All My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters and their copyright belong to Hasbro and Lauren Faust. I own nothing except the plot and the computer unto which this was typed. Enjoy.
"I like you, but only as a friend."
Ah, the 'f' word, so loved before and so dreaded now! The horrendous phrase swam around and around in Pinkie Pie's head like an obstinate little goldfish; the last word kicked mockingly at the insides of her skull and echoed loudly enough to frighten away any prospect of a peaceful sleep. Pinkie Pie sighed into her pillow heavily and got up from her bed. She glanced at her nightstand clock. It was barely after midnight. This would be another long night of vigil for her.
Pinkie trotted over to her bathroom, carefully stepping over her gently snoring pet, slumbering away in his yellow straw basket. The pony looked at the little alligator with a blend of warm caring and cold jealousy. She'd give anything to sleep as soundly as Gummy for just one more night.
There was a click, and the bathroom was filled with a brightness that made Pinkie blink for quite a while. Blue eyes were rimmed with salt water, but the tears were rapidly brushed away. Surely they were just from the sudden light change. When Pinkie's eyes adjusted, she saw a pony with a pink coat and cyan eyes staring back at her from behind the mirror's glass. Pinkie said hello to her reflection, watching as she mimicked her actions.
"Funny, really," Pinkie Pie thought to herself. "How something that is your complete opposite is also your perfect match."
Pinkie sighed. It seemed as though her breathing was only sighing these days, but no matter how much oxygen she got in, she always felt like drowning. The image of another pony flooded her mind, asphyxiating her further with the sheer gorgeousness of the image. Pinkie could picture it perfectly, as if the lovely creature were standing in front of her: the blue coat, which was almost the same shade as Pinkie's eyes; the rose colored eyes, which were almost the same shade of Pinkie's coat; the rainbow mane, which almost matched the color and happiness that filled Pinkie's heart whenever she saw the flying beauty.
Almost, but not quite.
"I like you, but only as a friend."
The phrase had tormented Pinkie for a long time now, causing her mane to be flatter than the surface of a calm lake and about as bouncy as a rock. She had had to curl it by hoof everyday to keep up appearances, but at night when nopony saw her, she would let it hang straight over and around her head, hoping it would act as a curtain against her nightmares. So far, it was not working.
And her smiles... she had gotten better at faking them, mostly through a lot of practice. After a while, they almost looked normal, but when no pony was watching, she'd let them turn into what they really were: a grimacing rictus which contorted her features with pain. But no pain in her sore facial muscles could match the never-ending throb in her heart.
"You shouldn't be hurting, silly," she said to herself every morning. "Dash is still your friend. Even if she joined the Wonderbolts and now tours so much it's pretty much impossible to contact her, and even if she found that stallion from Germaney who gives her everything you cannot, she still likes you. Just because it's not the way you would want it to be doesn't mean you have a right to feel sad about it. Doing that is very selfish, and being selfish is a horrible thing to be. You are a horrible thing to be."
At this point she'd usually get really mad at herself for calling herself mean names and she'd give herself the silent treatment. It never lasted long, though. Apart from herself, who did she have? Which of her friends would stand by her when they found out she'd been insincere with them all the time?
Mother and Father back at the farm -it'd been so long since she last saw them... were they doing well?- had not taken the news kindly. It was the reason why she'd ended up living on top of a bakery, and while she thanked her luck that everything had ended up rather well, she had never repeated her confession to anypony for fear she would be kicked out of another home. Dash knew, of course, but she was so far away it didn't really count. Not even the Cakes, sleeping calmly under her room, knew that she didn't mind being with either a filly or a colt. She wasn't sure she could take any more rejection in her life, so instead she kept silent.
Dash's rejection had been pretty harsh on her heart, so much that she still lost sleep over it after almost two years.
"I like you, but only as a friend."
Pinkie exhaled something between a yawn and a sigh. Even if the phrase in her head didn't shut up, her body was exhausted. She nearly tripped over Gummy's basket on her way back to her own bed. Pinkie curled up under the blankets. Tonight, the sheets felt like ice picks piercing through her. The only warmth came from the memory of the pegasus' voice. True, it was a searing hot pain that charred her soul and forced tears out of her dried-out eyes, but it was the last bit of Rainbow she had. She'd hold unto it fo as long as her poor heart would let her. Maybe one day, when her sheets again were warm and her mane again was curled and her smiles again were real, maybe then she'd let it go. But for tonight, she would hold on to the last piece of that something she had never and could never have, for that something was a rainbow, and there is no pink in them.