Love Life (or Pinkie Pie's Heartbreak Repair Service)

Part 3

The help started as soon as you agreed. The first lesson; how to deal with the mountain of issues that gnaw at you. Way to get straight to the point.

“So you’ve got a lot of problems, right?” Pinkie asks, “And all of these problems are piling up on you. You’ve got the heartbreak, the whole betrayed by your friends thing… well, I wouldn’t call them friends myself, but… and then you feel like there’s nothing else for you out there, so you just sit all by yourself drinking…”

“Are you going to list all of the things that are wrong with me?” you cut in, “Because we’ll be here until it gets dark if you do that.”

“Oh, hah-hah,” she jests, “But it’s not the problems themselves that have you dragged down, you see. It’s the amount!”

Of course, you were never expecting this pony to make perfect sense. You ask her to clarify.

“Hmm, how should I put this?” she muses, “Ooh, I know! Imagine you’ve got to carry a whole ton of bricks, right? And each brick is labelled with a problem that’s got you down.”

“Riiight?” You honestly aren’t sure where she’s going with this. You secretly hope she doesn’t actually make you carry a ton of bricks produced out of thin air just to prove a point…

“If you try to carry all the bricks at once, why, that’d be impossible, right?! Buuuut! If you carry them one by one, it’s way lighter and easier!”

You sigh in response to her innocent, yet sadly useless, advice, “I really wish the solution was that simple, Pinkie. Really I do. But I’ve tried, and it isn’t.”

“Correction. You’ve tried alone,” she replies, “Everything’s harder when you’re alone; baking, babysitting, battling-the-forces-of-evil-with-the-Elements-of-Harmony… pretty much anything that begins with a B.”

Battling the who with the what now..?

Your confused expression goes unnoticed by her, “But when you’ve got somepony to help you, it becomes easier to rectify! Easier to repair! Easier to recover! Here, let me show you…”

An odd sound fades into your ears, echoing from all around you. The sound of music, a jaunty, fast-paced melody with no clear source as to where it’s coming from.

Pinkie perks herself up to the merry tune, and sings, letting her melodic voice rise up and join the source-less instruments.

“Your life is in a rut, sure, but I can fix it up,
It doesn’t take an S-O-S to ask me for my help,
Just look at the world around you, every filly, every colt,
They all have problems (you have too!)
But we can take them on, let’s give it a shot!

It’s really clear to see, pal, you couldn’t run away,
Sometimes you need a kick-start, get you on your hooves again,
Give me a chance, just one, I’ll get your life back on the track,
We all have problems (I can help!)
So let’s work together to get your life back!

It feels like a lot, though, when troubles take their toll,
Like a wall that’s made of bad things, but don’t become a foal,
Take them on by being smart; not all at once, but one by one,
The wall of problems (brick by brick!)
Will tumble down, and then you’ll have won!

Wounds can heal over time, if you let them!
Learn from your mistakes, but don’t ever resent them!
That’s what living’s all about; how to live the life you want!
Don’t let the past ruin your future if it ties you in a knot!
Don’t let the past ruin your future, take a hold of what you‘ve got!
Don’t let the past ruin your future, it’s your life to live and love!”

And just like that, it’s over, with no trace of it ever happening. What just happened? Did you really just witness a full-on impromptu musical number from her? You say the only coherent thing you can think of.

“Whoa.”

“Didja like it?” she smirks, “Singing it out loud makes it all way clearer, don’t you agree?”

“Um… yeah.” you stutter. You’ve witnessed musical numbers before, sure, but it usually takes the emotions of a whole town at a major event to spark one, like the annual Winter Wrap-Up or something.

Could it be that this single mare had the emotional capacity to break into song whenever she wanted? What’s more, she did that just for you.

That girl is a sheer mystery to you. A mystery you have the urge to crack.

*******

“Now let’s see here…”

You have no idea why you agreed to let Pinkie poke around your home. She gave you a convincing argument that, in order to change your life for the better, you’d have to get tackle anything at home that could be holding you back. Frankly, you think the idea’s foolish. There’s nothing at home that reminds you of your problems other than…

“Wow, you sure keep a lot of photos of your ex in here, don’t you?”

“What? Hey! Put that back!”

How the heck did she even find that envelope? You had it hidden under your drawer! Regardless, she doesn’t put it back - instead, she places it in front of you. Your eyes drift over the photographs of your old friends, your old lover, your old life.

“Is there any wonder that you couldn’t move on when you left Canterlot?” she says with a serious tone to her voice. A rare moment to witness from Pinkie. “You literally carried your problems back with you.”

“Pinkie, please, could you put that back?” you moan, “I really don’t want to look at those right now.”

“Why don’cha just throw ‘em away-?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re…” ugh, this is gonna sound so stupid, “too painful to throw away.”

“So you keep them in a big old envelope, because they’re too painful to look at too?”

“Yes.”

“They’re too painful to look at or throw away?”

“Yes!”

“They must be kept so they can never be looked at?”

“I know! I get it!” you snap. Pinkie flinches at your sudden outburst, looking visibly shaken. You immediately catch yourself a moment later. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s just that… put it back.”

She dutifully places the pictures back, and slides it under the drawer. “I’m sorry too. You know I’m just trying to help, right?”

“I know.” you place a fore-hoof over her in an attempt to loosen the tension - did you really scare her that much? “That’s just a pretty sensitive spot for me.”

“It’s okay. Everypony has a doozy to overcome.” Her fore-hoof mimics your own, placing itself on you with a friendly grip that tells you she’s far from given up. “Do you still want my help?”

“Of course,” you nod, willing to do whatever it takes to help her help you, “You… hoof-wavey eye-pokey promised, after all. C’mon, let‘s find something else to tackle. Want some gin or scotch or something while we talk it over?”

You trot over to the cold liquor storage - er, fridge - to show her a few bottles to choose from.

“Geez, that’s a lot of drink there!” she gasps, “I could host a month’s worth of parties with those!”

“And yet, this amount usually lasts me a week.” You didn’t know whether you were complimenting yourself or not with that statement.

“Ever thought about quitting?” she asks.

“Cold turkey?”

“No thanks, I’m vegetarian!”

You shut the fridge, plunging its contents into darkness.

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