I Want You To Know I Am

I work as a fruit vendor, and I can tell you from experience that there is no fruit sweeter than an apple. It’s sweetness is incomparable, and every other fruit. Well, I feel the same for the mare who grows them.

I remember when she first saved our town, and that was when I started feeling this way for her. Every time she comes to the market, either to sell her apples or to buy groceries, I stare discretely.
It’s not completely out of lust, though there is some if I’m being honest, it was something different.

Most of the stallions in town want to “hook up” with her because of her looks, and I understand why. Farm work does her wonders, and she’s definitely not a sight for sore eyes. That’s just not who I am, I’m not the kind of stallion to do that.

It’s a weekly thing: She comes, I stare, she leaves, I go back to work. That’s how my life is. My friends know that I have these feelings, and they all give me the business about it.

“There’s no point!”, they say, “She’s not in your league!”.

I know that they’re right. There is no question in my mind that I would never have a chance with a mare like her, I’m just a working class stallion. She’s a national hero, an honored mare, and a class act of a pony.

Not me, I’m definitely not a saint. I drink with the guys every Friday, I go to Canterlot from time to time to the clubs, and I play cards and gamble from time to time. Call it wallowing in your sorrows, I call it my life.

I could live with this, this singular love. One thing kills me. It kills me completely.

She doesn’t even know I exist.

I remember some time ago, during the Winter Wrap Up where Twilight Sparkle went crazy, she completely forgot I existed.

I was put on the team of planting crops, and this was in the midst of the insanity. I got stuck in a ditch, and I was forgotten about completely. It was only until my best friend Noteworthy went looking for me, after all it was a Friday, and found me covered in ice and mud. After a shower, I was in the bar, but I never forgot it.

I don’t blame her, nor do I hold any anger for her. It was a very hectic day, I can understand that. But, I was in there for six hours. That tells me one thing, that I am generic. I blend in to the crowd. My coat is a light green color, and my mane is hay yellow. I don’t particularly stand amongst our unique population.

At the bar that night, my friends laughed at me for getting stuck. Bless them, they had and still have no idea how deep this goes. I took it like a man, but I still catch flack from time to time.

That’s the thing with me. I seem to be a punching bag for them at times for no reason. It’s mostly about Applejack, but other times it’s for no reason. They seem to put everything I do into a record book and bring it up when things don’t go their way. There’s only three who don’t do it, and they are Noteworthy, Caramel, and Stitch.

They are actually there for me when it comes to Applejack, they never tease or bug me about it. I’m thankful for them, and I consider them like brothers. Whenever I’ve gotten hammered, and cried like a baby about my love life, they’ve carried me back home, woken me up, and helped me carry on.

Even though it’s hard to watch her just walk by, I know that it’s not meant to be. I’ll never be Applejack’s special somepony. That’s the how the world is. She’ll never know who Grass Roots is, what he lives like, or anything.

I hope I don’t sound angry, I’m not. I get emotional at things that hurt. That’s what’s weird about it all, I’ve never felt this way about anypony before. It’s been years of waking up and realizing that what you want will never happen. Some called the facts of life, I call it reality. Noteworthy once said to me that good things come to those who wait, and I’ve sure waited. However, I’ve almost given up at waiting. Sometimes I’ve almost cracked and just ran. Ran from everything and everypony I’ve ever known. But I didn’t, sanity prevailed all those times. For what reason, I don’t know.

She’ll never know who I am, nor will she know how I feel. I’m just a vendor, a measly little fruit vendor.

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Grass Roots put down the pencil, closed his journal, and got ready for bed. It had been a very long day, and writing about all of that stuff had gotten to him. There were tears in his eyes as he blew the candle on his nightstand out, and he cried himself to sleep that night.

However, things would change.