Silent Graves

"Thanks, Hun," smiled Soft Spoken, leaving the radio station. "I'll see you tomorrow, Hard Facts."

"Of course," he chuckled. "How could I go on without my lovely cohostess? Have a nice night."

The two shared a laugh as they split off and headed to their respective homes. Hard Facts had a small house in the suburbs with a wife and daughter, and four pet hermit crabs in a terrarium. Soft spoken, on the other hoof, lived on the third floor of an apartment building with her long-term fiancé. For two years, they'd been saving up for a good wedding and reception, but things kept popping up that drained away their funding. Things like drinking and gambling. Her fiancé was not known to be the most upstanding pony, but he wasn't that bad when he was sober.

Unfortunately, when she opened her door, the smell of rum was there to greet her. He was drinking again. He'd probably lost another game, as well. "I'm home," she called out, almost hoping that he wouldn't answer. If he was passed out on the sofa, she could at least have a quiet evening.

"Roulette fucking sucks!" came the response.

She let out a long sigh of disappointment. He'd probably lost quite a lot. She didn't know the games very well, but she knew that roulette was an easy way to lose a lot of money really fast. At least with Blackjack and Hold 'em, there was a chance that he would win something, or at least lose only a small amount of money.

"Perhaps you should stop playing roulette, then?" she suggested. "Perhaps you should play something else, or maybe not even go to the casino at all."

"But when the ball eventually lands on twenty-three, we'll be so far in the black that we can invite the whole town to the wedding!"

"That may very well be true, but you haven't won a single game of roulette since you started!" she argued, becoming audibly angry. "If, instead of gambling, we'd been saving up, we could have at least had a small wedding by now. At this point, I'd settle for a backyard wedding with cupcakes."

"We don't even have a backyard!"

"I have friends with backyards! They would totally let us use it if we could afford all of the other expenses!"

"Well, we can't afford the expenses!"

"Because you keep gambling and drinking away our savings! At least I have a job and an income! I'm the reason we can still afford to pay the rent for our apartment!"

"Hey, I've won fourteen hundred bits this week alone!"

"And you've lost seventeen hundred this week as of yesterday, Ace! That's a net loss of three hundred bits, not counting how much you lost today, and not accounting for your drinking habits!"

Ace stood up. "At least I'm trying for the big win! If I was just taking in small bets here and there, I'd never win anything substantial!"

"You'd never lose anything substantial, either!"

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck you!!"

Tossing the open bottle onto the couch, Ace stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Despite knowing that he'd taken his key with him, Soft locked the door. She knew he would never really harm her physically, they were just angry with each other. It seemed like every other week, they'd end up in the exact same fight. If he hadn't developed an addiction to the alcohol, he'd be back to his old self; the stallion she'd fallen in love with. He'd been much better with his money back then, making safer, more sound bets. He used to carefully measure the odds and be capable of doubling whatever money she gave him, sometimes more. Not so much anymore. He couldn't hold his poker face while intoxicated.

She made her way into the kitchen and over to the fridge, popping it open and pulling out a container of fried rice. That would be her dinner tonight, as it had been last night. She was emotionally exhausted, and she needed a break. She wasn't even going to bother heating it up, she just took it back to the couch, moved the almost empty bottle onto the end table, draped a towel over the wet spot, and sat down.

She thought herself a bit pathetic, sitting on a pool of booze eating cold fried rice out of a paper box. She began to wonder where her life had gone so wrong. She'd graduated with honours from secondary school, majored in communications in university, and landed her dream job pretty much right away. Everything had looked so bright for her back then.

Then she'd met Ace at a charity event she was covering, and they'd really connected. He'd won thirty thousand bits for medical research, and afterward, chipped in an extra two and a half thousand of his own money, for the purposes of fighting off childhood cancer. She looked at her wall of broadcasting accolades, where the first picture of them together had been placed. She was the one giving him the comically oversized check.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks as she was overcome with multiple feelings at once. The happy memories, the anger she had for him at the moment and the sorrow for the stallion he could have stayed filled her as they all combined to form regret. Her life could have been far different, possibly much better, if he'd stayed the way he was back then.

She was stirred from her thoughts by a knock at the door. She wiped her eyes and walked over, peering through the peephole. She didn't really want to talk to the mare on the other side, but she didn't want her jumping to conclusions and calling the guards, either.

"I'm fine, Biz," she called, her voice betraying her. "It was just an argument about finances, you can go back home."

"A very loud argument," came the response. "The way you were talking, I had to come by. I swear, if he hit you, he'll be out of the apartment complex before he can say--"

"He didn't hit me! We just had an argument. He wouldn't do that sort of thing. He's not a violent stallion, he just isn't very good with money or alcohol."

"Can I see?"

"I'm fine. Goodnight, Biz."

"I really think I should take a look. My husband, he was always coming back injured, and I re--"

"Goodnight, Biz..."

"It's just that I worry about you. You're thirty-five, never been married, and your fiancé is a dru--"

"Go away, Biz!"