Noradrenaline

by TamiyaGuy

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle (EqG), Dark, Equestria Girls, Suicide / Self Harm, Sunset Shimmer
Length: 5881

Sunset Shimmer has a coping mechanism, and Twilight Sparkle wants to talk about it. This is going to be a disaster.

Sunset Shimmer has a coping mechanism, and Twilight Sparkle wants to talk about it.

This is going to be a disaster.

Thanks to Scampy for being an excellent prereader and source of inspiration.

Published 2020-09-25 18:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2020-09-25 18:40:00 UTC

Increased Heart Rate, Heightened Anxiety

Eight minutes.

In the grand scheme of things, no time at all. Walk around the block, take a quick shower, watch some stupid video on your phone. You can spend eight minutes on something without even thinking about it.

And yet, to see it reduced to a pair of timestamps makes it seem… trivial, somehow.

Twilight Sparkle
So anyway, I, er, I have been thinking about last Friday, and was wondering if you’d like to talk?

In person, I mean. Just us two. Maybe I could come round to visit, bring some cakes or something. Of course, it’s absolutely fine if it’s too soon or if I’m being too forward.

I’m sorry, I’m just not quite sure how to approach this.

I meant what I said back then, though – I do want to understand. Hopefully, you can have someone to talk to as well.
Yesterday, 9:39pm

Sunset
okay, sure
Yesterday, 9:47pm

Funny. Those eight short minutes felt like an eternity at the time.

Eight minutes of restlessness, of uncertainty, of messages tapped out but never sent. Eight minutes of thoughts – so, so many thoughts – never put into words.

Eight minutes of leaving her on tenterhooks, wondering if she’d said the wrong thing.

Last Friday. Against my better judgement, I cast my mind back to that evening. The evening that Twilight found out about my unfortunate habit, that the dynamic of our friendship became forever tainted as being between “the good one” and “the broken one”. Just the latest in a long, long list of mistakes. Underlined. Highlighted. Probably written in red permanent marker.

Of course, the conversation quickly moved on from there, filling up the remainder of that evening with mindless, feel-good chatter. But for whatever reason, I can’t stop myself from reading and re-reading that stupid two-word response and regretting every letter of it.

I put my phone down. Dwelling on past failures wasn’t going to help now. I’d already said yes, we’d already agreed on a time, and knowing her she was probably on her way right now. I’d spun around in my head again and again and again exactly what to say, every possible answer to every possible question, yet I know that as soon as I see Twilight’s face they’ll all disappear.

Nothing else to do now except wait.

But my hands refuse to rest, and my fingers brush over my exposed arms instead. I feel every bump, every ridge, every indentation and overly-smooth patch of scar tissue. Each mark tells its own story, has its own failure attached to it. Be they words never said, or words said poorly, or a friend let down.

It’s calming, in a way. The same way you might poke a bruise to make sure that it still hurts. My fingers glide over the skin, before coming to a harsh, scratchy halt over a trio of rough scabs, barely a few days old.

Eight days. You know exactly how old they are, and you know exactly why they’re there.

So much for not wanting to dwell on past failures. Again, my mind taunts me about everything that happened that Friday evening. The awkward introduction. The retreat to the kitchen like a coward at the first sign of social interaction. The unassuming black notebook. The latest entry.

Friday, 10:14pm.

Wound size: Five centimetres.

23 minutes to stop bleeding.

All of a sudden, the scabbed tissue feels like needles against my fingertips. My mind won’t shut up. Just for a minute, I need everything to stop.

And you know exactly how to make it stop, don’t you?

I stand up and walk to my bedroom, barely even aware of what I’m doing. The bedside drawer slides open, revealing books, trinkets. But beneath all that, shamefully tucked away in a corner, is what started this whole mess. A black handle, an intricate red-and-yellow floral pattern adorning its length, with a well-maintained blade sharp enough to-… I blink. What the hell was I even thinking? Scowling, I slam the drawer closed, startling myself with the sudden noise. Startling myself out of doing something stupid.

But my eyes linger on that closed drawer just a little too long, until a sharp knock on the door makes a spike of anxiety surge up inside me. Eyes shrunk to pinpricks, heart hammering in my chest, even though I know it’s Twilight I’m still launched into fight-or-flight mode. We’d already arranged this beforehand. She always gives the same three short, sharp knocks. She hasn’t seen anything, she’s at the front door. You didn’t do anything.

But the pleas from the more rational part of my brain are being drowned out. What if she came in? What if she looked through the window? What if she heard the drawer slam?

What if she thinks you’re hurting yourself right now?

Closing my eyes to steel myself, I walk over to the door and force myself to meet the fear head-on. My heart’s still in my throat, but at least now I’m not quite sure why. Stretching my hand out towards the knob, I pause, realising that my arms are still bare. A moment’s contemplation later, I reach over to the coat rack and put my jacket on.

Because that would be a brilliant start, wouldn’t it. Open the door and the first thing Twilight sees are the hideous things you’ve done to yourself.

Can’t dwell on that now. Can’t dwell on the thoughts telling me to ignore her, to pretend I’m not in. Can’t listen to that stupid little thing in the back of my head screaming at me that this is a bad idea. The door swings open.

“Hey Twilight!” The best way to ignore those thoughts. Autopilot. Pleasantries.

Lying.

“Hi Sunset!” And yet somehow, Twilight’s voice shines with a genuine interest, a genuine happiness to see me, framed by a soft, disarming smile.

It’s the same smile she always gives me. Or at least, she thinks it is. There’s the faintest of cracks in it, right at the edges, betraying that it’s hiding something else. I should know. I’ve worn it enough times myself.

But I step aside anyway, welcoming her into the apartment, keeping up this charade of politeness in some subconscious attempt to ignore the reason we both know we agreed to this. Not that it shows in Twilight’s voice, of course.

“So, how are you doing?”

My response has the bright and airy tone of a casual greeting. It’s nauseating. “About the same, thanks, how are you?”

“Good, good. And how are you… you know… doing?”

My voice loses its cheerful edge. “About the same.” Already, I’m retreating to the kitchen, though whether to hide myself from Twilight for as long as possible or to keep up the façade I have no idea. She sits down on the sofa, patiently waiting for the drinks to be done, while I stay in the kitchen, out of sight, hunched over the worktop as the kettle boils.

We both play our little roles. I make the drinks, because apparently that’s the done thing when you have someone over. She waits patiently, settling into the cushions. We both exchange empty words, just to fill the space.

I walk back into the lounge, drinks in hand, and Twilight’s there, at the exact spot she found out about my little vice. My eyes flick over to where she saw the notebook, and in its place is… a homemade cake. A very homemade cake, two slices cut out of it and neatly put to one side. For the first time this evening, I smile.

“You baked something yourself, just for this evening?” It’s weird. An ultimately fairly meaningless gesture, and yet there’s a warmth in my voice that I can’t fight back.

“Hahaaah… that obvious, huh?” Twilight responds, laughing gently. It’s self-conscious, but not uncomfortable.

I crack into a full-blown smirk, placing the drinks beside each slice and rushing back for a pair of plates. “No, no! It’s… it’s rustic! I like it, honestly. As stunning as Pinkie’s stuff is, there’s just something homely about a cake that isn’t festooned to the ceiling with decorations.”

Twilight arches an eyebrow, but shoots back her own little smirk. “By which you mean ‘Thanks for the cake, it looks like it was made by someone with two left hands’?”

We share a genuine laugh together as I plop down next to her, and in spite of everything, I almost forget why we’re even here.

But in amongst the brief pause, I eventually remember.

All good things.

“So go on, you’ve cornered me, I’ve got nowhere to run. What do you wanna know? What’s eating away at you?” My voice tries to remain steady, tries to stay casual, but there’s no hiding the mounting dose of adrenaline snaking its way through my veins.

Shock registers on Twilight’s face as she squirms uncomfortably, completely taken aback. Her mouth moves for a short while before the words catch up.

“I mean… right away? I don’t mind but… I don’t want to rush into things and make you uncomfortable or anything.”

Like what you’ve just done to her right now.

I shrink back in on myself, having made the first mistake of many: Jumping into a conversation that I’m halfway through in my head already. I curse myself – how many times have I pulled that one in the past.

“Sorry.” I respond, any semblance of self-confidence cracking under the weight of my shame. “But, well… we both know why we’re here. I just figure…” A dry, bitter laugh. One that sticks in my throat. “What’s the point of dragging it out, I guess.”

“Fair enough.”

Twilight looks down at her hands, momentarily lost in thought. Most likely she’s considering her words carefully, piecing together the perfect way of condensing a myriad of conflicting emotions into a single sentence, the start of a conversation that neither of us are going to enjoy.

Or maybe deep down, she’s just as scared of this as I am.

“So I guess… to start off with, well… why?” Twilight doesn’t even look at me as she asks the question, and to be honest I don’t blame her. “I mean, I’m not judging, I don’t want to pry or ask anything that you’re not willing to answer or say anything that’s insensitive or could be taken the wrong way. I just- I really don’t know how to go about any of this and it’s actually quite sc-“

“Twilight.” I really hope my voice is as reassuring as I wanted it to be. “It’s fine. Really.”

Twilight visibly relaxes a little, her shoulders easing away from her neck. “Sorry. So yes, I guess my first question would just be ‘why?’”

A perfectly reasonable first question, to be honest. The question that no-one wants to ask. The question that no-one wants to answer.

I take a breath. I don’t mean to come across as melodramatic. It’s just that I don’t want to say it, and she doesn’t want to hear it. She’ll listen, and she’ll nod, and then she’ll judge me for the failure that I am.

And I’ll deserve it.

“Because it works.”

Twilight looks like she’s been shot. I must look like a psychopath for how calm I sounded. I’ve known it for so long, the thought’s gone through my head so many times, but to say it, out loud, to someone else… it really does seem to make it a whole new level of messed up.

Then it begins.

Are you serious?

That’s it?

That’s the best you can do?

All that build-up, all that preamble, and those three stupid words are the best you can do? Your friend, who is sitting right there, puts her heart out for you, puts herself in a horrible, vulnerable position just because she wants to help you, and that’s all you can come up with. You really are-

“There’s a voice.”

No reply.

Great, now she thinks you’re clinically insane.

I clench my eyes shut, trying to continue. “I mean, not, like, a voice voice, but… you know. Intrusive thoughts.”

Twilight’s still staring at me, completely stunned. I don’t think she’s even breathed since I uttered those three stupid words.

“Intrusive thoughts that tell me I’m worthless. That I’m a failure, that bad things should happen to me because of all the bad things I’ve done in the past, all the bad things I’m going to do in the future. That I need this to… almost validate how awful I feel, because if I’m doing this to myself then obviously it’s for a reason, right? Intrusive thoughts telling me that… that I deserve it.”

“You cannot be serious.”

I flinch, my eyes snapping to Twilight, her words knocking the breath out of my lungs. Her hardened gaze pierces straight through me, but it’s written on her face that she’s only trying to hide her fear behind a veil of sternness. I just can’t tell if she’s doing it for her benefit or mine.

“You’re… you’re a wonderful person, Sunset! You’re a great friend, a confidante, you practically lead our entire group… if it weren’t for you, we’d all be in a much worse place. You can’t think that of yourself, Sunset.”

My face twists, contorts into a bitter smirk. I’ve been down this road before. The only difference now is that I’m dragging someone else along with me.

“And yet, for all I know you’re right, for all the good I do, I don’t think I’ll ever believe that myself. This little voice tells me these things, this little thought that digs itself into the back of my head and doesn’t let go, and eventually it drowns out everything else. Doing this…” I shrug my arms, just barely, but I didn’t even need to – of course she understands, “it helps quieten down that voice a little bit. Not by much, and not for long, but… yeah. It works.”

Yep. Sounds just as messed up the second time round.

Twilight’s silent for a good minute, her expression completely unreadable beyond “unhappy”. Which, to be fair, is a pretty reasonable response.

But just how abruptly she changes topic does make me a little curious.

“So, how long have you been… you know…”

She can’t bring herself to say the words. I can’t blame her, but try to diffuse things with a wry smile and a sarcastic tone. The words come out like I’m choking on them.

“Since shortly after I was… let’s say shown the error of my ways.”

Twilight’s face scrunches up. In disbelief? Confusion? Disappointment?

“Wait… Back during the Fall Formal? But that was almost- “

“Yeah, I know.” I cut her off, smile twisting into a grimace. I really don’t need to be reminded.

Silence saturates the air, and it’s not worth filling. The girl beside me, normally so inquisitive, so enthusiastic, looks like every question she can think of is tearing her apart from the inside, bit by bit.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really.”

“Wh-what?” Twilight gasps, taken aback. “You’re… hurting yourself, and it… it doesn’t even hurt? How?” I almost smile. Her fear is in her voice this time, masking confusion with incredulity. It’s probably on her face too, but I can’t bear to look at her. If my pathetic attempts at justification seemed messed up, then this line of conversation wasn’t heading anywhere better.

“I mean, how do you even… How do you…” Again, Twilight can’t finish the sentence.

“How do I cut myself?” The bluntness of my words surprises even me. Twilight holds back a whimper, desperately trying to keep herself together.

“Self-harm”. What a lie. Look at Twilight and tell yourself you’re not hurting her right now.

My face softens, though out of sympathy or shame I’m not sure. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Twilight’s going to hate the answer. She knows it. I know it.

But still, she nods.

And so I answer. I slowly explain my method, my ritual, to the friend who barely a week ago didn’t even know I did this to myself. With every new detail, every step through the process, Twilight breaks down bit by bit. But she never stops listening, and she never tells me to stop talking, and for that I had to respect her. I try to omit the worst details – the worst of the injuries, the worst of the thoughts – though there’s only so much you can do to try and make cutting yourself with a pocket knife sound pleasant. But it’s not the thoughts, or the emotions, or even the cutting that seems to hit Twilight the hardest.

“And then I just… sort of sit there for a while.”

I pause as it suddenly strikes me just how casual that sounded. Twilight speaks for the first time since I started explaining, her voice tight and raspy with emotions choked back, spiderwebbing cracks forming in the dam.

“What do you do?”

Again, the nonchalance in my own voice is unnerving. “Nothing, really. Just close my eyes… let the world go by. Let myself bleed.” I cringe at the addition – so much for omitting the worst of the details. Rather than dig us both into a deeper hole, I keep my mouth shut.

A car passes by outside, the first noise for what seems like hours, and I glance over instinctively. Instead, my eyes settle on Twilight: The brave soul who wanted to offer a listening ear to the scarred, mangled failure sitting next to her.

She’s barely even breathing, completely lost in thought. Her eyes are rigidly fixed on her lap, nervously twirling her hair round her fingers. She opens her mouth, but closes it again. Awkwardly shuffles around on the sofa. Blinks, too slowly to be autonomous. My gaze snaps back to the carpet in front of me and stays there. With each passing second, the guilt of what I’ve done, of what I’m doing, digs into me deeper and deeper.

You’re torturing her.

“Would…”

Twilight can barely even be heard over the sound of my own breathing, but even then her own voice momentarily scares her into silence.

“Would you be okay… I mean, just to make sure they’re safe…”

“Hm?”

“If you… if I could see them?”

I barely even blink – it’s fair enough that she’d ask at some point. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” I move my hand to roll up my sleeve, but think better of it. Instead, I just take my jacket off and put it to one side.

Immediately I hear a gasp from Twilight, followed by the trembling breaths of hyperventilation.

“Oh my-… Goddess, S-Sunset, they’re… They’re everywhere…”

I feel my face morph into a scowl, but I’m still staring at the floor. My voice is calm; steady, but terse.

“What were you expecting to see, Twilight? I know you – you won’t have gone into this conversation blind. You’ll have done your homework, probably even researched common complications, so what exactly were you hoping for?”

Twilight lets out a shaky breath before trying to regain her composure. She can’t. “It’s just… it’s so different when you see it on someone you care about. Sunset, I’m… I’m sorry. Please, I’m so sorry.”

And just like that, I deflate. There’s no way I can be upset with Twilight. It wasn’t her fault that she found out about my vice. It wasn’t her fault that some idiot left all the evidence on a table for her to see. The only thing she’s ever done was try to help, even to the point of asking for something she knew would hurt, just to make sure that I’m safe.

“Ugh… No, Twilight, I’m sorry. I… I really do appreciate the concern, and you’ve already done so much to help. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

And just how, exactly, were you expecting her to react? “Gee golly there sure are a lot of cuts on your arms, you want to go for ice cream?”

My scowl returns, but it’s no longer directed at Twilight.

It never was.

Seconds pass, allowing for that thought to embed itself a little more firmly in my mind. I flick my gaze towards Twilight again. Her eyes are still locked on my arms. I don’t mind really – it wasn’t her who took the jacket off, after all – but it’s like she can’t tear her eyes away from what I’ve done to myself.

Eventually, I get the answer to the question I never bothered to ask. Her breathing starts to return to normal as she speaks. She refers to me, but she’s not talking to me.

“I mean… I mean you’re clearly taking care of… of them. The wounds don’t look dangerously deep, and they seem to be healing and scarring over normally. They… they aren’t in places that could cause complications, there’s no sign of infection, and even the more… the more… recent… ones, it looks like they’ve been dressed properly and kept clean.”

I suddenly realise why she’s staring at my arms, why her murmurings seem to visibly calm her down, and I do the only thing I can.

I laugh.

I laugh because I have to, because the only alternative is to cry, to reduce myself to an absolute wreck right in front of Twilight. Twilight herself is just staring at me; I can’t even begin to read her expression through my breathless chuckling.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, this is awful…” I’m apologising, and I’m meaning every word, but for some reason the smile won’t leave my face. “It’s just… trust you to science your way back into calmness. It’s… it’s so you, you know?”

“Hah, yeah, I uh… I guess…” Twilight smiles back, but it’s a meek thing. An unsure thing. A few moments pass, her eyes still glued to my arms.

You made fun of Twilight’s coping mechanism. At a time like this. You really are beyond disgraceful.

About two minutes too late, that stupid smile leaves my face. I linger in that pit for a few more seconds before Twilight’s voice pipes up again.

“What are you thinking at the moment?”

“That I’m a horrible person for making fun of you just now.”

My eyes snap open. I did not say that. I did not just say that out loud. A spike of adrenaline stabs through my throat, and I can’t speak. Am I even breathing? Stupid, stupid, stupid! Is this an awkward silence, or has it been half a second since I closed my mouth? I never should have opened it. I need to get away from this, get away from this mistake, but I can’t. I can only sit here, stewing in the words I never should have said, until Twilight confirms all my fears. Or worse-

“What? No, no no no!”

Or worse, she refutes them.

“No, not at all! I mean, uh… hah, you actually have a point… We’ve all got our ways of coping, right? Science is one of mine. I guess… I guess humour is one of yours.”

My eyes slowly meet Twilight’s. She’s smiling again, and although it’s still small, it’s at least genuine now. Deep in those violet pools, I start to lose myself, and the adrenaline starts to fade.

But it never goes away completely.

Twilight briefly looks away. It’s almost imperceptible, but just enough to make out the tiniest of awkward grimaces. I blink and avert my gaze, momentarily joining her in the uncomfortable silence. Ah. There’s that spike again.

Idiot.

“I mean… humour is just one coping mechanism, Sunset. You… you can find another one, you can talk to someone who can help. A professional.”

And we were doing so well.

“Ah, thank you Twilight.” My voice is bitter, venomous at the joke of a suggestion. “In all the time I’ve been doing this, through all the restless nights of dwelling on failures, of wrapping myself up in my own self-absorbed pity, never once has that thought ever crossed my mind before.” I sigh, most of the poison draining along with my breath until all that’s left is the exhaustion. “Do you really think that little of me?”

And just as it had before, just as it would again, Twilight’s composure begins to fracture. Every step she took in meeting me halfway, I was right there to push us apart. Every suggestion she made, I was there to spit it back in her face. And though her posture resembled a child admonished, the truth was that she was being more mature, more brave, than I had been for years.

“I’m sorry, Sunset.”

She needn’t be. You know damn well whose fault this is.

Even though she continued, it wasn’t to justify or defend. It was just to explain. Hesitantly, as though carefully treading through broken glass.

Or a minefield.

“I… just don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there even is anything to say, and even though I want to help you so, so much, I…”

And then the truth. The uncomfortable, inevitable truth.

“I don’t know how.”

She says the words like she’s failed, like they’re a blight on her character. Hanging on her shoulders, dragging her down to my level. It makes me feel sick.

Because there’s only one failure here, and it’s not the girl who’s trying to redeem the irredeemable. It’s the girl who’s twisting her friend’s words into things they never meant. The girl who, twice now, has taken compassion and kindness and turned it into a weapon, all so she can give herself more reasons to cut herself off from the world. Because Goddess knows that your presence in it is not doing any good.

The thoughts dissipate at the sound of a violent sniffle coming from beside me. It’s strange how a thing like that can help in the most imperceptible of ways, and she’ll never even know.

“All I know is that I can’t bear to see you like this. Whether you hide it or live with it or whatever, you deserve so much better, and we all think that. Sunset…”

Twilight’s entire body is shaking. Her eyes glisten with fresh tears. Pleading.

Please don’t say it.

“You… you need to stop, Sunset.”

I’ve stopped breathing. My body wants to shatter, my brain wants to implode. I want to close my eyes, I want to end, just breathe out and let the darkness swallow me up. I want to run, charge into my bedroom like a coward and open that damned drawer and get my knife and-don’t you dare even think about that you idiot, she’s sitting RIGHT THERE.

But I can’t even muster up any tears. Just shallow, fitful, whimpering breaths.

Pathetic.

“I… I can’t.”

My own heartbeats are choking me. I count them until one of us tries in desperation to fill the silence.

“I can’t make that kind of a promise, Twilight.”

I can’t even bear to look at her, but I know, I know how she’s looking at me right now. My breathing quickens as my voice raises – this is going to be pathetically melodramatic, woefully exaggerated, but I’m past caring by now.

“I can’t. Because eventually, something’s going to happen, or I’ll think that something’s going to happen, and I’ll need it. That little thing, that stupid little thought in the back of my head will offer its solution, and what? I’m just expected to wait? I’m just supposed to let it sit there, let that cancerous little idea grow and morph and eat away at me until…”

I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t need to. In its place, silence. The kind of silence that seems to strangle the air out of a room and fill it with void.

The kind of silence that makes those thoughts come back.

Twilight finally speaks, barely even audible above the deafening quiet.

“It’s okay.”

No it’s not.

Against my better judgement, I turn my head towards her. I blink, momentarily stunned by the sight. Twilight looks exhausted, defeated in a way I’ve never seen her before. Her entire body begins to slump and collapse in on itself, as though her very spirit has been punctured, as though a hole has been torn in the foundation of her beliefs. She turns to look at me and her eyes are… empty.

“It… there really are moments when it’s the best thing for you, aren’t there?”

Suddenly, her demeanour makes sense.

She finally understands.

“Yeah.”

The silence that follows is all-consuming. There’s no awkward fidgeting, no anxious gasps for breath. Even that little inner voice, normally deafening at a time like this, doesn’t offer a single thing.

Because finally, dreadfully, there’s nothing else to say. There’s no excuse, no justification, nothing that can soften the blow. There’s just the truth. The uncomfortable, frightening truth that we all wish didn’t exist because it might mean that we would have to admit something about ourselves that we don’t want to.

But it’s there, and it always was.

Surprising even myself, it’s me who breaks the silence first.

“How are you holding up?”

For a while, Twilight just sits, the same blank stare on her face. But she knows that eventually we need to wrap this up, let this scene play out in spite of ourselves.

“It’s a lot to take in.”

There’s no reason to say it. It’s not going to help. But…

“I’m sorry.”

Twilight’s response is immediate, but still in that same exhausted monotone. There’s something about it that nags at the corners of my mind, but I can’t put my finger on it.

“Please don’t be. Honestly… thanks, Sunset. I can’t imagine it was easy for you to talk about something like this.”

The twisted, self-deprecating smirk returns to my face once again. While Twilight’s monotone is contemplative, mine is unmistakably deadpan.

“Yeah, the unyielding courage and fearlessness to look a friend in the eyes and say ‘Hey, I’m broken in the head, and I wanna throw some of that burden onto you’.” I scoff.

“I’m being serious.” Twilight responds, the faintest hint of a frown marring her otherwise stoic expression.

She’s probably right. And she deserves to know that, but for some reason the words won’t form in my mouth.

“Do you want to crash here tonight? You look a bit…” What’s the most polite way of putting it? “Out of it.”

Not that.

Twilight shakes her head, almost imperceptibly. “Thanks for the offer, but…” – a brief pause to scratch at the back of her neck – “I think I could do with the time alone, to do a bit of thinking.” A flick of the eyes, downwards, before back up. “Plus it’s been a long day. I’m pretty tired to be honest.”

I’d recognise those excuses anywhere. The hesitation, the vagueness, that slightly withdrawn tone, as though she’s still coming to terms with her thoughts as she’s speaking them. The body language.

It’s like looking in a mirror and I hate it.

“Twilight, are… are you okay? I mean-”

Recognition flashes on her face immediately, head spinning to look at me in worry. She always was a smart one.

“Oh! Oh, no, no no no, don’t worry, I’m not going to… no. I just need some time to come to terms with this, I promise.”

A weary gaze bores deep into those shocked violet eyes and finds only honesty and genuine concern behind them. Against every other instinct, what prevails inside me is trust.

Would you trust those words if they were coming out of your mouth?

The thought lingers in the back of my throat, a bile that threatens to spill out and do terrible things to someone that doesn’t deserve them. But I keep it down. Repressed.

“How about you, though? Are you going to be okay?” Twilight asks, and again there’s nothing but honest concern, even though the tiniest of smiles is gradually forming. In her voice, if not on her face. “It… I mean it can’t have been pleasant to be bombarded with questions like that.”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.” I answer quickly. Too quickly. She picks up on it immediately and fixes me with a stare that pierces right through the façade. Damn it. Say something, anything to put her at ease, just-

Don’t fuck it up now.

“Honestly, I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

Better than nothing, but only just.

But it’s enough. Walking to the front door, and what is there left to do? A heartfelt hug? A handshake? What’s anyone supposed to do after an evening like this? An evening that no-one wanted but that happened anyway, the baring of a truth that no-one wants to hear even if their words say otherwise. A failure exposed.

Twilight settles on a solemn nod. Of thanks, or of worry, it didn’t matter. The door opens and a cold evening breeze hits me, snapping me out of any introspection.

“Thanks again, Sunset. I, er… I hope you got something out of this as well. Being able to talk, I mean.”

I offer a weary smile and really hope it doesn’t come across like a grimace. “Thank you, Twilight. Really.”

The purple girl turns back briefly, and offers the same advice she did last time.

“Take care, Sunset, yeah?”

The same advice that I threw away the moment her back was turned.

“Yeah.”

The refreshing breeze cuts off with the softly-closing door, and I remain there, briefly motionless, staring into the nothing of the wood’s grain. A sigh later, I turn around to be greeted by the drinks and slices of cake, taunting me. They’ve barely even been touched.

But at least it’s something to do. I pick up the mugs, now lukewarm and insipid, pour their contents down the sink. The cake, lovingly made by Twilight, her own little peace offering, is still in the lounge, turned dry and faded from exposure to the stale air. How symbolic.

And so my mind wanders. Those voices, once suppressed by conversation, again start their incessant whispers. But the most disturbing thing is that they’re not all bad.

I can’t believe it. It went… pretty well. The conversation that neither of us wanted, about something that we’d both have rather pretended didn’t exist, ended up going okay. I got a few things off my chest that had been eating away at me for months, Twilight was receptive, hell, understanding of a deeply uncomfortable truth. There were a few hiccups, sure, but all things considered the evening was… fine.

By any objective measure, it went as well as it possibly could have.

And yet.

And yet I’m still trudging to my bedroom. I’m still opening the drawer. I’m still reaching inside and grasping for the knife and going to the bathroom and getting the first aid supplies and laying them all out on the coffee table in the living room. Some pathetic self-fulfilling prophecy, too weak to even acknowledge that something halfway good happened this evening. I’m still opening the notebook, exposing my past failures and preparing to mark another one down.

Because I know, I know…

You deserve it.

Saturday, 11:38pm.