To Love and Tolerate

James placed his hand on his head and could feel the heat from his fever burn his hand. He had been sick for so long, it was starting to worry him. James typically didn’t get sick, but when he did it was definitely never a week long problem.

He sat up slowly and took a long drink from his bottle of water that his father had left him before work. It was now empty.

The teenage boy stood up slowly and walked towards his bedroom door. Something was much different than usual. His vision was blurry, his balance was off even more than it was from the fever, and he could not feel any part of his body now.

He stumbled and shuffled through the short hallway. In his incoherent trance, he did not realize that he was now at the edge of the stairs. Suddenly, he regained his vision and saw how close he was to the stairs.

His heart quickened and his breathing became irregular. The boy took one step backwards, but felt something push him…like a pair of feet pressed against his back, knocking him over the stairs.

James let out a yelp of fear that was soon smothered out by his own feeling of despair. It felt like an eternity as he plummeted down the flight of stairs. He watched his life flash before him.

Each birthday celebrated with his father and family. A silly gift from his cousin every year about a strange show he had never heard of; something about sparkles and dashing. James recalled all of life. He remembered visiting his mother’s grave; he remembered constantly remembering the date it said she died: January 30, 1995. He remembered watching his father go to work every day of his life and how lucky he felt to have him as family. How nice he was to everyone; how any misfortune was unjust should it happen to him…

Then he hit the ground hard finally remembering that no one would know he was gone until his father came home. No friends to call for help…

Two months later

Isaac titled his head to the left a little and sighed as the rampage of comments and complaints began.

“How can you like that show?”

“What are you? A little girl?”

“Faggot!”

Isaac had heard them all before. He had grown accustomed to people saying horrid things about him liking My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. His own family had even insulted him for some time until he put a stop to it.

The unfortunate thing was that he was in a school and when word traveled around about his “bronyhood”, the torrent of insults and ignorant comments would only become more and more commonplace.

Isaac waited for the bell to ring and waited a little longer for everyone to leave. The teacher at the head of the class did not notice him thus she did not notice his expression of sadness.

Isaac left the classroom slowly and headed down to the cafeteria. It was on the bottom floor, and because of this, all the halls were clear in moments while the tiny corridor that leads to the cafeteria was stuffed with the hundreds of students that attended the school.

The teenage boy noticed this constipation of adolescent children and said to himself, “Fuck that.”

Isaac left the school through the front doors and rushed across the street to the gas stations to get his lunch, but after taking a short look through the glass doors he noticed a small group of large boys, he turned quickly around and walked hastily back to the school.

“Where ya goin’, Shithead!?”

Isaac sighed. “Fuck me.”

He turned once more to face his bully who stood a good ten inches higher than him with a much more defined muscle mass. He was the trademark jock-bully.

“What’d’ya want, Kyle?”

“I found out something about you, and I wanted to know if it was true.”

“And what would that be?”

Suddenly, there were people watching the conflict, but a safe distance. It was as though they expected a large explosion. Isaac did notice one person out of his peripheral coming towards them. He did not recognize him and that terrified the poor victim.

“Do you watch shows for little girls?” Kyle said each word with an ignorant sneer.

“I don’t watch shows for little girls,” Isaac replied calmly but his voice became timid and quiet as he whispered, “Just one…”

“What was that?” Kyle tilted his head.

“Nothing,” Isaac replied defiantly.

“What did you say?!” Kyle grabbed Isaac by the collar and lifted him up. With his other hand Kyle made a fist and pulled it back, ready to slam it into Isaac. “You know I hate it when people mumble things to me.”

Isaac’s eyes widened in fear then shut them for the hurt to come.

But then he suddenly felt himself touch the ground hard. He had fallen from Kyle’s grip. Isaac opened his eyes once again and saw Kyle being strangled by a belt; Isaac could not see the handler, but he whoever it was they were doing a good job in forcing Kyle to his knees.

“You know what I hate?!” a familiar voice yelled angrily. There was a reverb and a growl in his tone that seemed all too unnatural. Kyle finally dropped to the ground coughing and choking. “When people pick on the small guy…”

The belt around Kyle’s neck came undone and was quickly placed within the loops of Isaac’s savior’s denim pants. Isaac looked up at his savior. He had ocean blue eyes, slicked back black hair, and a lean, muscular physique.

“Especially, when it’s my family.” James looked at Isaac with a smile and held out his hand. “How’s it been?”

The two cousins quickly left the incident behind them and rushed to the nearby Burger King to catch something to eat before Isaac had to go back to class.

“I thought you were in the hospital!”

James took a drink of his soda and replied calmly, “They let me out. My fever settled down a month ago and the bruises on my ribs weren’t as bad as the doctors had thought. They were surprised I had even survived the fall, landing the way I did.”

Isaac took a massive bite into his burger. “But what are you doing in Martinstown? You live in Terre Haute.”

“When I fell from the stairs…” James hesitated. He felt uneasy talking about his issues about friendship. “When I fell, I realized that I had no friends. I have family like you, but that’s it.”

“I’m sure you have friends,” Isaac replied with burger and cheese in his mouth. “You just…”

“I spent every moment of my free time working and learning. I have an IQ of 168 and because of that I never met people and got friends.” James felt a little hurt. Not only was he friendless, but it was his own fault.

“James, I think I know what you’re getting at. You want me to help you make friends.”

James made a pride-losing nod.

“I can help you out. I’ve actually got a meeting with some of my friends tomorrow after school; you can come with.”

“Oh that’d be great.” Deep down James still was not sure if it was friends that he actually needed. Maybe he just wanted to be recognized more than anything, but he couldn’t turn down his cousin’s offer now.

“Okay then, I…um, must warn you about them. They aren’t the most normal people.”

“How so?” James asked curiously.

“They’re bronies.” Isaac wasn’t sure how James would react to that information, so he said it cautiously.

“Oh, well that’s not so bad now is it?”

Isaac felt a sudden relief on himself and looked at the clock behind James. “It’s getting close to the time when I need to go back to school. By the way, you don’t go to school here, but Terre Haute doesn’t gets out for another two weeks.”

“That IQ of 168 kind of got me an early graduation last semester.”

“Wow! Good job dude.”

There was a silence between them as James brought up the courage to ask the question that was now bothering him intensely. “\May I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Isaac…what’s a brony?”