She offered and started taking stuff from his arms. She grabbed the bucket of popcorn and both the nachos.

"You don't have to—"

"Nonsense. You've got little arms. I wouldn't want you to drop every. Who made you buy all this anyway?"  She asked and looked at all the food he had.

"Just a guy from my dojo." He answered.

"Let me guess; Kyler?"

He titled his head. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"Oh I know him well, my friend." She said with a sigh. "He's an asshole."

"Robby said its apart of picking on the new guy. That i'll learn respect," Kenny explained.

Odessa winced at his name. She shook her head.  "Respect is a two way street, Ken."

He smiled at the nickname.

"But, hey, can I ask you something?" She questioned when she remembered why she was so mad.

He nodded quickly.

"Robby said that one of the boys from my dojo was picking on you at school the other day. What did he do, exactly?"

He hesitated to say anything, not wanting to cause drama. "Um, well, I went to the bathroom again and these two guys were making fun of me for being in Cobra Kai. And then this guy with spiky red hair pushed me into one of the stalls and said, um. . . Listen, get out of Cobra Kai while you still have a chance." He recited.

Odessa nodded and her lips pressed together. She began to think she might have overreacted. Because while what he did was wrong, Eli was right to warn Kenny about Cobra Kai. He just had a really sucky way of showing it. They were so in to their conversation that she didn't even see Eli walking toward them when he spotted her. She was adjusting the food in her arms and she didn't see Kenny looking at Bert and Nate behind her. "Not these guys again." He muttered in fear.

"What did you sa—"

Her question was interrupted by Kenny bumping in to Eli and all the food falling to the ground. Her eyes widened and she gasped loudly, her hands automatically going to cover her mouth which resulted in her dropping the rest of the food. "I'm sorry!" Kenny apologized.

"Damn, that sucks." Eli laughed. 

Bert and Nate noticed them and walked up to them.  "Hey, mom." He said and smiled at her.

"Hey, Bert." Odessa greeted back, her blue eyes still looking at the spilled food that she knew must've costed a fortune. "Kenny, let me buy you all this again." She offered.

"That's not necessary, Dess." Said Eli.

She glared at him. "Was I speaking to you? I don't think so." She snapped.

"Not again." Bert whispered to Nate with a groan. 

Kenny shook his head. "Odessa, you don't have to—"

"You should watch where you're going, kid." Eli said while looking down at him. 

"The same goes for you." Robby announced. They turned and saw him and his Cobra Kai friends.

Nate and Bert stood on either side of Eli while Odessa backed away, standing in the middle. She pulled Kenny by her side and placed her arm around his shoulder, protectively. 

"Look who it is." Eli said and looked Robby up and down, stepping closer to him. 

"You betrayed Miyagi-Do. . . traitor." Nate insulted.

"Oh, there's a traitor here for sure,"  Tory commented as her and the other Cobra Kai's walked up. She looked over at Odessa. "In fact, there's a couple. They're gonna get what they deserve." She sneered.

"Leave her out of it." Both Eli and Robby said in unison. They glared at each other.

Sam and the rest of their friends walked up to them when they saw the heard. "Don't think so. Not if I have anything to say about it,  Princess." She mocked Tory.

The two dojos stood glaring at each other. Odessa looked between them and her anxiety rose. 

"Hey, guys, can you believe that they have Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper?" Demetri said with amazement and he stood between the two dojos. They all turned their heads to him. "Shit. Not another rumble." He groaned. 

Oliver grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to their side. The rest of them stared at Odessa  who now stood on the side by herself. She looked between them and grumbled. "Fucking kill me." She stood beside Demetri.

"Careful, Larusso, your mommy isn't here to play peacemaker." Tory almost threatened.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Bitch, do you want these nails to go into your eyes?"  Hailey snapped and held up her very long nails.

"Guys, stop, we can't do this." Miguel intervened. He glared at the Cobras. "We'll beat them on the mat."

"Oh, really? You do remember what happened last time we fought right?" Robby taunted.

"Yeah, you almost killed him and ended up getting the shit beat out of you in juvie." Oliver scoffed and took a step closer to him. They quickly grabbed him and pulled him back before he could do anything.

Miguel glared at Robby. "Okay, meet us at the baseball diamond in thirty minutes." He said. The other looked at him, confused. He looked at Tory. "And no weapons."

They glared at each other for a minute longer and walked away. Odessa jogged up to Miguel and looped her arm through his. "What's at the baseball diamond?" She asked.

"You'll see."

The group gathered in Oliver's jeep and they headed to the baseball diamond. He parked the car on top of the hill to watch. He turned off his headlights. "What exactly are we doing?" Odessa voiced from where she was sitting in the backseat.

"Just sit back and watch, Dessi." Oliver replied and messed with Demetri's fingers.

She rolled her eyes and sat back. The car full of teens watched as the Cobra Kais walked onto the baseball field. The light went dark and she could see them looking around. Suddenly, the sprinklers went off and her eyes widened in shock. The boys bursted into laughter. "Miguel, dude, that was genius!" Oliver exclaimed.

"We didn't even have to throw a punch." Said Eli and he laughed even harder.

Odessa stayed quiet and looked back Sam. They shared the same knowing look, that this wasn't going to end well.

Oliver drove them home one by one. When it came to dropping Odessa off, she got out of the car and Eli followed her. "Odessa, wait!" He called out. He stepped in front of Oliver's bright headlights.

Odessa turned around and faced him.

"Look, I know what I—"

She slapped him in the face. From inside the Jeep, Oliver and Demetri jumped. "Holy, shit." He gasped.

"Saw that one coming." Said Demetri.

Eli held his face and looked at her with wide eyes. "What the—"

"You know how to hurt me." She blurted out.

He blinked his eyes rapidly. "I'm sorry?"

"You know what I went through in school. You know about the rumor and the hell it put me through. You know about my dad and that he left us. You know about my eating disorder. You know all the fucked up things in my life and you use it against me to hurt me." She rambled.

Eli blinked again and his mouth gaped on. "I'm sorry, Odessa."

She shook her head. "No. No, you can't just apologize with this one. I've given you so many chances, Eli, but you keep proving to me why we're not together. You hold everything over my head because you know it'll hurt my feelings and it makes you feel less guilty about what you did. I didn't understand it before but I do now. I'm sorry that I accused you of bullying Kenny but to try and make it all about Robby and then throw what happened back in my face, that's wrong. I don't deserve that.

I watched my father put my mom through hell for a long time. It broke her. I don't want you to break me."

His face fell drastically at her words. "Dess, please understand that I'm trying. It's just so hard."

She scoffed. "It's not all about you, Eli. You hurt a lot of people. But you keep hurting me. Stop treating me like a punching bag before you end up losing me all together."

She walked into her home and slammed the door. Eli stood there completely frozen with his jaw dropped. His eyes filled with sadness and regret.

They couldn't stop talking about what happened the next day at training. Odessa stood on the opposite side of Eli. They hadn't talked since what happened at her house. "Henceforth, Miguel Diaz shall be known as the Rainmaker." Demetri introduced.

"El Diablo de la Liuvia!"  Eli exclaimed and that all laughed.

"That sounds like a stripper name." Said Grayson. He looked Miguel up and down. "I could see it."

They busted out laughing again. "Yeah, if they hadn't fallen for it we still would've beaten them." Sam pointed out.

"Maybe, but it's still couldn't gone bad." Miguel said.

"What could've gone bad?" Johnny asked when he walked into the backyard.

"We were about to get into a gnarly fight at the drive-in, Sensei. But Miguel saved the day," Eli explained with a bright smile.

"Yeah? How'd you do that?" He asked the man of the hour.

"Told the Cobra Kais to come to the baseball diamond.  Just in time for the grass to get watered." Miguel told him and smirked proudly.

As the kids laughed, Johnny's face stilled. "So you picked a fight. You didn't show and then you doused them with a hose?"

"Oh, it was sprinklers." Demetri corrected, not making the situation any better. He gave him a dark look. "I'll go back to saying nothing." he backtracked.

"You just poked the bear. What do you think's gonna happen? They'll just get over it?" Johnny exclaimed.

"From everything I heard about last night, it sounds to me like Miguel practiced restraint." Daniel commented as he walked out of the dojo.

"Restraint?" Johnny repeated.

"What did you want him to do, Johnny? Get in a drive-in switchblade fight?" He questioned. He walked up to Miguel and patted him on the back. "I'm proud of you.  You've taken Miyagi-Do teachings to heart."

Johnny glared at the man. "Okay, Larusso,  we need to have a talk—"

Daniel's eyes lifted over his shoulder and they went wide. "What the. . ."  He breathed out.

Coming into the backyard was Kreese and another man Odessa didn't recognize. He was very tall, taller than Demetri and Oliver, and had long, silver-grey hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Gentlemen." The unknown man greeted.

Oliver whistled lowly and his eyes scanned the unknown man. "Damn." 

Demetri looked offended.

"It seems we have a few things to discuss." The man announced.

All the students who stood in the dojo opened the sliding door and peaked their heads out to watch what was going on. "Who is this guy?" Grayson asked.

"I don't know but he's so hot." Oliver replied as he stood over Odessa. They all looked at him. "You're gonna judge the openly gay guy here?" 

They shrugged like he had a point and turned back to the adults. They watched Daniel looked livid. "I don't know what padded room you crawled out, Silver, or what twisted game you two are playing, but if you don't get off my property right now I swear to
god—"

"He looks like a Highlander," said Bert.

"The Highlander. There can only be one." Nate corrected.

The man, Silver from what Odessa heard, smirked slightly. "We'll still hold our students to a moratorium on fighting before the tournament, for what it's worth." He told the Sensei's.

Daniel did nothing but glare.

"Provided, of course, you do the same."

"Just remember our deal," Kreese stepped in. "If Cobra Kai wins the All Valley, you are done teaching. For good."

"That's not gonna happen cause you're not gonna win." Daniel stated. "Now get the hell out of here."

Him and Johnny stood by each other and watched the men that Daniel's life leave. "Now who was that?" Johnny chimed.

"Terry Silver."

Oliver walked with Demetri and Eli down the hall at school. Demetri was showing them the information he found on Terry Silver. "Vietnam vet turned businessman. Had a few up's and downs but still turned out pretty rich," he examined while looking at his ipad with an article about Silver pulled up. 

"Damn, so he's like Bill Gates? Sugar daddy," Oliver sang.

"You know I find that really offensive."

"Aw,  what? I didn't get mad when you told me you used to have pictures of Rob Lowe on your wall."

Eli snorted at the information. 

Demetri whined. "You weren't supposed to tell anyone that. . ."

Oliver slipped out a sarcastic gasp and leaned in, pecking his lips.

"How'd you find out his name?" Eli asked, who was now sporting a purple mohawk, which just happened to be Odessa's favorite color.

"I took a picture at the dojo. Sound and old facial recognition beta test and tweaked the code to make it compatible with HEIC." Demetri explained.

Oliver sighed. "I never have a clue what you new talking about but I love the way you talk nerdy." He said lovingly.

"You are both the first and my favorite person to say that."  He said back and they locked lips.

Eli gagged. He saw Odessa walk into the corridor and clutched the straps of his backpack. He's sent her tons of messages telling her how sorry he was after the fight they had at her house. She was still angry. She had every right to be.

Odessa spotted the boys and she immediately noticed the color of Eli's new hair. Her eyes went wide. He looked nervous as she approached. "Wow. I like the new hue." She said and pointed to his hair.

He was shocked that she was even talking to him. "Oh, thanks. I thought you might like it." He said and grew a smirk.

He remembered her favorite color. She would have been flattered if she still wasn't annoyed with him.

"I wish they would just make out already," said Demetri as he and Oliver observed them.

Oliver hummed. "Same. Too bad he's an asshole." He looked his way. "You wanna go make out?"

Demetri's eyes widened. "Not right now, Ol."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Lunch?"

"That's better."

Odessa looked at Oliver and motioned her head for him to follow her. "We'll see you guys later." She said to Demetri and Eli.

"Keep those lips warm for me." Oliver said with a smirk and kissed his boyfriend one last time.

Demetri sighed lovingly and blew him a kiss. Eli came and stood by his side. "All right, no offense, but I don't know how you pulled that off." He emphasized.

"I don't know either. I didn't even actually admit to myself that was I was bi until I met him. I guess I was just myself and he liked it. What about you and Odessa? Are you two ever going to get back together or did last night break the camel's back?"

Eli sighed under his breath. "I really don't know. I keep messing everything up. She wants to focus on herself right now. Which I completely understand."

"Really? I remember Oliver telling me how she wants to get back with you but she's scared to ask first."

His eyes went wide. "Wait, what? How long ago was this?" 

Demetri shrugged. "Weeks ago." He answered and took off walking down the hallway.

"Weeks?" Eli repeated and quickly ran after him. One week? Five weeks? How many weeks is weeks?"

By the time her last class approached, Odessa was tired. No just physically but she was also tried of scrolling through Twitter and seeing Johnny's drunk tweets he was posting. She stared at her phone and cringed as she scrolled through more snd more of them. "This isn't good."

Oliver walked beside her and was seeing the same thing on his phone. "For a man who doesn't know how to work a phone he sure knows how to tweet shit talk." He laughed.

"He said that him and Daniel are having a rematch for their fight in high school."

"My money's on Daniel."

She looked at him with wide eyes. "Oliver!"

He shrugged. "What? I love Johnny but you always know what he's going to do. Daniel's techniques actually work. I even invented a new one. It's called wash the windows." He went into a dance like move,  using his hands to make a washing affect and jumping side to side.

She narrowed her eyes.

He stopped doing it. "Who's he tweeting to anyways? You and Miguel are his only followers."

She rolled her eyes. "This isn't good, Oliver. They're taking it too far. It's childish."

"Childish but entertaining." He clarified. "Battle of the Sensei's.

They stopped at her locker. "You're happiness for other people's pain is very concerning." She said and started putting in her combination.

He shrugged. "Blame it on my ex step dad. I gotta go before Mr. Shue counts me late again!"

He took off running and she chuckled. When she opened her locker, she didn't expect to see a large bouquet of purple roses sitting in her locker. Her face softened. Odessa pulled them and saw a card attached to it. It was a plain white card with a drawing of a butterfly on it. She smiled. Eli.

Hearing footsteps behind her, she turned around and saw him standing there. His shoulders were hunched over like he was nervous. "Hey." He spoke.

Odessa like between him and the roses.

"Talk is cheap," was all he said.

The corner of her mouth turned up. But she was still hesitant.

"I know I'm a jerk. What I did was wrong and I didn't realize that's what I was doing until last night," Eli began. "I don't care about that stupid rumor. I don't care about the guys you've been with before me. I don't care about the thing you had with Robby and I'm sorry I got jealous at the drive in. I just never thought you would take to him again. But that's not my place. You're your own person. You can make your own choices. I'll respect that."

She still didn't say anything but her expression and eyes were soft. She held the flowers close to her like they were his hands. The glossiness in her eyes indicated to him that she was still hesitant. She was scared. She gave him so many chances and he was throwing them away like he didn't care. But he did care. Eli cared so much.

"You don't have to forgive me. I just need you to know that I'm sorry for taking advantage of you. It's never going to happen again."

Odessa looked down at the beautiful flowers again. "I'm afraid to say okay." She almost whispered.

Eli cracked a small smile. "I know. But it's okay. Because I know you. I know us. I'll wait for you as long as it takes."