𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 3.2K

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𝐆𝐖𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐌𝐀𝐃𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄 to lean heavily into the jilted ex role since everything with Miguel had gone down. Every conversation she had had thus far (which had really only been with Tory and Eli) made her out to be the woeful victim in the situation, blindsided by the man she was falling in love with. Sure, she may have been stretching the truth a little, but Miguel had brought this upon himself.

Her conversation with Eli had been a bit more reassurance-centric. She told him what she had seen with Miguel and Sam, bemoaned how heartbroken she was, and how she needed a strong shoulder to lean on. He seemed happy enough to oblige, but Gwen picked up on the conflicted waver of his smile. She chose not to mention it and then sent him off with a kiss on the cheek.

Tory, on the other hand, did not handle it as well. Upon her friend's request, Gwen called once she got home. Gwen assumed that Tory just wanted to make sure she got home safely, but she had barely even gotten a greeting out when Tory launched into a full scale rage on Sam LaRusso. She manically bounced between topics, from their first run-in at the beach club, to their altercation at the skating rink, and now Sam's apparent entitlement to Gwen's boyfriend. She lost count at some point, but Gwen was fairly certain Tory had used the term 'stuck-up, goody two shoes ass bitch' at least ten times.

"She can't just keep getting away with this," Tory grumbled.

Gwen blew on the wet polish on her nails. "It's bullshit."

"We need to say something to her tomorrow," she said, decisively. "Do you want to talk to Miguel first?"

"No, fuck him. And fuck Sam LaRusso, honestly."

The words felt foreign on her tongue, like another language or someone else's voice came spilling out of her. It didn't feel like she was mourning a relationship in the same way other girls would after getting cheated on, but something more akin to a trusted business partner breaking the terms of their contract. It was messy and infuriating and humiliating.

She hadn't bothered picking up Miguel for their first day of school. If he could blatantly violate the terms of their contract, then so could she. He would just have to figure out his own way to and from school.

Homeroom had just started. The students' backpack straps hadn't yet lost the warmth of their shoulders, first day paperwork hadn't even been handed out yet. The overly-chipper voice of the front office assistant was a rough wake-up call, squeaky and sharp over the dated sound system. It was the same humdrum they had all heard the year prior: upcoming school musicals, fundraisers, and after school meetings.

Until there was an abrupt shift—an audible struggle for the undoubtedly dusty microphone. Gwen's ears perked, her back straightening in the computer lab chair. A shiver ran up her spine when an all-too-familiar voice poured into every classroom.

"Samantha LaRusso..." Tory's voice was oddly clear through the grainy old system. "You know what you did. And now, you're gonna pay for it."

Gwen peered about, wide-eyed and unable to make herself blink.

"I'm coming for you, bitch!" Tory shouted, followed by the thud of a dropped microphone.

The bell rang immediately after, causing an onslaught of students to pour into the hallways. Gwen was amongst them, elbowing her way through in hopes of finding either Sam or Tory before they found each other. A burst of heart-thumping recognition shot through her as she somehow caught Sam's horrified gaze through the crowd.

"LaRusso!" she barked, her jaw jutted. The kids around them parted like the Red Sea, sidestepping and pressing their backs to the concrete block walls in hopes of disappearing somehow. This left the two of them, right in the middle, on display. And Gwen was ready to put on a show. "Aw, you look like you've seen a ghost," she pouted, mockingly.

Sam lifted her chin sharply. "What do you want?"

Gwen couldn't help the venomous smirk that unfurled on her lips. "You have fun at the party last night?"

The question hung in the air, their shared understanding heavy and unwilling to be hidden any longer. But Sam was still clinging to the shreds of secrecy that remained. "I don't know what you're..."

"Oh, please. Don't bother lying," Gwen chastised with a roll of her eyes. "I saw you kiss Miguel."

A shocked murmur ran through the crowd of onlookers. The color swiftly drained from Sam's face, leaving her chalky against the dark curls of her hair. Her guilty eyes darted just over Gwen's shoulder. "I... I..."

"You what? You what, Sam?" Gwen demanded, her voice raising an octave. The two of them were circling each other like lionesses, each of them viewing the other as prey. "You've always been jealous of me. You just couldn't touch me, though, could you? So, you just had to take my boyfriend, too."

"He was my boyfriend first," Sam said, stiffly. "And I bet that just eats you up inside, doesn't it?"

This turned the simmer in Gwen's stomach up to a boil, her jaw clenching tightly. She hurled herself forward, her hands digging into Sam's shoulders using the force to slam her back against the unforgiving metal of the lockers. "You better watch your mouth, LaRusso."

Sam's chin tilted upward defiantly. "Or what?"

The nauseating thud of Gwen's fist against Sam's cheek and the pained cry she let out pulled Robby into the fight like a charmed snake. He caught Gwen right as her knee came up to jab Sam in the side, his arm wrapping around her waist as he dragged her away. Her arms flailed, elbows slamming against his ribs and back.

"Let go of me!" she snarled.

Robby's grip tightened on her, his face pulling back in hopes of meeting her eyes. "C'mon, you don't have to do this," he pleaded. "Just settle down!"

Gwen shoved her palm against the side of his face, stiff-arming his entire head away from her and rendering him unable to speak. "I said, let go of me!"

"Hey! Get off of her!"

Seemingly out of nowhere, Miguel burst from the crowd, tackling Robby and sending all of them skidding across the floor. Gwen rolled out of the pile-up and onto her feet, readjusting herself before trying to locate Sam amongst the all-out brawl that had blown up between the rivaling dojos. Cobra Kais and Miyagi-Dos alike were caught up in a blur of swinging fists and hurtling bodies.

Gwen followed the fluid movement of the onlookers, washing over from one corridor to the next like raucous waves in a storm. She saw the way they were all piling out into the main foyer and she knew intrinsically that that's where Sam was. She pushed through the crowd, shoving innocent bystanders like they meant nothing.

Gwen spotted the target of her anger trying to escape by way of the main staircase. "Where do you think you're going, Sammy?" she called out in a taunting, sing-songy voice. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at Sam on the landing. "You didn't really think I was done, did you?"

Blood was pouring from a sizable gash in Sam's cheek, dribbling down her jaw and mixing with the fine hairs at the edges of her face. Gwen glanced down at her burning knuckles and saw a mirrored smear of blood along the rings that decorated her fingers. It sent an eager jolt up her spine, her head cocking in intrigue. She pounded up the stairs in a flash, her heavy Dr. Marten boots doing little to slow her down.

Her fists swung in rapid-fire succession, effectively keeping Sam out of range. A kick to her stomach bridged the gap and sent Sam flying back into the handrail. The pain seemed to jostle something within the typically non-confrontational Miyagi-Do, a shift that put Gwen on the defensive for the first time.

Gwen somehow heard Miguel's voice through the chaos around her. "Gwen, stop! You're hurting her!"

She turned and caught his eyes, easily. But she found nothing comforting within them. Instead, her skin prickled, a bitter taste rising in her throat. "Yeah, no shit, Miguel."

Using her distraction against her, Sam's elbow knocked against the exposed side of her face. In an instant, a rush of blood filled her mouth, the sharp sting of her busted lip lost in the adrenaline pumping through her. A roundhouse kick landed Sam on the next incline of stairs, her body splayed out in shock. She laid there stiffly, her breath desperately trying to come back to her after being forcibly knocked from her lungs.

But in her moment of recollection, the weight of a Dr. Marten boot nearly crushed her hand if she had not snatched it away in time.

Then, it was her arm.

And nearly, her head.

Gwen was on a warpath, the entire room trembling with the force of her rage. She hadn't known she was this angry, this torn up about the whole thing. Or maybe she wasn't—maybe it just felt good to see Sam LaRusso finally getting her face beat in. Gwen marched up and grabbed a chunk of Sam's curly hair. She hauled her back down onto the ground floor, feeling the thump of her back against each and every step.

"If this is how you're taught to fight at Miyagi-Do, I can see why you'd avoid any confrontation like the goddamn plague," Gwen said through gritted teeth. As Sam regained her footing, Gwen settled into her fighting position, fists poised in front of her. "So, are we done with the warm-up now, or...?"

Tory had appeared at her side, the energy radiating off of her loud and contagious. A 2v1 fight was always so much more fun—especially when it was with Tory. Their fighting styles complemented each other so perfectly, one always mercilessly filling in when the other started to lose their edge.

"Is this the only way you two know how to fight? Dirty?" Sam panted, sweat dripping down her forehead. Gwen imagined the sting of it seeping into her cut.

"This isn't a tournament," Tory said with a sharpness in her voice. She straightened her back and wrapped her lucky spiked bracelet around her bruised knuckles. "There are no rules."

Naturally, Tory threw the first punch, her new makeshift weapon cutting through the air. Sam ducked just in time and swiped Tory's leg out from underneath her, sending her falling face-first. Gwen heard the unsettling crack of her chin against the floor over all the pandemonium, the sound making her wince.

"Tory!" Gwen's hand shot out for her, but Sam was running on the fumes of her fight or flight. She grabbed Gwen by the wrist and swung her away from her friend, her back colliding with one of the large, stone pillars that lined the room. She ignored the ache that had already begun to rise in her ribs and shoved herself back towards Sam.

Gwen's arm swung a wide punch, giving Sam just enough of a warning to catch it and deliver a bone-shattering blow to her forearm.

An explosion of pain shot outward from that point, splintering up through her shoulder and into the very tips of her fingers. She let out a pained yelp and stumbled away from Sam, overwhelmed by the need to put some space between them. With her interest in the fight immediately lost, Gwen's free hand rushed to cradle her now-misshapen arm. The trembling of her hand made the tender area hurt even worse, but it was all she could think to do. "H-Holy shit..." she said around a stuttering gasp.

Sam's eyes darted between Gwen's face and the newest consequence of her actions. With the way her eyebrows were knitted together, it was almost as if it hurt her just the same. "Gwen, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to–"

She wasn't able to get the words out before Tory dragged her right back into the fight.

Gwen sucked a breath in through her teeth and slumped against the same pillar she had been thrown against mere seconds before. She looked around the sizable crowd of onlookers, in hopes of someone coming to help, but nobody did. No one was even looking at her anymore, all their attention and phone cameras solely locked on the ongoing fights around them.

Her head fell back and her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to breathe through the throbbing pain in her arm. It felt silly, but at that moment, all she really wanted was her dad. He would have noticed her pinched expression, her shying away from a fight, and would have known something was wrong. He would have swept her up like he did when she was little and gotten her out of there, all those other kids be damned. Gwen hated how the mixture of pain and yearning made her eyes burn with tears.

It was Tory's voice, stretched taut around the syllables of Miguel's name, that cut through the upheaval that had built up around them. It all happened so unbelievably fast; Gwen heard the full weight of his body hit the stair rail before she could even whip her head around, the crack of his spine a deafening echo throughout the room.

Gwen's muscles stiffened like she was ready to run. But all her body could manage was an uneven stumble towards his lifeless body on the stairs. Her arm hung unnaturally limp at her side, the pain an afterthought in the wake of Miguel's fall. She stopped at the bottom of the steps, her eyes blinking rapidly as she watched Eli kneel at his friend's side. The scene in front of her felt incomprehensible, causing a hard knot to constrict her throat and making it almost impossible to breathe.

She half-expected him to get back up and continue the fight, or yell at her, or make some stupidly self-deprecating comment about the whole ordeal. But he did none of it; he just remained in a motionless, bloody slump against the uncomfortable jut of stairs.

"No, no, no, no, no..." Gwen's voice cracked, made up of whatever breath she had leftover in her chest. Her lower lip wobbled, reopening the cut that had slowed its bleeding.

"Excuse me, miss..." There was a gentle hand against her shoulder, a cop shifting her out of the way just slightly so he could get a better look at the scene. Gwen wasn't sure how long she had been standing there before help arrived, but it felt like both seconds and years. She let out an unintentional whimper, unsure if it came from the pain in her arm or the emotions she was keeping a vice grip on. Then, into his walkie, he said, "We're gonna need an ambulance at West Valley High. We've got countless injuries and a kid unresponsive in the main lobby."

There was a disconnect behind Gwen's tear-filled eyes, a sense that her entire body was running on auto-pilot just to keep her from complete and total collapse. And she wasn't sure how long that could last.

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"Hey, baby..."

Gwen immediately recognized her mother's voice, even behind the cover of her eyelids. It was warm and soft, barely louder than a whisper. It was more difficult than usual to open her eyes, whether it be from the build-up of sleep, the fatigue that still hadn't worn off, or the impossibly bright fluorescent lighting directly overhead. Gwen winced, her eyes squeezing shut again as she unsuccessfully tried to readjust herself in bed.

"Try not to move too much." Her mom reached up and delicately brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "The doctor said you bruised a couple ribs."

The day's events came flooding back into Gwen's mind all at once. Tory's hostile takeover, the school fight with Miyagi-Do, the obscene crack of Miguel's spine on the stairs... Her eyes peeked open, allowing her to sneak a glance down at her own arm.

A hot pink cast stretched all the way up to her elbow, rendering her left arm almost completely useless. She flexed her stiff fingers and turned her hand over, inspecting it closely. Her other, "good" arm was attached to a half-empty IV drip bag. She swallowed thickly, suddenly feeling a little claustrophobic in her own body.

"Your surgery went well, but we're still supposed to come back in six weeks to get an X-Ray. That's when they'll decide if you still need to be in the cast or not."

Gwen looked over, her face ashen. "Six weeks?"

At first, she didn't recognize her own voice. It scratched the whole way up and sounded weak and hoarse when it finally escaped her throat. Wordlessly, her mother handed her a cup of water that had been sitting on one of the rolling hospital tables. Gwen took it gratefully.

"It may be longer if the bones aren't healing as she expected."

Gwen didn't know what to say. She didn't know how much her mother knew and she certainly didn't want to risk exposing herself any further. "Where's Papa?"

"He's in the hallway talking to the police," she said.

Gwen stopped breathing, a hot prickle curling up her spine. "The police?"

"They're trying to find the boy who did this to sweet Miguel," her mom replied, scorn tucked behind the usual veil of sweetness in her voice. Her lips pursed like she had more to say, but refused to fully speak her mind.

Gwen eyed her hesitantly, seeing the way her chin had dropped despondently. "How is Miguel?" she asked, a suffocated whisper of a question. The silence that followed her question was like a straight shot of fear right through the middle of her heart. She sat up straighter in bed, a sharp alertness returning to her eyes. "Mom, how is he?" she demanded.

"I don't know. Your dad said he heard something about him being in a coma, but I don't know how true that is," her mom explained with a wobbly voice. She shook her head and wiped her eyes. "I can't imagine what his mother is going through. I saw her in the hallway earlier and she looked... rough."

A dark concoction of emotions churned in Gwen's stomach. She yearned for an out, a way to escape from this mess that she had created, but found herself coming up short. She felt like a hostage in her own mind, locked in a cycle of anxiety, humiliation, and grief. Her eyes fell shut, doing their best to reign her emotions back into a manageable space. She didn't want to feel them anymore, couldn't bear it.

"Oh, baby. C'mere..." her mom hummed, wrapping her up in the softest of hugs. It was the mere fact that she didn't deserve such gentleness that finally sprung a well of tears in her eyes. She leaned into her mom nonetheless, using the warmth of her shoulder to suppress the sobs that shook her aching body.

"I didn't mean for anyone to get hurt like this," Gwen wept in between gasps.

Her mom shushed her and twisted her daughter's hair off of her neck. "I know. I know you didn't."

But she couldn't tell if her mother actually believed her. And frankly, Gwen wasn't sure if she even believed herself.