A bright beam of sunlight shining onto Cheerilee’s face caused her to twist her face and turn over to avoid the sun, which her eyelids were trying unsuccessfully to block out. Feeling something was off, she forced her eyes to open and look at the empty half of the bed next to her. As she slowly started waking up more and more, the faint rush of water in the shower reminded her that it was the morning, and that she herself would need to get ready.
Sitting up and throwing her back hooves off the bed, she brushed some stray hairs out of her face and looked through the open window over the carefully manicured lawns and bright blooming flowers of Ponyville’s affluent neighborhood. She hopped off the bed and walked out of the bedroom, looking both ways down the hall before heading towards the cracked door leading to the guest bathroom.
After quickly placing a towel on the rack by the tub and turning on the water, she stepped into the shower and drew the curtain, giving herself some privacy. She took a deep breath; it wasn't that she was embarrassed about last night, she just wasn’t exactly proud of it. She had a solid rule about sleeping over on the first date, though it was more a guideline than a hard-set rule. Hardly even that; most times, she played it by ear, and it more often than not got ignored.
She smiled a little as she felt the warm water wash over her. It was a relaxing experience, something she needed plenty more of in her life. Her parents were still on her about finding somepony, but thankfully they had moved away to a retirement community so she didn’t have to deal with them all the time. It got her wondering, however; the last serious relationship she was in was with Big Macintosh, but that hardly counted because she was secretly given love poison by some of her students. At least she had all her little ponies in her life, even if some of them proved to be a hooffull. As she thought about it, it was more like most of them.
“This isn’t working,” she whispered to herself. She wasn’t getting any younger, and seeing all the ponies in town her age start getting married and settle down didn’t help at all. Rarity was the only other filly she went to school with that wasn’t at least engaged yet, but even then she had saved Equestria a couple times. And reading about her newest store in Manehattan didn’t help Cheerilee’s case that she and Rarity were on the same course in life. Sure being a teacher was incredibly rewarding, but she was fast approaching the point where the foals in her class could be old enough to be her own.
But her troubles wouldn’t be solved by introspection in the shower, no matter how deep she thought about her life. It was a school day after all, and that meant she still had to get to school early to get everything ready for the day. Today was book report day, something that was fun for a little bit but always had the foals that clearly didn’t read the book at all. Hopefully, none of them just used their older sibling’s reports this year. She always promised to be a lenient grader if it was clear that they actually read the book and put some effort into it, so she was always dumbfounded as to why so many of them didn’t even try.
Glancing around the shower, she studied the pile of mane, coat, and tail products that were scattered all around the sides. Grabbing one of the countless bottles, she looked at the label to check her suspicious. And she was right; it was a brand for fillies. It would figure that having a daughter would be something that hadn’t come up the previous night. Because that just isn’t a very important fact about somepony’s life.
Narrowing her choices down to three bottles of product she remembered using herself when she was a filly, she started by pouring some of the mane shampoo into her hoof and applying it. It was the watermelon scented one, which caused her to smile: it was the same one she liked, causing memories of her own schooldays to flood back. The deja vu of getting ready for school both now and many years ago caused her to giggle silently.
Once she had finished with her mane and cleaned the rest of her body, she turned the water off and took in a deep breath of steamy air. It felt good. Maybe all she needed to get herself moving was a nice shower.
Her stomach growled. Breakfast, too, seemed a necessity this morning.
Stepping out of the shower and starting to dry herself off, she had to resist the urge to look around the bathroom. After all, she had just used some filly’s shower and product; looking at anything that could potentially belong to her just felt intrusive.
But one thing caught her eye; the bag on the vanity. It was small, just a travel-sized one. She could see a brush poking out of it, which meant either it was about to be packed or about to be unpacked. The bag looked well-traveled, with stains all over it and poor stitching barely holding it together.
Now she felt guilty peeping around the bathroom, so she quickly finished drying up and threw the towel in the hamper. A split second was spent debating whether or not to discreetly use the filly’s brush on her mane, but it wasn’t that bad. Besides, she had only been on one date with this stallion, and using his daughter’s brush would definitely be crossing a line not only with him, but with her, too. Judging by the travel bag, she probably had to spend time being ferried between houses and between parents. And if her father didn’t even feel it important enough to mention her to his dates, that probably showed how important she was to him. And she always kept a brush in her emergency bag in her desk at the schoolhouse, which she justified by telling herself was for mane emergencies but deep down knew it was for moments just like the one she was finding herself in.
As she exited the bathroom, her stomach growled again. Just a little breakfast and then she’d be on her way to the school, she promised herself. It didn’t matter if she filled up here; if memory served, there was still a bag of bagels with at least one bagel left in it somewhere in her desk. Hopefully it hadn’t gone bad. It probably hadn’t though, for she frequently found herself needing a snack halfway between the start of school and lunch during silent reading time. Any food that went into her desk went out within a week and a half.
She made her way down the hall and to the stairs leading back down to the ground floor. At the bottom, however, she caught the glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye that she dreaded, something she hoped she would never have to see in a situation like this: one of her students. With a huge breath of confidence, she walked into the kitchen where the filly was sitting at the table and reading a note, no food in front of her. Upon looking up, the filly tilted her head in confusion. “Miss Cheerilee?” Silver Spoon asked.
“Good morning,” she forced out along with a small smile.
“So you’re the pony my dad went out with last night?” she asked, her voice almost deflated.
“Yes,” Cheerilee admitted meekly.
“Well, he’s already left for work,” she sighed, placing the note on the table and sliding it across to Cheerilee. “Left me this note saying so.”
After studying the note, she looked back up at Silver Spoon worriedly. “He left before you woke up and just left you a note saying you were on your own?”
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
A knot manifested itself in her chest. “Did he wake you up to say goodbye, or that he loved you? Or even that somepony would be here to help you get ready?”
A single, sad shake of Silver Spoon’s head was her only answer.
Cheerilee had to fight to stay strong for the filly, who clearly knew this situation well. Maybe that’s why she showed up to school without a lunch sometimes, and she always figured she hadn’t had breakfast either because she was always tired and couldn’t focus whenever she showed up lunchless. Now she knew. She was too young to be able to do those things for herself.
“Do you want me to make you breakfast?” she offered, the knot in her chest relaxing itself.
“Sure,” Silver Spoon replied weakly.
“What would you like?”
She shrugged a little. “Whatever, I guess.”
“Come on,” she smiled warmly. “You have to have a favorite breakfast food.”
“Can you make oatmeal?” she asked, a sheepish smile starting to form on her face.
“I can do that,” she beamed back before going to the stove and opening up some of the cabinets. “Anything in particular you’d like with it?”
“Just the oatmeal’s fine,” she replied.
Happily going into the kitchen and looking through the cabinets, Cheerilee eventually emerged with a pot and a half-full box of oatmeal. When Silver Spoon wasn’t looking, she also pulled out a box of raisins and a small plastic container of cinnamon which were to be a special little treat for the filly. It sounded like this was at least somewhat common for her, and she couldn't imagine that every mare her father brought over would be nice enough to help her in the morning.
There was silence all throughout the cooking, with both ponies too uncomfortable with the situation to try and make idle conversation. While Silver Spoon wasn’t her smartest student, she was by no means unintelligent. And she was surprisingly quick for her age, so she knew exactly why her teacher was at her house early in the morning. It was a double-edged sword for Cheerilee; it saved her the embarrassment of having to admit to one of her students what she had done, but she also could not try and stretch the truth a little to make it sound more acceptable.
“Silver Spoon, do you like raisins or cinnamon with your oatmeal?” Cheerilee asked while pulling the cooked breakfast off the stove and pouring it into two bowls, one for each of them.
“Never really had them,” she admitted. “I usually just eat it plain.”
“Well, then you get to try something new this morning!” she beamed, pouring the toppings in and stirring. “Exciting, huh?”
Despite her best efforts, a tiny smile broke out on Silver Spoon’s face.
Once Cheerilee brought the now complete oatmeal over to the table, both of them could hardly resist the food and quickly started eating.
“Good, huh?” Cheerilee asked after taking a few bites of her own breakfast.
“Yeah,” Silver Spoon nodded between spoonfuls. “Miss Cheerilee, can I ask you something?”
Biting her lip, she squirmed a little before finally settling. “Sure, anything.”
“How did it go with my dad last night?”
Taken aback by the question, Cheerilee had to slow down her eating and think about what she was just asked. Now that she had thought about it, Silver Spoon was the first pony to ask how her last night went; not even the pony who had asked her on the date bothered to figure out if she had a good time or not.
“It was...nice,” she forced out, not wanting to be brutally honest with the filly. “But I don’t know. I don’t think we really hit it off very well, so I’ll probably have to politely decline if he asks me out again.”
“Why are you here if it didn’t go really well?”
“Well, uhh…” Cheerliee blushed heavily, her reddened cheeks managing to appear through her magenta coat. She wanted to say the truth was just that she let herself get a little tipsier than she normally would on the first date, but the full picture included her sister's wedding invitation coming in the mail the other day and getting desperate to find her own special somepony.
“It’s okay,” Silver Spoon proclaimed, blushing a little as well. “If you’re embarrassed, then you don’t have to say.”
Silently thanking her, Cheerilee looked back down to her oatmeal and continued eating. After a few moments, she looked back up and saw Silver Spoon just looking at her, bowl empty.
“Must have been hungry,” Cheerilee joked to try and break the tension.
“It was really good,” she admitted. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she smiled, excited she was able to make a difference in one of her students’ lives, even if it was something as insubstantial as making her breakfast.
The remainder of the meal, questions kept swirling in her head that she wanted answered, but was unsure of whether or not they were appropriate to ask. Yes she was a teacher and she was with one of her students, but it was outside school, so did that make it more or less appropriate? And even beyond that, she wondered if trying to pry into a child’s life would produce disastrous results, and Silver Spoon’s home life seemed less than optimal as it was. Trying to involve herself in something she wasn’t a part of could only exacerbate it.
Once she took the dishes from the table and brought them to the sink to be washed, she felt it would be a good time to ask. “Silver Spoon, do you mind if I just ask you a few things?”
“Sure,” she shrugged, turning to the mare at the sink.
“How to start?” Cheerilee muttered to herself. “Does this happen a lot to you, Silver Spoon? Your father leaving early and leaving you to get yourself ready in the morning?”
“Yeah,” she answered softly.
“Do you always manage to get breakfast, or pack a lunch for yourself?”
“Not always,” she replied, confirming Cheerilee’s worst fears. “Sometimes there’s something I don’t have to make, but other times there isn’t. And I don’t really know how to make my own lunch, I was never taught how to.”
“I can make you lunch today, and you could always ask your parents how to make yourself breakfast and lunch. I’m sure they’d be willing to show you so that’s one less thing they have to worry about doing in the morning.” Now that the dishes were on the drying rack, Cheerilee walked back to the table and sat across from the filly again. “Silver Spoon, are you upset with how your life is sometimes?”
She nodded, not wanting to confirm it with words.
“As your teacher, I can always call your dad in and tell him I’m worried about your home life,” she informed, reaching a hoof out to comfort her. “Or I could call your mom in and get her to try and get him to do something, or maybe help her get more custody of you if you don’t want to be here with your dad as often.”
“Maybe,” she mumbled.
“If you’re not satisfied with those options, I can always get you somepony to talk to.” She smiled a little. “I know it can’t be easy going through what you are, and having somepony to go to could really make it a lot easier on you. And even if you don’t want to go to somepony you’ve never met, you know you’re always allowed to come to me with anything. I’m your teacher, so I care about you.” She smiled as her heart twisted with a mixture of content and discontent. “I don’t have any foals of my own, so my students are all my foals. I care about all of you, and if you’re upset, I want to help you get through that.”
“I don’t really know,” she sighed, placing her head on the table.
“I’ll let you think it over.” A sly grin grew on Cheerilee’s face. “If you want, we can talk about it during lunch today. And I can give you lunch detention if you don’t want anypony to ask you where you went.”
“I wouldn’t really be in detention though, right?”
“Not this time,” she laughed.
“Let’s do that, then.” As she picked her head up off the table, she smiled with less pain that before. “Thanks, Miss Cheerilee.”
Cheerilee smiled back at her. “It’s no problem at all.”
