TW !: mentions of suicide

SIXTEEN.
( heart to heart. )

From a young age, Emmy had come to terms with the fact that her parents wouldn't love or care for her the way they did with her older sister. And boy, did that moment of acceptance hurt. She remembered crying herself to sleep for weeks on end, thinking about what she could have done differently, and if she could get them to change. 

Maybe, somewhere way in the future she would find out what exactly was wrong with her, and she tried not to dwell on it much as it instantly killed her mood. But back then, it had consumed an 11 year old Emmy. It was all she would ever think about. 

Most days, she would walk around feeling like a zombie, only plastering fakes smiles on her face to whoever it was convenient to. Emmy had went months and years withholding her true feelings about her home life, waving off her problems like it wasn't something to fuss over about.

If you asked her, she couldn't tell you when the last time she felt loved by her family was. 

By the time she had turned 14, Emmy had fallen into a deep depression. It had gotten to a point where Demetri and Eli had to come by the house multiple times a week because she wasn't answering their texts or calls. Emmy had contemplated the idea of suicide on more occasions then she'd like to admit, but the angel on her right shoulder always reminded her of all the other people who cared about her. 

If it wasn't for Cobra Kai or having those two special boys in her life to give her the push that she really needed to stick up for herself, Emmy knew that she would have killed herself out of pure boredom. 

Emmy hadn't even realized that she had started crying as Moon helped redye her blue strand to red until Moon pointed it out. "Emmy, are you crying?"

"What?" suddenly, she felt something wet on her face, and she quickly wiped it, seeing tears had transferred onto her fingertips. "Oh. I am."

Moon immediately took off her hair dye covered gloves, tossing them into the trash can and sat next to Emmy on the edge of the bathtub with worry. "What's wrong?"

Emmy looked at her with sad eyes. "I just really wanna know what's wrong with me."

"Emmy, what are you talking about?" Moon furrowed her eyebrows and rubbed the girl's shoulder in comfort.

"Everyone always chooses Sam over me," Emmy slumped. "They always love her more than they love me. They always care about her more than they care about me. They always compare her to me, and I'm always on the negative side."

Emmy sniffled. "I just wanna know why. Is it because she's prettier than me? Because she's smarter than me? Because she's older than me? Or is it just me? Like, am I the one who's doing something wrong?"

Moon had began to tear up, feeling absolutely heartbroken for her friend. "Oh, Honey..." She wrapped her arms around her, tucking her head under her chin, making sure to not touch her processing hair. "There is nothing wrong with you. I'm so sorry."

Emmy hugged her back, basking in the comfort that she had needed for a long time.

✸

"Ugh, why does Yasmine have to be pretty? It's make it so hard to fully hate her," Emmy groaned, leaning her head on Moon's shoulder as the two looked at her social media feed. "What am I even saying? Of course I hate her."

She glanced over at Miguel, who sat by himself at a table. This was definitely a scene she had seen before. 

"Hey, can you pass me your water?" Emmy sat up straight, turning to Tory. Tory silently slid it down to her, and immediately grimaced when Emmy stuck in her hand in it, and took out an ice cube. She then bit her lip, eyes squinting at Miguel before launching the ice cube at him. 

It hit him in the shoulder, and he looked up, laughing when he saw her childish face. "Alright."

She frowned when he went back to doing whatever on his laptop. "Tory. Come with me. Bring the sundae."

Tory's face scrunched up, and she glanced down at the large plate. "But I already practically ate it all."

"Don't care. Bring it."

Tory confusingly complied, standing up and grabbed the plate. Emmy slid into the seat next to him, and Miguel looked up. 

"Want the rest of this brownie sundae?" Tory offered. "I'm not gonna lie to you. I already ate the brownie and the whipped cream and most of the hot fudge."

"So, you saved me the melted ice cream?" Miguel asked in amusement, looking up at her. 

"Yeah, the best part," Tory jokingly acted offended, making Miguel chuckle as she set the plate down at another table and took a seat across from Emmy. "Seriously. What are you working on?"

Miguel had his laptop turned away from both girls, and he glanced nervously at both of them. 

"Miguel Diaz!" Emmy gasped, and leaned in closer to him. "Are you doing something dirty?"

"No, it's nothing dirty!" he exclaimed and Tory began to tug onto his laptop, but he resisted. 

"Show me. Come on!" Tory laughed. 

He rolled his eyes with a smile on his face, but then turned serious. "I could use a girl's opinion on this, actually."

"Oh, God," Emmy backed away. "Are you about to show us your nudes or something?"

"Get your head out of the gutter," he laughed, pinching her side. "You two just have to promise not to laugh."

The two girls looked at each other with knowing and turned back to him. "We can't make that promise."

He shut his eyes with a breath, expecting that answer. He then turned his laptop and brought it to the edge of the table so they both could see it. All they could see was a big, red heart on a black screen. "Ta-da." Miguel pressed the space bar. 

A song then began to play, and a cut out photo of Miguel faded into one half of the heart. Emmy's smile dropped. She recognized that photo. And then, Sam faded in next to him, and suddenly, she couldn't hear anything. She felt a familiar anger bloom, and Emmy's hand started to tightly clench underneath the table. 

No matter what happened, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, Sam LaRusso was always going to have a hold on Miguel. It was like it was written in the stars. 

And for a split second, she really believed that things could be different. The Miguel Diaz actually liked her back. 

As the silly little video concluded, she couldn't help but scoff. And without thinking, she shut the laptop closed and stood up from her chair. 

"Emmy?" Miguel looked at her confused. 

"Don't show her that. Ever," and then she walked away to her original table, grabbing her phone and wallet which Moon had guarded. "I'm leaving."

"What? But I thought we were gonna go out for ice cream," Moon's eyes followed her with concern. Ever since Emmy broke down while dyeing her hair, Moon had been keeping an extra good eye on her. 

"Change of plans. Sorry," Emmy gave a tight lipped smile, walking away to go tell Hawk since it was gonna be the three of them going out for ice cream. 

"Hey," he turned around, Mitch's phone in his hand. 

"Hey. Have you seen this?" he held out the phone to her, but she rolled her eyes and pushed his hand away. 

"Don't care. I'm leaving early. You and Moon can go without me," and she headed for the door without another word. 

Hawk's face scrunched up at her odd behavior, abandoning the phone at the table and hurried after her. She was walking so fast that he could hardly keep up, goosebumps raising on his arms as the cold breeze brushed past him when she walked out the door. "Emmy! Wait!"

She huffed, spinning around. "What?"

He immediately stopped from about four feet away from her. "Hey. What gives?"

"Nothing. I just ⎯ " she stomped her foot onto the ground, wanting this conversation to be over already. "I'm tired and want a nap."

"Bull," he raised his eyebrows at her. 

"Fine," her eyes narrowed at him. "You got my hopes up. Thanks."

Hawk didn't try to stop her from walking away, only standing in the parking lot like a lost child. The memory of the two talking about Miguel's possible feelings for her finally processed in his mind, and he clenched his jaw. 

He felt his irritation grow for Miguel, and then he remembered what he saw on Mitch's phone. He gave a sick smirk, before storming back into the restaurant.

✸

Emmy never really felt the feeling of being heartbroken was until Sam and Miguel started dating. She had fallen so easily for a boy she thought would never even look in her sister's direction, when in reality, that's all where he looked. 

Having to hear about all of their dates, how happy they were together, watch them giggle to themselves, seeing Sam grin from ear to ear at the dinner table while texting him, etc. 

It was truly sick how the universe seemed to pit against Emmy, taking away whatever made her happy and handing it to Sam on a silver platter. 

I mean, she had even heard that Demetri was planning on joining Miyagi-Do. Her best friend. And with the way things were going, he would no doubt start to hang out with Sam more often. Which she figured was already happening as he was always too busy to hang out with her. 

Emmy accepted that she was never going to be happy. That she could never have something that was truly hers. 

She knocked on the door without thinking, tears streaming down her face as she ran her hand through her hair. She heard the door crack open, and she stilled, catching Robby's face. "Emmy?"

She quickly wiped away her tears. "Is my mom home?"

"Uh, no. She and your dad are at the dealership. Are you okay?" he could clearly see that she wasn't okay, but the words just came tumbling out of his mouth. 

"Yeah. I'll come back another time," she sniffled, and took a step back. "Sorry if I disturbed you."

Robby watched as she went to walk away, but he leaped forward, grabbing her wrist. "Wait!"

"Robby..." she gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm fine. You can let me go."

"No," he sternly said. "Come in. I don't care if it's just for 30 seconds. Just, come in until you calm down."

Her eyes flickered as she hesitated for a bit. She licked her lips, taking a small step forward. "Is Sam or Anthony home?"

He shook his head. "No. Anthony is at a birthday party and Sam went to go pick up Demetri. We were gonna go to the mall. But they won't be back for 10 minutes."

"Okay," she quietly said, letting him drag her into the house. He gently shut the door, watching her travel down the long hallway, and into a room. He guessed it was hers.

He quietly followed her, stopping at the doorway as he saw she was sitting on her floor and against her bed. He was reminded of their first dinner together, where she said she had been doing her "floor thinking." He almost laughed at that memory. 

"Do you ever just feel so unloveable?"

Her sudden question made him frown. "What do you mean?"

"Like," she took a deep breath. "You just know that no one in the world will ever love you."

Robby looked down at the floor. He knew that feeling all too well. "Yeah. I do."

She looked at from the corner of her eye, bringing her knees up to her chest. "Wanna sit down with me?"

His eyebrows twitched in surprise. He was under the impression that Emmy hated his guts, or at least used to. Robby gave a small smile, and silently took his spot next to her. 

"Wanna tell me why you came here crying?" he quietly asked, making sure to keep an appropriate amount of distance from her. 

Emmy pursed her lips. "Miguel is still not over Sam."

It didn't click for Robby. "What does that have to do with you?"

"Is it not obvious?"

He shook his head. 

Emmy sighed, leaning her head back. "I've liked Miguel since the beginning of sophomore year."

"Oh," Robby said in realization. 

"Yeah," she scoffed, bringing her head back up right and tucked her hair behind her ears. "It was our school's halloween dance. That's when I knew I liked him. But, he had his eyes on my sister, so I couldn't do anything about it. And when they broke up, I felt guilty for even liking my sister's ex, but then Hawk got into my head about him liking me back and Miguel still can't seem to function normally without Sam. Plus, I'm pretty sure he has the hots for Tory now."

"Who's Tory?"

"A new girl at our dojo," she sniffled. "And the worst part is that I can't even bring myself to hate her. Because I know that she would be good for him. And because she isn't his ex-girlfriend's little sister."

"She's not you," he concluded with a subconscious nod of his head. "I'm really sorry, Emmy."

"Thank you," she said, turning to him. "Weirdly enough, you're the only one who I think could understand how I feel."

"Why?" he chuckled. "Because we've practically been abandoned by our own families and left to fend for ourselves?"

"Yeah," she tearfully laughed, using the back of her hand to wipe her tears. "You know, I'm sorry for how things started. Me of all people should have realized that you weren't trying to take away my family from me, but you were just trying to find one. Like I did."

"Yeah. And we did it with each other's dads."

Emmy's jaw dropped, and she gave a shocked laugh. "I never realized that! What a weird world."

"It is," he laughed back. "And I'm sorry that I made you feel like I was replacing you. I never wanted to make you feel that way."

"You are forgiven," she told him with a smile. 

"You are too," the smile on his face made Emmy's own face heat up, and she quickly turned away from him. "You know, you without all those Cobra Kai students, is actually pretty nice."

She chuckled. "They can be a bit much, huh?"

"A bit?" he laughed and shook his head in amusement. "Your mohawk friend almost tore my shoulder off."

"Hey!" she smacked his shoulder in response. "I thought we said no talking about that."

"Okay, okay!" Robby felt like his cheeks hurt from smiling so much. "My bad. Just meant that you're, like, an entirely different person when you're by yourself."

She pursed her lips. "And is that person better?"

He looked fondly at her and nodded. "Yeah."

And suddenly, Emmy felt her heart start to beat just a little faster, and her face flood with heat. 

"Robby!"

She gave a light gasp, immediately standing up in panic. Robby followed, searching the room to see where she could leave. But Emmy was one step ahead of him. She had snuck in and out through her window too many times to forget. 

Robby watched her pull the window up, a skinny space to the space appearing. "Can you fit through that?"

"Of course I can," she gave him a weird look, letting her leg out first. 

"Robby! Where are you?"

Robby rushed over to the window, hiking it up higher and practically pushing her out. "Can you be any slower?"

"I am trying my best!" she snapped. "When you sneak out, you do it slow and quietly to attract less attention."

"Well, can you do it quicker and quieter?" he asked, helping get her other leg out was she balanced her leg outside. 

"Do not touch me!" she slapped his hand away. "You are making this so much harder than it needs to be."

And as quick as she could, she slid the rest of her body, dropping to the concrete path. "Ow!"

Robby gasped and peaked out the window, looking down at her in concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she groaned, getting to her feet and dusted herself off. "Just gonna bruise."

"Robby? What are you doing here?"

Emmy's eyes widened, and she dropped to the floor again, Robby leaning back against the window. 

Sam looked at the boy oddly. "This is Emmy's room."

"Oh, no, yeah. I know," he nervously chuckled. He then shut the window. behind him. "I was just hearing something and just saw that the window was opened so I came to close it."

"Oh," Sam sighed. "It was probably Anthony. He must have been cleaning it and forgot to close it. But, Demetri's waiting in the car. So, come on."

"Yeah, just let me properly lock it."

She nodded and walked away, Robby letting out a breath of relief. He turned around, opening the window and peered outside. Emmy got back to her feet. "That was scary."

"Tell me about it," he chuckled. "Well, I gotta go."

"I know," she gave a knowing smile, which he gave back. She watched him about to close the window. "Robby!"

He quickly lifted it again, looking at her with wide eyes. "What?"

"Thank you."

Robby stared at her for a moment, before he smiled sincerely. "Anytime."

And then they went their separate ways.

AUTHOR'S NOTE !

cheesing rn