It was warm in the apple grove, but Applejack was cold.
She stood on the bank of the pond, looking out over the murky water. The top was clear enough, catching the sunlight and dancing with it on the surface, rippling with the movements of the fish underneath. The sound of a brook babbling endlessly over rocks as it fed into the pond filled the air.
The sun was shining, and the day was a little warmer than Applejack would have liked, but it didn’t really matter to her now. It felt better in the shade of the apple trees, away from the gaze of the sun. At least, it felt better physically. Applejack didn’t know how long it would take her to feel okay again on the inside.
Apple trees surrounded her, a ring of bark and leaves that concealed the watery oasis within. The only way into the grove was to follow the stream through a small gap in the trees, and it was very out of the way of the road, and the farmhouse, and any structure where ponies might wander. It was serene. It was where Applejack came to think.
And think she did. She thought about how stupid she was, how silly her notions had been, how she had read much too far into simple polite gestures, and how some madness must have overtaken her. She thought about consequences, and what she should have done differently, and how none of it mattered now because she had already ruined everything. Would it really have been all that bad to just live with it? To go on forever, not knowing one way or the either, so at least she could hope?
There was a great comfort in uncertainty. At least, when she didn’t know, she could pretend that she did, and that the outcome was what she wanted. Once she said something, though, reality had to come a-knocking. That certainty, that knowing, was so much worse than how it had been before. She just wanted to go back to the way it was.
She sat.
There was a stack of old newspapers beside her. Most of their dates were from long ago, papers that Granny Smith had saved and never bothered to read again, and that Applejack had dug out of the cellar for just this purpose. She hadn’t been to the grove in quite some time. Not since Twilight Sparkle came to town and gave Applejack a new family, a second family almost as important as her own; a group so tight-knit that they never had to keep secrets from one another, not after all that had happened between them. The newspapers had waited.
Maybe that’s what possessed her. Maybe she just couldn’t keep it secret any longer, and it just exploded out of her mouth, with no way to stop it. Things that she kept inside always seemed to come out eventually. Sometimes she hated being honest.
She picked up one of the newspapers, an older one, from before she was born. It was still the Ponyville Gazette, like it was today, but the heading was different, and Applejack didn’t recognize any of the editors’ names. With deft, earth-pony manipulations of her hooves, she creased the paper in several spots and folded it, crimping the corners and wrapping it around and around the shape. She pulled at the top, tucked in the bottom, and held the object up to her eyes.
She smiled a little. At least she could still make her paper boats.
When she had been a filly, Applejack had floated paper boats on the pond almost every day. Back then, she hadn’t been very good at making them, and they almost always sank less than halfway across the pond. She always kept trying though, and she got better and better at it, until one day, her boat made it three-fourths of the way before taking on too much water and going under. That was the day before the fateful Summer Sun Celebration that brought them all together. Her, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy.
And Rarity.
Even thinking the name sent a pang of regret through Applejack’s chest. She refused to think about what had happened between them earlier that day, put up walls in her mind to keep the thoughts at bay.
She leaned down and set the boat in the water, giving it a gentle nudge with her hoof before letting the weak current of the stream carry it onward. It started on its ill-fated journey with nothing more than a push, but it voyaged out nonetheless.
The bottom of it started to darken with the water. It rocked some in the current, allowing the pond to reach up its walls and claw at it, trying to tug it under. The dark grew, slowly but surely, up the sides of the boat. It was a little over a third of the way across when the first droplets appeared inside the hull, and Applejack knew it wouldn’t be long now. A boat could only take so much water before it sank beneath the weight.
This boat was no different. It went under, just like the rest of them, and Applejack sighed. Then she reached down, picked up another one, and started folding.
Folding her first ever paper boat had taken all of her skill and focus, and careful instruction from Big Macintosh, but now, it was almost automatic. She didn’t have to think about it, so her thoughts wandered. And, as thoughts are wont to do, they wandered somewhere she didn’t want them to. They left the apple grove, crossed the fields, followed the road into town, and stopped right outside Sugar Cube Corner before taking a deep breath and stepping inside.
Applejack could still picture the restaurant as it was the exact moment she arrived. Her heart was racing, setting her mind to overdrive. She remembered Pinkie Pie shouting dessert orders back to the kitchen. One pecan pie, three jelly donuts, and a slice of cherry cheesecake, no sauce. Derpy was sitting in the booth nearest the door, taking a coffee break, her mailbag resting on the seat next to her as she inhaled the aroma of her brew and it nearly toppled from her hooves. She greeted Applejack, but the farm mare didn’t respond. Her eyes were scanning the room for one pony, hoping to find her before all of Applejack’s courage fled her.
There, against the back wall. Why did she have to be so far away? And Twilight was with her. That would make things a million times more difficult than they needed to be. But here she was, and Applejack was an honest mare, so she started toward her anyway.
Twilight said something that Applejack couldn’t hear, and Rarity laughed. Despite how nervous she was, Applejack smiled. She loved that laugh, and after hearing it, her hooffalls became a little stronger. Rarity would understand. She had to. How could a mare with a laugh so fantastic not understand?
“Oh, hello, Applejack! It’s so nice to see you. Come, darling, won’t you sit with us and have some lunch?” Rarity asked.
Just a simple request, a friendly gesture, but Applejack’s heart rate tripled all the same. Looking back, she saw that they were all just friendly gestures, just Rarity being polite and being courteous and being there for her because they were friends. It was nothing else; she learned that the hard way.
“Um...” she stuttered. Her wits had left her, and everything she was prepared to say, everything that always seemed to be on the tip of her tongue when she and Rarity were together, was gone. Applejack had never done well with delicate social situations, as her aunt and uncle could attest. She could buck apples until the sun went down, deliver a litter of piglets, milk a cow, and run a farm at just about maximum efficiency.
She just couldn’t do this.
But it happened anyway.
“Rarity, I think I love you!” she blurted, and once the dam came down, there was no putting it back up. “You’re beautiful and amazing and generous and I think I want to be with you forever. I’ve wanted it since a while after we truly met, and I want it so bad it hurts.” All her thoughts had come pouring out like an incomprehensible river of repressed feelings.
Afterward, it wasn’t like how it was in the movies. The whole restaurant didn’t go quiet, with all eyes fixed on them. The waiter didn’t drop a glass at hearing the news, there were no surprised gasps; silverware went on clinking, ponies talking. They caught a few wayward glances, but around them, things kept on mostly the same.
It was at the table that things mattered.
Rarity’s eyes had crushed Applejack. Nothing she said with her mouth could wipe away what her eyes screamed in the moments after the words had left Applejack’s mouth. It wasn’t fear, or revulsion, or elation, or any of the things Applejack had come to expect after running the situation through her head over and over and over again. There was no condemnation. There was no righteous indignation.
There was only confusion, and amusement. Her eyes looked amused, as if it were all a joke, like it was really so unbelievable that Applejack would deign to like her, cherish her company, maybe even love her, as she had said. She didn’t mean to use the word “love,” but it just came out, spilled forth without her control.
Then that look changed, replaced by utter confusion in an instant. Applejack couldn’t really remember what Rarity said next, but it didn’t matter. It was obvious what she thought of Applejack’s admission. Applejack just turned and started walking away. She thought she heard Rarity calling after her, but she couldn’t be sure.
The world got blurry. She didn’t know why, until she realized she was crying. She hurried from the restaurant and galloped through the streets. Looking back on it, it seemed so silly and dramatic, almost cliche, how she had fled through the streets back toward Sweet Apple Acres. She scolded herself for letting her feelings get so out of control that she had to make a scene in the middle of Sugar Cube Corner. Why did she do it publicly? She should have approached Rarity in private to talk about it, should have thought carefully about what she would say, should have maybe just never said any of it in the first place, should have, should have, should have. But she didn’t.
And here she was. She had just wandered the fields, without a destination, and her hooves had brought her to the grove. To her thinking place.
She kicked at the ground with a hoof and cursed herself for being foalish. She had literally run away from Rarity when it became clear that she would be shot down. Run away! She ran away and hid like a scared little filly. Nopony actually did that! It was so stupid! Yet here she was, hiding, hoping nopony would find her, and making her little paper boats just to watch them sink.
She set another one afloat. It made it halfway.
The sun, which had been at its apex when she had arrived at the grove, was now three-fourths of the way across the sky. The stack of newspapers was dwindling, and the water was slightly discolored from the runoff of the newsprint. She knew it was time to go, but by now news of what had happened might have reached her family. Rarity probably would have come looking for her, to find her and tell her everything was alright, like in one of her romance novels, and she would have found Applejack’s family and told them instead.
Applejack wasn’t sure she could face her family if they knew. She wasn’t supposed to like Rarity. It wasn’t for the reasons that most ponies would think it was; Granny Smith was surprisingly okay with fillyfoolers, but there had always been an unspoken agreement that Applejack would find a nice stallion, settle down on the farm, and raise plenty of children so that at least one of them would be able to keep the Apple family tradition going after even she passed away. Big Mac could do it, but Sweet Apple Acres had always passed to a daughter or granddaughter, simple as that, and Applejack knew Granny Smith wanted to keep it that way.
So Granny Smith and Big Mac and Apple Bloom would all be happy for her and congratulate her if Rarity somehow came around and would console her if she didn’t. And of course she wouldn’t, Applejack knew. She knew Rarity too well. That first look in her eyes betrayed her, no matter what she said afterward. Her family would be there for her, but Granny Smith would be disappointed, even if she didn’t mean to be, even if she still loved and cherished Applejack with all her heart, she would never get to see any great-grandfoals.
And what would her friends say? They would be there for her, she knew they would, except for maybe Rarity, but everything would be different. She had to go and open her big mouth and change her friendship with the ponies who meant the most to her in the whole world.
She wouldn’t be ostracized, she knew that, but maybe what would actually happen would be worse. They would take pity on her at first, but that would pass. She could deal with pity for a while, maybe even wanted to be pitied, just a little, for her plight. It was what would come after that she dreaded.
They would be okay eventually, Rarity and her. But every time Applejack offered to do something for her, or was a little too polite, or gave her a gift for her birthday that was just a little nicer than everypony else’s, they would all be reminded. They would all look at Applejack and think about how she can’t let go, how she can’t move on, because she doesn’t know how.
But they didn’t understand. They all had crushes when they were younger, and Applejack was no exception, but this was something different. It’s too easy to get bored with a crush once you know the pony, or enough time has passed, but Applejack knew Rarity so well, and they were always able to reconcile after butting heads. As far as she knew, none of the other girls were in love with one of their best friends, so they would never be able to see it from her point of view.
Worst of all would be Rarity. She would be genial, and polite, and she might even actually understand how Applejack felt, but it put her in a terrible position. She couldn’t have Applejack help her with anything personal, anything truly private, ever again. How could she know that Applejack wouldn’t take advantage of her feelings, wouldn’t do whatever she could to be with her, would never do any of those things and instead would cherish and protect her and put her on a pedestal and worship her like she deserved? How could she know?
Applejack heard the faint sound of wings above her. She glanced up and saw a fading, rainbow-colored trail in the sky, then she sighed. It wouldn’t be long now before the girls would be here to talk to her, even though all she wanted was to be alone.
Ten minutes and three sunken paper boats later, she heard the rustling of leaves behind her. She didn’t turn around, hoping that maybe whoever it was would just turn around and go away.
“Applejack?”
Darn.
Applejack turned around. It was Rarity, standing there, short of breath, with a sheen of sweat on her coat. Applejack’s stupid, unfaithful heart had to skip a beat at the sight.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Then, “Can we talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Applejack said. “I didn’t mean to say what I said, so we can just drop it and forget it ever happened, okay?”
Rarity approached, shaking her head. “No, we can’t. We must talk about this, Applejack, whether you like it or not. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, but you will listen to what I have to say, because I do it for the sake of our friendship.”
Applejack sighed, then nodded.
“I don’t love you, Applejack, not the way you love me. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s true, and hiding from it or coating it in sugar is not going to make it any easier to hear.”
Applejack turned away. The world was starting to get blurry again, but she didn’t know why. She had been expecting that answer, had all but known it to be true ever since her feelings for Rarity had started. And yet here she was, the last of her hope being murdered by the truth.
“We are friends, Applejack, best friends, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world,” Rarity said.
“Save your breath,” Applejack snapped, the words sounding harsh even to her.
Rarity was taken aback. “Excuse me?”
“I know exactly what you’re gonna say. ‘It’ll ruin our friendship,’ and ‘I just don’t see you that way,’ and ‘we can never be together, no matter how much you want to.’” She was crying in earnest now, and she hated herself for it. She didn’t want to feel this way, didn’t want to let these feelings affect her like they were, but when she tried to combat them, all her fight was gone.
Rarity nodded, seemingly unphased by Applejack’s outburst. “You’re wrong. I wasn’t going to say any of those things, because it was clear to me that you had already said them for me a thousand times. Rejection hurts, Applejack. I know that from experience. I’ve been shot down more times than a lady would care to admit, yet here I am.”
“It’s not the same!” Applejack cried. “We’re friends, Rarity. How are we supposed to be okay after I spilled my guts like that? How am I supposed to help you model dresses like I do sometimes, or let Sweetie Belle spend the night when you’re too stressed out to take care of her, or be polite to you in public without feeling like I have some kind of ulterior motive? How am I supposed to let you smile at me and flutter your eyelashes all playful like and call me ‘darling’ and not read too much into it, not hope that maybe you’re comin’ ‘round to my way of thinking? Am I just supposed to live like this forever?”
Rarity took another step forward and reached out, but Applejack pulled away. Rarity sighed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But we’ll just have to find a way. And maybe, with time, you can put these feelings out of your mind.”
“And what if I can’t?” Applejack asked, eyes fixed on the ground. “What if I feel like this forever, but I marry some stallion anyway because it would be the right thing to do, and I can never give him all of my love because you have some of it. Maybe even most of it, I don’t know. How am I supposed to watch you move on with your life and settle down, knowing in the back of your mind that there’s somepony else out there who cares for you more than you can know, and they can never have you.” Her eyes swam in a sea of salt. “I dream about you, Rares. I’ve never felt like this about anypony, and I feel like you have no right to deny me, and I hate myself for feeling like that, but I feel it all the same.”
She turned away and started making another paper boat.
“Do you really care about me that much?” Rarity sounded on the verge of tears herself.
Applejack kept folding. “I do.”
Rarity sniffled. “Then buck up and quit feeling sorry for yourself.”
The nearly-finished boat dropped from Applejack’s hooves. She spun around. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Rarity responded, a fierce look in her eye. “It rips me to shreds inside to see you like this, Applejack. You are my friend, and I care deeply for you, and if you cared for me for even a fraction as much as you say you do, you would pull yourself out of this pit of self-loathing to which you’ve confined yourself and come back to Ponyville with me. It will get better, I promise you that, but only if you make it better.” She put a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder, and this time, she didn’t shy away. “It is a difficult truth to swallow, I know, but the sooner you do, the sooner we can get back to normal.”
Applejack slumped her shoulders. “Things’ll never be normal again, Rarity,” she said.
“Perhaps not,” Rarity admitted, “but I would much prefer a bit abnormal to how things are at this moment, wouldn’t you?”
“So we’re just supposed to sweep all this under the rug and never talk about it again?” Applejack asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Rarity considered for a moment. “Perhaps not never again,” she said. “But yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. It may not seem like a fantastic option, but it is the best one that has presented itself. Things do not always go our way; you should know that just as well as any other pony. Sometimes you just have to carry on, Applejack, and I know you’re strong enough to do it.”
Applejack wiped her eyes and looked right at Rarity. Rarity’s eyes were so beautiful, and full of hope, and caring, and sympathy, and Applejack wanted to hate them for what they symbolized, what she would never get to have. But she couldn’t bring herself to, not after all they had been thorough. What Rarity said made sense, as much as Applejack wanted to argue. Things were never going to get better unless they made them better. Applejack hated pretending, hated being false, but she hated letting her friends down more.
“You go ahead, Rares,” Applejack said. “I’ll catch up with you.”
Rarity nodded, patted Applejack on the shoulder, and headed for the small opening where the grove opened up to the rest of the fields.
Applejack returned to her paper boat and finished folding it. She set it gingerly onto the surface of the pond and gave it a nudge, to help it along. The weak current carried it out, and for a while it seemed as if no water had touched it, as if it were invincible. Then, halfway across the lake, the first dark spots started to appear. It took on water, but kept on at a steady pace, until it finally touched the far shore and came to a rest, half-in and half-out of the water.
Applejack smiled. It would have to do.
