Wallflower Blush
Rain patters softly against the window panes downstairs as it falls in frigid sheets to sluice through the narrow streets of the Ponyville Commons. The sound is distant and constant, and I think that lying awake and listening to it right now is the most peaceful I’ve felt since…
Since I don’t even know when.
It’s five in the morning, and I’m awake, although I don’t know why. Maybe Sunset moved and jostled me, or maybe it’s because I’m not used to sleeping nude.
Maybe it’s just the rain.
Sunset mumbles incoherently as she curls a little more closely around me. She’s talking in her sleep, which she does sometimes, but it’s never anything intelligible. Her arm just fastens a little more securely around my bare waist as she buries her face against my hair and settles again.
Her left arm is tucked under my pillow, and her right arm is draped over me and coming to rest over my ribs just under my heart. I like to think her hand is there because Sunset wants to be able to feel my heartbeat, and I wonder if it’s weird that I think that’s very romantic.
Thunder booms distantly outside as I lay a hand over hers, and smile down at the glint of topaz.
A ring. A real one this time, not just one made of flowerstems and woven leaves.
Last night, Sunset proposed to me.
Even though she already did it once, and even though I already said yes back then, this time… this time it felt different. It felt real back then, but now it feels permanent and for some reason, that’s a little scary.
The sky speaks again, more loudly this time. The storm is getting closer, and as cold as it was outside last night I suppose it will probably turn to sleet. Sleet and ice and snow are the absolute worst thing if you’re living on the streets. There aren’t enough shelters, proper ones anyway, and the other places with roofs aren’t necessarily safe, especially not if you’re a girl.
I shift back a little, seeking Sunset’s warmth, and she responds unconsciously by wrapping herself around me. Her arm comes out from under the pillow to curl around my shoulders and her chin ends up tucked over my shoulder.
Slowly- very slowly- I raise my hands up to my mouth and face. I don’t want to wake her up. She’s tired. She worked so late last night, and then… then she proposed, and even more, she and I… we made love and…
Thunder booms and tears start to well up. My chest is hitching over and over, and I clench my hand around my mouth to keep in any small cries or sobs.
I could be out there.
If she’d never found me, and assuming I’d even managed to get to today on my own which was an unlikely prospect, I could be out there. I would be out there. I’d be in that storm, with sleet and icy rain hammering down on me, right now.
There but for Sunset.
Even back then, I think she might have loved me. Sunset broke her back trying to keep me alive. She fed me, gave me clothes, gave me a place to sleep until I had my own place, and I never… I don’t think I ever really appreciated it until this exact moment.
Tears start to track slowly down my face.
It was always guilt, never appreciation, and they just aren’t the same thing.
They’re not.
One feels bad, the other feels good. Or it should. You should appreciate it when people do nice things for you, not feel bad about them! But the difference never hit me until just now.
A small, dark, sick part of my mind still wants to feel bad, but for the first time in a very long time, most of me doesn’t.
My heart hurts. My chest hurts. My throat hurts from trying to keep my sobs in because I don’t want to wake her up. She deserves to sleep. She deserves to have some peace, and being with me is anything but peaceful, except… except I know she would want me to wake her up.
“Su-Sunset?” I force the word out, and it comes through cracked and raw.
She shifts and hums quietly in reply to her name. It’s the familiar sound of Sunset waking up, and a moment later I feel her chin rise softly as she looks up.
“Mm… Wallie?”
I’m sure it says something that I barely even have to say her name to wake her up. It’s like even in the depths of sleep she’s still listening for my voice to call out for her.
Yeah, it definitely says something.
I turn my head to look up at her, even knowing what I probably look like. My eyes are probably red and puffy, and I’m sure my cheeks are all ruddy and salty. I know what she’ll see, and I have to fight to make myself look her in the eye.
But this is real. This ring is real. Sunset’s promise is real. She wants me. She wants to be with me forever. She wants to be with me for the rest of her life and for some reason it only now feels totally real, and now it’s like something is breaking inside me.
“Wallie?!” Sunset’s voice cuts sharply out of sleep as her eyes widen, but before she can do anything else I turn and bury my face against her shoulder.
“I’m okay,” I sob and sniffle through my words. “Can… Can you just… just hold me for a little while?”
I hear Sunset swallow back whatever it was she was going to say, and then feel her nod against my head as she wraps her arms around me and holds tight.
“Okay,” she says quietly. “Yeah, always, Wallie… I love you.”
“I know,” I cry, my tears are flowing fast and free, and for once it doesn’t feel bad. It feels like something’s coming loose that’s been stuck for a long, long time. “I know! Thank you.”
“For… loving you?” Sunset says awkwardly.
“For everything,” I amend wetly. “For loving me. For staying with me. For helping me even when I was so bad at letting you.” I wrap my arms around her chest and squeeze for all I’m worth, which isn’t all that much. “Thank you for saving my life.”
I’d never said it before, but it’s true. More than in just the ephemeral sense of giving me a reason to go on when times were bad enough that I might not have, Sunset pulled me off the street and dragged me kicking and screaming into something like safety when she had no reason to.
“I’m so glad you saved my life,” I sob.
Sunset’s voice crumbles into a raw, wordless whimper as she clutches me close to her, and nods frantically against me.
I’m falling apart in her arms a little, but that’s nothing new. I don’t hold together well on the best of days, and I’ve lost count of the number of times Sunset has had to help put me back together. The difference is that, for maybe the first time, I don’t feel bad about it, because I’m falling apart for a good reason.
I don’t even know why it’s today of all days that it’s hitting me so hard. We’ve been together for better than two years now, so why should it hit now?
Maybe because last night was such a big night, or maybe I’m just still exhausted. Maybe it was the proposal, or maybe all the emotions from sharing my first time.
Who knows?
Maybe it’s just the rain.