I Need to be Honest With You

by applepiedash

Rating: teen
Tags: Applejack (EqG), Equestria Girls, Rainbow Dash (EqG), Suicide / Self Harm, Main 7 (EqG), Slice of Life, Sad
Length: 1884

Sometimes the people that seem the happiest are the ones that are struggling the most; Applejack is one of those people.

She acts happy. She seems happy. She comes across as happy. But is that the honest truth?

Applejack may represent honesty, but she's been covering the truth for years, lying to her friends, lying to everyone, letting them think that she's okay.

Trigger Warning:

•Depression
•Mention of self harm and suicide

Published 2017-10-16 19:00:06 UTC
Last updated 2018-02-18 22:15:25 UTC

Chapter 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 4

Applejack ran into the furthest stall from the door, slammed the door, locked it, put the lid of the toilet down and sat on it. She burst into tears. She tried to keep it silent, which only added to the pain she was already feeling in her chest; the emotional pain was so strong it often became physical at times. She hoped no one could hear her. She hoped she was alone. Except she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to be with someone. She wanted to tell someone everything she was feeling. She just wanted someone to understand.

The bathroom door opened. Applejack had expected for people to be going in and out, after all, she was in a school bathroom, but what she wasn’t expecting was to hear her friend call out her name.

“Applejack, are you here?” Rainbow called out

“Um, yeah...”

“You okay?”

“Yeah,”

“Why are you in here?”

“What d’you think? I needed to pee,” Applejack tried to get herself to actually go to convince Rainbow Dash that that was what the real reason why she was in there, but she couldn’t, so she flushed instead and tried to dry her eyes as best she could.

“So... You gonna come out,”

Applejack emerged from the stall, hoping that she had managed to make herself look like she hadn’t been crying. She walked over to the sink to wash her hands to keep up the charade she was acting out.

“Are you really okay?” Dash asked, knowing that she probably wouldn’t get a truthful answer. “You haven’t been yourself recently.”

“How many times do I gotta say it? I’m sick. I ain’t been feeling well for a few days now. “

“You’re not sick. I’ve known you long enough to know what you’re like when you’re sick”

“Well, I’m sorry if this time doesn’t fit my usual ways of being sick,”

“’Cause you’re not!” Dash really didn’t want to get annoyed with Applejack, but she just wished she would tell her what was going on. “AJ, please just tell me what’s going on with you. I’m worried. “

“Why can’t y’all just believe me? There ain’t nothing going on”

“’Cause I know it’s not nothing. You can trust me; we’ve been friends for years.”

“I can’t. I just can’t. Not here anyway.” Applejack started to get choked up. She couldn’t back out of telling Dash now.

“Do you wanna come over to mine after school? I’m gonna be home alone for a while,”

“Uh-huh,” Applejack nodded. She couldn’t get anything else out. She felt like she was going to cry again.

Rainbow Dash leant in and gave Applejack a tight hug. “Tell me whatever you need to, I won’t judge, I promise.” Applejack sniffed as she looked at her friend and smiled.

***

Dash kept looking over towards Applejack. She could see that she was miles away, not doing any work and looking like she’d rather be anywhere, but sitting in a classroom. Rainbow was also unable to concentrate. She was worried about her friend. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Applejack was going to tell her. She wanted to be there for her, but she had no idea how she was going to react; she couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going on.

Every possible thought was running through Applejack’s mind. She was trying to think of the perfect way to tell Rainbow Dash. There was no perfect way. Nothing about this was perfect; it couldn’t have been any further away from that.

What if she doesn’t understand? What if she doesn’t believe me? What if she hates me for lying to her for this long? I can’t do this. I can’t tell her. I don’t want to hurt her. She ain’t gonna understand. Nobody will understand. I don’t understand. How am I supposed to tell her? How do I start the conversation?

She couldn’t stop thinking. She knew she was probably overreacting. They’d been friends for over ten years, it wasn’t like Dash was actually going to hate her, but it’s all that she could think of. No matter how hard she tried to get rid of these thoughts, she couldn’t. They were always there.

The sound of the bell took Applejack out of her mind and back into the real world. She packed away her stuff and waited for Dash outside the classroom.

"I don’t think I can do this,” she said as Rainbow walked out the door, hoping that she wouldn’t have to tell her.

“I get it’s going to be hard for you, but I know something’s wrong. I want to help,” she grabbed Applejack’s arm as she spoke and then hugged her. “I’m here for you.”

“…Thanks,” Applejack forced a smile as she and Dash started walking.

Chapter 5

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 1

Author's Note

Please read:

This story is completely different to those that I have written in the past. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while now, but it's taken me a long time to get this out for various reasons that I won't go into.

A lot of things that happen in this story are from personal experience with other aspects made up, but still predominately coming from experience. The thoughts and feelings are all thoughts and feelings that I have experienced. This is not meant to be a general representation of mental illness or depression, but just that of my experience with it reflected into the characters. Mental illness is extremely hard to portray as no two people are in the same situation or deal with it in the same way.

Trigger Warning: Depression (I will add to this list as the story progresses/when I add more chapters).

Chapter 1

The light from her phone screen lit up the dark room. 3AM. This was going to be yet another sleepless night. Applejack sighed as she put her phone down by her side; she stared into the darkness of her room for so long that she wasn’t sure if she had her eyes open any longer. This was becoming a regular occurrence. She would spend so much time over thinking that sleep was the last thing her mind would let her body do.

No matter how much she tried to stop the tears, they continued to stream down her face. Applejack tried to keep herself quiet. She turned over and buried her head into her pillow to muffle the sounds of the crying. She didn’t want anyone to hear her, she wouldn’t be able to explain to her family why she was like this. They wouldn’t understand it anyway.

Applejack continued to suffer in silence. She felt like she had to keep everything to herself because no one would understand what she was feeling, no one would believe her. Why would they when she seemed so happy all the time? Every time she thought about telling her friends she just pictured them laughing at her, saying that she was just doing it for attention and that she couldn’t possibly be suffering from depression when she was always in such a good mood. It hurt her to think of her friends in that way, but she couldn’t help it. Her mind made her overthink everything and even though a situation like that wasn’t going to happen, it was one of the many thoughts that filled her mind preventing her from sleeping.

She sat up, wiped the tears from her eyes and picked up her phone again hoping that, somehow, someone knew that she needed help and had texted her to ask if she was okay. Nothing. Of course there was going to be nothing. How could anyone know she was sat in her room, crying her eyes out, in the dark, at 3am when she hadn’t even told anyone what she was going through? She chucked her phone across her room and cried into her pillow.

She was getting worse, she didn’t know how much longer she could keep it all in without losing it in front of someone. She needed someone to talk to, but that meant telling someone and she just didn’t know how.

Applejack laid still on her back letting the tears slowly run down her face as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

Chapter 3

Applejack joined the lunch line and looked at the food. She knew she needed to eat something, but she still wasn’t feeling hungry. She picked up one of the plates with what looked like the best looking mush and an apple and went to over to where her friends were sitting.

The noise in the cafeteria was overwhelming for Applejack. There was so much going on, she couldn’t focus, she couldn’t think straight. She just wanted to get out of there and her friends weren’t making it any better, but she sat down next to Rainbow anyway.

“You really need to work on your drum solo Pinkie,” Dash said

“At least my timing is, um, in time, unlike Rarity’s!”

“My timing? Sunset needs to learn how to tune her guitar so we sound no less than fabulous on Saturday.”

“My guitar sounds better than Applejack’s vocals at the moment.”

“Heh, yeah, about that… I, er, don’t know if I’ll be able to play on Saturday cause I –“ Pinkie cut her off before she was able to finish

“Um excuse me Applejack? Won’t be able to play? We can’t have a band without a bass, you hold it together!”

“It’s just that…”

“…She’s sick” Dash finished for her, before muttering “supposedly” to herself. Applejack just looked away and let out a quiet sigh. If only her friends really knew what was going on.

"Um is that why you’re not eating?” Fluttershy asked, sounding concerned. Applejack just nodded in agreement; she certainly wasn’t going to tell everyone at the same time.

The girls continued to discuss their show for the upcoming weekend. Applejack said very little and tried to eat what she could, all whilst trying to block out the negative thoughts that were trying to find their way into her mind once again. She wanted to join in on the conversation, but she couldn’t think, she didn’t know what to say; it was all too much for her. Applejack started to get really panicking and she knew she had to get out of the cafeteria before she got even worse.

Fluttershy could sense that her friend definitely wasn’t feeling herself.

“Applejack, are you okay? Do you want to go see the school nurse?”

“No, it’s okay.”

Her mind started filling with the thoughts that so often consumed her and she could feel herself starting to tear up.

“Where are you going?” Rainbow Dash asked, she had a worried look on her face

“I just need to go to the bathroom.”

“Do you think she’s okay? If she’s sick and all that?” Twilight sounded concerned. She hadn’t really known Applejack to be ill before.

"People pee, Twilight,” Sunset added, laughing a little.

“I’m not so sure… I’ll go check on her,” Dash got up and made her way to the nearest restroom, to see if that’s where Applejack was. She was hoping that with some one-on-one time, Applejack would tell her what was really going on.