Cortisol

Chapters

Alarm
Resistance
Exhaustion

Alarm

I should be happy.

I’m out at the mall with two great friends, friends whom I’ve stayed in contact with all this time, through thick and thin. We’re chatting, catching up, sharing stories and telling jokes and just basking in each other’s company, enjoying the time together. The mall’s busy enough to feel alive, but not so busy as to feel overwhelming. Hell, it’s even sunny outside – that most cliché of symbolisms for joy and mirth and contentment. I should be feeling happy. But I don’t feel anything.

That’s what worries me.

If I felt sad, or angry, or wistful, then at least I’d be able to acknowledge that I felt something. Maybe even process it. At least I’d be able to express myself, even if that expression was done alone. But I’m past that point now.

Too far gone.

I clench my eyes shut to drown out that stupid internal monologue, praying that neither Twilight nor Rainbow see me and that I don’t have to stutter out some half-baked excuse as to why I’m walking around with my eyes closed like an idiot. Or that I don’t walk straight into a wall. I’m not sure which would be more embarrassing.

Yet it’s strange. Any onlookers would only see three friends, three self-assured young women, strolling through a shopping centre without a care in the world. Though perhaps three self-assured young women with an utterly baffling variety in wardrobe choice.

For Twilight, it’s like she’s looked up the textbook definition of smart casual and got it down to a published, peer-reviewed science. A modest plum skirt compliments her impeccably-pressed short-sleeved shirt, light pink stripes perfectly co-ordinating with the magenta highlight in her hair. Her trademark glasses – I swear they’re the same pair she was wearing when we first met – top off the whole outfit as quintessentially ‘Twilight’. There’s simply no other word for it.

I almost stifle a giggle as I look at the girl next to her. Rainbow Dash looks more like she’s looked up the written-on-the-back-of-a-receipt definition of casual-casual, then ignored anything that could be considered effort, or might prevent her from vaulting over a fence if the whim took her. That’s no criticism, though – ‘effortless’ would be a good way of putting it. A sports jacket covers a thin tank top emblazoned with a lightning bolt across the chest – ‘subtle’ never was a part of Rainbow’s lexicon, after all – while running shorts and sneakers back up her ever-present, ever equal parts inspiring and infuriating cocksure look of being ready to take on the world at a moment’s notice.

As for me? I’m pretty sure I embody the textbook definition of ‘whatever the hell I had in my wardrobe today’. Light T-shirt. Jeans. And jacket. Because of course a jacket.

But despite the mish-mash of attire, we still share one common thread. The three of us are all wearing our geodes, hung like pendants, their colours merging seamlessly into our outfits. They sit well on us, I think, and serve as a nice reminder as well. Of simpler times.

Beneath my jacket, though, something ugly lingers. A fresh bandage conceals a fresh, scabbed injury, and it rubs uncomfortably against the sleeve. The injury’s too neat to have been accidental, and the bandage is too well-dressed to have been done on impulse or in a panic. The brush of cloth against gauze against flesh acts as a constant reminder of my failures, past and present; of how I’ve marred myself, permanently and irreparably, all because I can’t deal with my emotions like a normal person.

The hazy fog clouding my brain drags me away from that line of thinking and back into a numbing void of white noise. ‘Haze’ is about the best word I can think of for this… whatever it is. It’s not as though my emotions are unregulated or absent. The feeling is still there, the sensation isn’t blocked out, it’s just obscured. Lost in a thick mist that doesn’t let me see my hand in front of my face, or feel whatever emotion I should be feeling.

There’s that word again. ‘Should’. Someone once told me that ‘should’ is a poisonous word, that it sets up expectations you might not be able to meet. That there is no ‘should’ – you either will do it, or you won’t do it.

Easy to say.

“-nset?”

My ears perk and my heart skips a beat. Rainbow’s gaze bores into me, expectantly. Damn it. I should’ve been listening to her. A generic, one-size-fits-all response starts forming in my mind, but it’s too slow and too awkward. The haze is still there, but it’s pulsing red with panic.

“Uhh…”

Good job, idiot.

“You, uh… you doing alright there, Sunset?” Rainbow cocks an eyebrow, halfway between concerned and amused. Oddly, it’s noticing that tiny shift in expression that brings me back to the world.

“Yeah, sorry. I just… sorry, just spaced out a bit there.” I respond, and it’s only now that I remind myself to try and breathe.

Rainbow’s smile turns into a self-assured smirk. At any other time I’d love it for the challenge that she means it as, the boxing bell to kick off a good-humoured battle of wits, but right now it makes a pit form in my stomach.

“Heh, one too many late nights? Something dark and exciting going on in the life of Sunset Shimmer, huh?”

I can’t do this right now. I can’t rise to Rainbow’s provocation even though it’s all in good spirit. I’m barely able to hold myself together, hell, by most people’s standards I’m not even managing that, and yet I’m supposed to conjure up some witty comeback and insult my friend? Someone who’s helped me, stuck by me, saved me, and I’m just expected to try and drag her down to my level because apparently that’s how socialising works? It’s like I’m right back where I was all those years ago, tearing people apart for fun.

Fortunately, just as the façade starts to crack again, a saviour comes to my aid, dragging me by the hair back up towards normalcy.

“Come on Rainbow, go easy on her, okay?” Twilight says, perhaps just a bit more harshly than normal. Her voice is quiet but steadfast, and Rainbow’s face twists into a mixture of mock offence and genuine shame in response. Twilight casts an eye sideways, offering me a sympathetic glance. A knowing glance.

In a horrible way, I really wish she didn’t.

I want to tell them both that they’ve done nothing wrong, that it’s my fault, but the more rational part of me knows that nothing good can possibly come from going down that path. At best, it’ll only bring the mood down.

And at worst…

“Don’t worry about it girls, it’s fine. I’m just a bit tired, is all.” I try to offer a cheeky grin, but the mass of skin and sinew contorting around my face feels alien to me, and I’m certain that it looks awkward and forced. “You know me, Rainbow: Secrets, magic and rock & roll, right?” The words come out like I’m pricking Rainbow’s chest with the tip of a knife, and I wish so, so hard that I was holding it by the blade instead of the handle.

But it’s enough to defuse whatever mess was about to happen. “Hah! Atta girl!” Rainbow responds, pointing a pair of finger-guns in my direction. I return the gesture and think I see just the briefest flicker of concern across her face, as if she wants to ask a question that no-one really wants to ask. She settles on a genuine smile instead, something reassuring and comforting, and the world comes back to us as we walk on.

I take a deep breath in, the first since Rainbow called my name. It doesn’t help. But before long the tension begins to fade into the background, and everything blurs together once more. You’d think that the adrenaline would shock you back to attention, but it feels like I’ve been running on empty for days now. The moment it wears off, everything drains away and all that’s left is exhaustion. Voices blur together, sounds blur together – Twilight’s saying something about something and Rainbow’s responding with a response. The faces we pass all blend into one another, this smudged mass of murky colours that should be a welcoming sight on a lazy afternoon, but it’s all lost behind that hazy fog.

Four angry purple slashes against a background of green arms cuts through the haze like a scalpel.

I don’t even realise I’ve stopped dead in my tracks until I hear Twilight and Rainbow awkwardly shuffle back to check on me, before a moment later the marks are gone, hidden once more behind a pair of long sleeves. The young woman, sitting alone at a café table, seems to deflate as she lets her breath out through her nose, face twisting into a pained frown. It’s only then that I realise I’ve been staring at her this whole time.

You never stare. You, of all people, should know that you never, ever stare. But you’re still staring.

You’re despicable.

“Sunset, seriously… are you doing okay?” There’s a scratchy voice in my ear that’s almost familiar to me. What’s unmistakable, however, is the hand hovering over, but never quite touching, my shoulder. Credit to her, Rainbow Dash doesn’t force contact or press the issue.

Or she’s just treating you like an unexploded bomb.

Twilight and Rainbow follow my gaze over towards the lone girl, before some vague hint of recognition crosses the latter’s face.

“Hey, isn’t that, uhh…”

“Wallflower Blush.” I hardly even realise I’m talking. All I can see is that brief flash of bare skin, shooting through my mind over and over again.

“Yeah, that’s her! Man, after the whole… what was it with her, the Memory Stone? It was like she disappeared off the face of the planet. Just up and died, y’know?”

I find myself unable to suppress the wince marring my face, nor the brief flinch of my shoulders, but fortunately Rainbow doesn’t notice. My guess is that Twilight’s being polite enough to not mention it.

“Hey, maybe we could go over and say hi? Swap numbers, maybe get some lunch together or something. What do ya reckon, Sun-”

It’s only when Rainbow turns back to face me that I realise my wince has turned into a panicked scowl. It’s only an awkward blink and staring at the ground as means of an apology that stops her from giving me the same look, but really, what am I supposed to say? How is there possibly a way of explaining anything about either Wallflower’s or my own behaviour without giving it all away?

Twilight pipes up, ever the voice of reason. “I think, uh… I think it might not be best to overcrowd her, you know? Wallflower always seemed pretty introverted to me, maybe it’d be best if just one or two of us say hello?”

Ah yes, that’s the response that a normal, rational person would give. Someone who doesn’t see every tiny little social faux pas as an excuse to project their own failures onto everyone else.

It’s agreeable enough to placate everyone, and with shared nods and hugs that feel like needle pricks against my skin, the three of us arrange to meet back up later in the afternoon. But as Rainbow and Twilight leave and I’m left walking towards the lone girl ahead of me, something in the back my mind is telling me, screaming at me, to walk away before I screw this up beyond repair.

Depression clouds your judgement. It clouds everything. It makes you certain that what you’re going to do is a bad idea, and then it makes you do it anyway and you can’t explain why. You complete this circle of self-destruction, it turns out to be just as self-destructive as you knew it would be, so you withdraw and use it as ammunition to prove that you’re full of nothing but bad ideas and you should just stop and not try next time. And in the run-up to doing this bad, harmful, stupid thing, that clouded judgement stops you from coming up with anything that could have any chance of mitigating the damage or getting out while you still can until you blink and it’s already too late and-

“Wallflower? Wallflower Blush?”

I blinked.

The girl in front of me is unreadable as she stares down at her coffee cup – immediate recognition crosses her face but beyond that her expression is a mystery. It lasts for all of half a second, before she settles on a warm smile and meets my gaze.

“Sunset Shimmer, hi! It’s been quite a while, huh? What brings you around?”

I rub the back of my neck sheepishly – an old habit, but you know what they say about old habits. Perhaps it might not be best to open the conversation with how I ghosted her the moment she stopped trying to-

“You just caught my eye, that’s all! You’re right, it’s been forever; how’ve you been?” I slowly move to the other side of the slightly-too-small-for-two table, pulling out the cheap plastic chair on the other side. I wonder if Wallflower’s smile flickers for the briefest of moments or whether I’m just searching for a sign of my failure again, searching for that ammunition. But as quickly as the seed of doubt is planted in my own mind, it’s gone from Wallflower’s face – she seems genuinely happy to see me.

Seems.

We begin the ritual of catching up, the small talk and the life updates, and it’s as awkward as it is well-versed. How life has been treating us, but not really how life has been treating us; what we’re doing with ourselves these days but not really what we’re doing with ourselves. The conversation itself seems to form part of the background noise as we reminisce over who’s kept in touch with whom – a list worryingly but unsurprisingly sparse, in Wallflower’s case – and we go through the motions, rattling off the checklist in an attempt to rebuild a long-lost familiarity. And it works. I think.

And all the while, the image of scar tissue tearing across her arm sears itself into my memory more and more.

Eventually, we reach a natural break point – whether we can’t think of anything else to say or we’ve both wordlessly agreed that it’s not worth trying to think of anything else, it doesn’t matter. Wallflower keeps that pleasant smile, but it’s clear that something’s eating at her. She toys with a lock of her unruly forest-green hair, tilts the cheap, disposable coffee cup clasped in her other hand towards her, either craving the caffeine hit or needing something to hide her face behind.

The cup’s empty.

“So, anyway…” Wallflower still takes a sip of the dregs. “What, uh… what brought you around here, anyway?”

I blink, and suddenly find myself having to concentrate very, very hard at keeping the friendly smile on my face. “How do you mean?”

“I mean… look, I don’t want to be a bitch about this, but…” Her pained expression, just for a moment, flashes to something guarded. Something angry. “Why are you really here?”

“I just thought that it’s been a while, you know? Figured I’d pop over just to see how things have been.”

Wallflower’s silent. Her deadpan stare tells me in no uncertain terms that she doesn’t buy it at all.

“I…” I’m trying to look anywhere except at her. It’s a good point – why the hell am I here? Once again, I’m in a situation that I can’t back out of. Or rather, I put myself in a situation that I can’t back out of.

“I just thought I saw something on… on your arms a few minutes ago. It looked like you had an injury or two, just… just wanted to, I dunno.” The words are falling apart before they’ve even left my mouth. “Make sure you were okay.”

Wallflower’s expression immediately changes, and she locks me with a glare. Panicked tension shoots through her face. Her voice is quiet, cold. Teetering.

“What did you see.”

It’s taking everything just to keep a level head, but I don’t think I’m even managing that.

“Nothing much, I just thought-“

“What,” she interrupts, “did you see.”

My mouth has gone completely dry. This is stupid. This always was stupid. Stupid idea, stupid execution, stupid… what? Empathy?

My arms are burning.

“They looked…” For all I’ve done to myself, I can barely even say the words to someone who’s already there. “They looked self-inflicted.”

Wallflower’s entire body tenses up, her breathing grows shallow. But credit to her – she doesn’t so much as blink. That cold, analytical stare still pierces straight through me, but not to judge. Just to gauge my reaction. A cornered animal, eyeing up its attacker.

“They are.”

It’s only now, five minutes too late, that my brain gets the signal to shut up. But something ugly has been set in motion, and from Wallflower’s expression of barely-contained anxious contempt, it’s not looking to get bottled back up any time soon.

“So…” The green-haired girl casts her eyes downwards, scanning the space between us, searching for the words to kick off this shambles. “So what? You’ve waltzed over here to tell me that I shouldn’t be doing it? As if I don’t already know?”

There’s a hurt in her voice that’s tearing me apart.

“To tell me how they’ll be permanent, that it’s dangerous, that I could go too deep or hit something important?”

Not just hurt, though – disappointment. Wallflower sounds as though she expected me to be better than this.

To be fair, I expected me to be better than this.

“Or maybe you wanted to offer some paper-thin platitude about how ‘there’s always another way’? Oh, or even better, to give me advice? Tell me to draw on myself in red pen like I haven’t tried that a dozen times already, or hold an ice cube like that’ll make all the self-hatred just disappear?”

Wallflower continues her dressing-down, voice growing from scathing to fevered, and to be honest I can’t blame her. I almost wonder if this has been a long time coming for her, simply the culmination of years of others' well-intentioned advice thinly veiling their woeful lack of understanding. In a way, it’s almost reassuring that she at least feels confident enough to tear me apart.

But among the maelstrom of shame and guilt and fear, an idea begins to take form. It’s a stupid idea. I know it’s stupid. But it’s the only thing I can think of and now that I’m focusing on it it’s forced every other potential idea out of my head, like someone telling you to breathe manually so now that’s all you can think about and you hate that you’re thinking about it which just makes you think about it more. It’s a stupid idea, a risky shot in the dark. It could be invalidating; it could be triggering.

I never was one for half measures. But as I reach for my own sleeves, alarm bells are ringing. This is so, so dangerous.

“Look, Sunset, I know you mean well. But to come here on a high horse and try to preach to me is a waste of your time. So you can take your good intentions and give them to someone you can save, because…”

Wallflower trails off as she sees me roll up my sleeves, exposing my own scars. Some older, some newer – she’d definitely be able to figure that out. She remains silent, be it in shock or contemplation, which if nothing else starts to clear the chaos in my head. Breathe, Shimmer, breathe.

Breathe, calm down, and choose your next words very carefully.

“I… I’m sorry, Wallflower, that- that wasn’t my intention. I’m not going to offer unsolicited advice, or try to take some kind of moral high ground, or Goddess forbid try to ‘fix’ you. Because I’ve been there myself. I am there myself.” I raise my hands slowly, partly in surrender, but partly so she doesn’t have to stare at my own mangled skin. “So, honestly, no judgement. I just… I don’t know. I just thought you deserved to know that you’re not alone.”

There’s a palpable timidity that suffuses the air, the kind that only comes about when a conversation hasn’t ended so much as it’s been forced to stop. It feels like there are so many words unspoken, but nothing left to say. I almost smile – I could really do with a cheap coffee cup of my own right now.

Wallflower’s face returns to being unreadable. Either that, or I’m too worried that I’ll just project my own thoughts onto her and so I don’t even try. But the one thing I can tell is that her eyes are locked onto a spot on the table, and it makes a knot of anxiety work its way up my chest and into my throat.

“I’m sorry.”

What?

“I’m… I’m really sorry.” She repeats, muttering only just loud enough for me to hear. Her grip on the cup tightens, almost imperceptibly. “So stupid…”

My eyes widen. Oh no.

“Wallflower, I… no, I’m sorry. You’ve got nothing to apologise for, seriously. I…” What the hell am I supposed to say, that I messed up and hurt her and I knew I would but did it anyway? “I came about this in completely the wrong way.”

The girl bites her lip, but otherwise remains stoic. No, not stoic. Coiled. Her voice changes, hardens, and that anxiety in my throat sinks deeper and shifts towards dread.

“Except I do.”

“Honestly, this was completely my-“

“Except. I. Do.” She punctuates each word, halfway between heaving each syllable out and not breathing at all. “I mean I… what, went on some stupid, hateful, self-destructive rant, tore you apart when all you wanted to do was come over and talk. We haven’t seen each other for I can’t even remember how long, and the first two things I regard you with are suspicion and hate. I assumed you were another holier-than-thou moron who wanted to spit solutions at me, and I didn’t even realise that you… Can’t even hide my own shame when I’m wearing a stupid ugly sweater, I mean for God’s sake, I do this to myself in the first place!”

She barks out a laugh, and it’s as bitter as burnt grounds. “I’ve got a lot to apologise for in just the last five minutes, I reckon.”

I ponder over what’s been said. In a way, it’s worrying how much truth there is behind her words, even though there’s a tell-tale hysteria that’s blowing everything out of all reason. What’s even more worrying is how familiar it is.

It really does cloud your judgement. A thought enters my mind and brings an odd half-smile, half-grimace to my face.

“So… I guess I’d better apologise for the same, then.”

“Wh- what?” Wallflower paints the very picture of gobsmacked silence on her face, and my expression tilts further towards ‘smile’.

“I mean, you said that you… yeah. And, well…” I shrug my arms, just a little, but it’s all she needs to jog her memory. Of course it is – we both know what we’re talking about, even though neither of us have been able to say the words.

It’s like I can see the gears turning in her head, working through what I’ve just implied. Then it clicks, suddenly, without warning, and she smiles. Actually smiles, for the first time since we started talking. It’s a bit wayward, it’s a bit self-deprecating, and it’s very, very well aware at how messed up this whole situation is. But it’s genuine.

“You got me in a bit of a checkmate there, Sunset.”

It’s what you’re good at: Manipulation.

Even that stupid inner monologue isn’t quite enough to rip the smile from my face, as hard as it may be trying. Instead, the tension drains from my shoulders, and the rest of the world slowly comes back into focus. And with it, the clock on the far wall, just above the café’s entrance.

Damn it.

“Listen, I’ve gotta meet back up with the girls, but it was honestly really good to see you again.” I can’t help but squirm in my seat – given everything I’ve screwed up with her so far, I can’t believe I’m about to try this.

“Look, this is a long shot, and feel free to say no, but… you wouldn’t happen to want to share numbers, would you? We could meet up some other time or just, you know,” Stop digging yourself a hole, “chat and stuff.”

To my surprise – no, amazement – Wallflower’s face brightens at the idea. More than that, she agrees. Self-criticism and pessimism are asking why in the world she would, but sheer pragmatism is counter-attacking with that old proverb about gift horses. We both take out our phones and peer down at the tiny screens intently, and for just a moment, we look like a couple of completely ordinary, tech-obsessed young adults.

Contact details exchanged and test messages sent – a lukewarm but perfectly curated ‘Hello, it’s Wallflower’ from her and a… well, a rather me ‘sup’ from me – and things almost seem okay. I reach out to rest a hand on her upper arm. Only as something innocent, of course – a friendly reassurance for when a full-on hug isn’t practica-

The moment my fingers make contact, Wallflower flinches as though she’s been shot.

Her entire body jerks backwards so violently that it sends her a foot and a half away from the table, and the dreadful screeching of her chair on the hard flooring might as well have gouged a ravine in the ground between us. It’s pure reflex – I instinctively reach my hand out towards her. Fortunately, I catch myself at the last minute, locking up like a deer in headlights instead as I realise what I’m doing. Hand frozen in mid-air, it takes all my self-control to not clench it into a fist and punch myself in the face for doing something so stupid.

You touch her once and this is what happens, and your first instinct is to reach out and do it again. That’s not idiocy. That’s malice.

“I… I’m so sorr-“ A raised finger is all it takes to silence me, and I can only watch, heart hammering in my throat, as Wallflower clenches her eyes tight shut and takes a forced, painful breath in through her nose. It’s like the air needles through her as it comes back out in a staccato, her tightened chest doing its best to crush her lungs in on themselves. She breathes in again, almost imperceptibly smoother this time, and that knowledge is the only thing that stops me from completely freaking out.

It takes too long, way too long for Wallflower to regain control of her breathing again.

“Wallflower, I… I’m so-“

“I’m sorry.” Wallflower shoots back, an ice-cold glare locked on the floor, pointedly staring at nothing. It’s scary – not for how I’m worried by it, but for how the anger is very clearly not meant for me at all. All that hope, all that work to rebuild the faintest glimmer of confidence, shattered in an instant.

And we’re both left sitting here, holding the shards.

“I’m sorry, because I shouldn’t have reacted like that, and I know it’s weird and frightening to see.”

If this were any other situation, it’d be impressive just how she can take anything and use it to blame herself. Here and now, though, she’s right – it is frightening.

“Wallflower, it wasn’t right of me to… I should’ve asked you first-“

“You weren’t to know.” Again, there’s an anger, an acidity that burns in her voice. Her arms have crossed over her hunched form, knuckles whitened from gripping her elbows. “You couldn’t have known! How could you have known that my first reaction would be to fling myself backwards like some-“

Eyes tight shut.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out.

I stay silent.

Something’s not right.

“I just…” The girl deflates a little, collapses a little, trying to offer an explanation rather than spit it. “I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise, and I don’t really do, you know, physical contact. I never really have. It’s not your fault.”

A slow nod of understanding is all I can give. Sympathy, not empathy, but hopefully better than nothing. “That’s okay. Thank you for telling me, I’m sorry that I invaded your space, and I’ll remember from now on.” She smiles a little in response, lifts her face up but… pauses. Or perhaps not ‘pauses’. Perhaps ‘hesitates’.

When did I completely forget how to read people?

“Thanks, Sunset, I appreciate it.” Wallflower offers a small murmur of gratitude in response, before her face turns. “It’s more than most people would do…”

Social skills or not, there’s no ignoring the resentment in her voice, and it tells a painful story of its own. But it’s gone barely a moment later, replaced with her characteristic sheepish smile that lifts and… stops, again. Instead, her focus settles on my neck and stays there. It’s like she’s trying to meet my gaze, but can’t bring herself to look me in the eye. But there’s something in her expression beyond the shame.

Wait…

I can’t keep track of all the minute changes in her face, what they might be implying, what they might mean or affect down the line, but this particular one sits with me heavily.

“I should probably let you go, anyway.” She’s right – I’m already late to meeting back up with Twilight and Rainbow, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now. “Honestly, I’ll be fine. Dose myself up with another cup of coffee and I’ll calm right down again. Because, you know, that’s what a bunch of caffeine does to you, right?”

Wallflower’s lack of enthusiasm for the joke matches perfectly with the way she remains rigidly focused on my neck, but it’s still worth a chuckle. In a way, her half-stare feels like an appropriate compromise and seems rather indicative of the situation as a whole – not quite a casual chat between friends, but a long shot from the awkward, stilted, hostile thing that it could have been.

No… her stare, it’s not a compromise…

“Only if you’re sure, Wallflower.” It’s worrying how quickly I acquiesce. Maybe I’ve finally learned exactly where my saviour complex leads more often than not. But it seems to calm her a little.

“Thanks.” There’s a brief cock of the head, an internal debate, ending in a smile that hopefully indicates I haven’t completely screwed this up.

“You know, if it’s okay, I would actually like to meet up again, this was…” Wait, there’s no way she’s actually going to say- “Hm… Yeah, it actually was nice. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after perhaps? Catch up properly, you know?”

It takes a solid five seconds for me to finally extract my jaw from the floor, though the incoherent, dumbfounded babbling lingers for a bit longer. I really didn’t give Wallflower enough credit – to go through this and not just withstand it, but ask for more? Subject herself to this again?

She’s a damn sight more resilient than she appears.

Even though she’s still looking at my neck.

Except, of course, she’s not.

“Y-yeah. That, uh, that sounds good, Wallflower, thanks!” At long last, I stand up from the table, but there’s a lead weight in my stomach that refuses to move with me. “It was good to see you again, and, well, I guess I’ll hear from you soon, yeah? Send me a message!”

The girl nods in acknowledgement with a bob of her hair, a nod that only goes down and not up. I think the movement is making me feel seasick. So I leave, finally and hastily, concentrating instead on meeting back up with the girls, where to go and how long it’ll take me to get there. What we could do afterwards, when I need to be back home, or maybe the idea of staying out for the afternoon and getting some dinner at that diner Applejack keeps talking about.

But the distraction fails, and I’m dragged back to thinking about Wallflower’s expression as I was leaving. That pit forms again, deep inside. How violently she startled when I rested an arm on her shoulder, meaning nothing by it; how she couldn’t look me in the eye afterwards. How hard she had to concentrate to not fall into the depths of an uncontrolled panic attack, and how heartbreakingly familiar the whole process was to her. How that one stupid, thoughtless little action from me tainted the whole conversation from that point onwards, consigning Wallflower to pain and anxiety, only able to bring her gaze to look at my neck.

No. Not your neck.

The world stops.

You got it.

Wait. No.

Took you long enough.

Everything erupts in a sickening lurch, and it’s all I can do to not stumble and collapse right there. Or maybe I’d laugh instead, though whether at my stupidity or my callousness I’m not even sure. It all fits together now, a puzzle that was better left unfinished. It wasn’t that she couldn’t look me in the eye. She was looking somewhere else. At something else.

Not my neck…

Your necklace.

Resistance

That was too deep.

That was way too deep.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

My heartbeat is pounding in my ears. I can barely see straight with how much I’m shaking. This is a mess. My emotions are all over the place, shame and fear and guilt all mangled into this gut-wrenching mess.

But my mind is clear.

Clear enough to tell me to walk to the bathroom and hang my arm over the sink. For all the ways it’s broken, my brain has the frankly worrying ability to see a problem, cast aside every unimportant detail, and focus on the most effective way of dealing with it.

There’s a lot of blood, but it’s certainly nowhere near dangerous. It won’t even make that much of a mess if I keep the wound over the sink. So that gives me the opportunity to get to work. Apply the basic principles of first aid. Get a clean pad of gauze and apply pressure, wait for the blood to coagulate. Tidy up around the cut, wash it out with clean water, pat dry with a clean towel. The wound’s gaping, but again, it’s not dangerous. A couple of butterfly stitches should close it up neatly, probably reduce the scarring as well.

Ignore the sickening feeling of regret that after all this, you might not even have anything to show for it.

Another very important step: Tell that stupid internal voice to shut up. Instead, I let my mind wander in a different direction as I run through the steps, practised and refined to at least a semi-competent degree thanks to both experience and a rather unhealthy reliance on the technological marvel that is the Internet.

I remember back to when I first tried this, first put tape to bandage to dressing to skin, with nothing but a then-bizarre, skinny, hairless limb beneath it. Back when I first came to this world, seeking power and vengeance, a younger person with nothing but anger running through her veins and with an entire world as a target. When I first came through the portal, one of the points on my long list of ‘Things to Do Before I Take Over a High School and Use Its Enslaved Masses to Overthrow the Ruler of a Magical Pony Dimension’ was to learn some degree of first aid, learn how to patch up this new body in case of any conflict or resistance, in case things came to scratches or blows and I had to get my hands dirty. I was many things – arrogant, monstrous even – but I wasn’t stupid.

Or maybe I was stupid, but just not in that particular way. This world, I figured, had the potential to be a dangerous place, and though I was sure that it had at least some degree of medical care available, I couldn’t be seen to be accepting help. One of the first rules of facing down a dangerous, and particularly a dangerous and clever animal is to never, ever show weakness. If you do, it’ll see it and exploit it.

I wonder if that particular item would’ve remained on my to-do list if I’d known back then that the dangerous animal would turn out to be me.

It takes a surprising amount of restraint to not scoff at the memory, lest I jerk the bandage I’m currently wrapping and risk messing it up. Even by my standards back then, how little I intended to learn was pathetically naïve. Simple cuts and grazes were about the limit of what I covered; anything remotely serious and I would’ve been screwed. But then plans fuelled by anger seldom tend to be particularly well thought-out.

A final piece of medical tape covers the padded bandage, and with a sigh that’s equal parts relieved and ashamed I regard the dressing with a critical eye. The faintest stains of blood remain, tracing down my forearm, but they’ll wash out with time. Thinking back on twenty minutes ago, this much tape was probably overkill. It’ll hurt like hell when I rip it off to replace the dressing tomorrow, but better that than bump it on a table corner and split the wound open again. Job done.

It's only now that I realise how calm I am, how that tired, pleasant, sickeningly relaxing haze so addictively swept across the fear and the anxiety and the tension, and replaced hitched gasps with calm breaths, replaced the coiled spring in my throat with a relaxed peacefulness slowly spreading through my chest. It’s horrible. Then I close my eyes and take a deep breath in and let it out and let all the tension bleed away into the drain, the lingering guilt of stained gauze and crumpled bits of sterile packaging kept faint in a distant corner of the mind, like so much being crammed into the bottom of a wastepaper basket. I close my eyes and just… let time pass.

It’s almost like things are okay. Almost.

My eyes open again, and from how my vision is slightly tinted as it re-adjusts to the fluorescent lighting it’s been quite a while. It’s no bother; I didn’t have anything planned. And so with a sense of normalcy that would no doubt horrify anyone else, I grab my toothbrush and prepare for bed.

I drift off to sleep more easily than I have in weeks, and I hate that fact with all my heart.

Someone’s eyes open blearily, heavy eyelids longing for just another five minutes. Why am I even awake, though? It’d be so nice to just-

Another three knocks on the door rouse me once again to something not quite resembling consciousness.

Wait, another?

Makes sense. I think. Guess that’s what woke me up the first time, then. But who in the world would be knocking on my door at… um.

A hand stretches out from warm covers, blindly flailing at the bedside table like a cat batting at a length of string. Fingers wrap around a small rectangle and someone brings it to my unfocused, sleep-crusted eyes. Just who the hell is that outside my front door, and what are they doing there at-

11:36am.

Crap.

Nine unread messages.

Double crap.

I kick the covers off and the relative chill wakes me properly with a start and a gasp. My brain hasn’t quite caught up with the rest of my nervous system, though, and so I make the unfortunate decision to open my mouth.

“Gimme a sec, I’m coming!”

I regret it before I’ve even finished throwing yesterday’s clothes back on, fresh off the floor. A part of me wishes it’s just some delivery guy who’s already dumped a package on my doorstep and left, but deep down I know that’s just an empty hope to try and keep my stomach from forming into a knot for a little while longer. I can’t even remember if Twilight wanted to go out for coffee again – did she say anything yesterday that I’ve already forgotten? What did we even do yesterday? Still, with muttered apologies I stumble over to the door and open it, greeting her with-

I freeze solid.

Can’t blink.

Need to say something.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Not that.

She freezes with me, for just a moment, before her face contorts in pain and her breaths quicken. Wallflower takes a step backwards and she’s just about to leave. Whether in fear or shame, it doesn’t matter.

I’ve tried to destroy what could have been our friendship twice. It’s about time I got to fixing.

“Wait, wait, no, no, I’m… I’m sorry, that…” I desperately rub at my eyes, as though squeezing them straight through my skull will kick my brain into gear. “That came out really wrong.”

She doesn’t move an inch, still halfway to running with her head in her hands and tears in her eyes.

Should be a familiar sight to you. Some things never change, huh?

“I’m so sorry, I just… I literally just woke up. I’m not, uh… probably not making much sense.”

Surprisingly, it’s on this note that Wallflower’s posture changes subtly, her arms crossing over themselves as the girl reluctantly turns towards me. She’s guarded, and probably with good reason, but it’s still an improvement over abject fear.

Thankfully, the power of basic sentence construction is starting to come back to me. “Really, I just… I dunno, didn’t expect to see you here at all, you took me by-“ I stop and backtrack – this isn’t anything even approaching her fault – “I just got surprised. Sorry.”

I barely even pick up on her murmur of “It’s okay”, but hearing her response is calming all the same. Maybe this can be salvaged after all.

At the very least, I can say what I should’ve said right from the start. “Although, I’ve got to ask: How did you even find my address anyway?” It’s genuine curiosity that drives me now, instead of fear masquerading as threat. “We exchanged numbers so I get the messages you sent, but I’m honestly impressed you managed to find me. Uh, whoopsie for not responding to those, by the way.”

Wallflower seems to accept the inroads, a bashful little smile weaving its way onto her face. The arm crossed over her chest moves to rub the back of her neck, but she still shrugs as if to comically say “how else?”.

“Um… Pinkie Pie.”

…How am I entirely not surprised.

But there’s one thing I am surprised by, though. “So, you know Pinkie Pie?”

Her shrug escalates to the point where I’m pretty sure the neck of her sweater starts trying to eat her head. Could that be… could that be sass I see there, hidden among the timidity?

“More like Pinkie Pie knows me. Seems that word travels quickly in your little gang. Uh, and MyStable profile details, I suppose.”

A part of me wonders how that first conversation must’ve gone – how Pinkie could have gone from introducing herself to a long-lost acquaintance to giving said acquaintance my home address.

But then I remember.

Pinkie Pie.

It’s honestly a miracle that Wallflower even made it here at all, and isn’t still stuck at home, frantically tapping out replies to an onslaught of all-caps gossip and heart emojis.

“Wow. If any of us committed a murder, we’d be completely screwed, huh?”

“Hmm… Nah.” Wallflower says after a short pause, a wayward smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. “She’d probably chew you out for half an hour, then help you hide the body.”

I let loose an ungraceful little snort before politeness can reel it back in – she’s got a point, and the razor-sharp wit to back it up. But something pulls at the back of my mind as I look at the sweater-clad girl in front of me, as though I’m missing something obvious. As though I’m keeping Wallflower out somehow, that there’s some invisible barrier between us beneath the light humour and the small-talk. Something uneasy crosses my face as Wallflower shuffles on my doorstep…

Oh Goddess I’m such an idiot. I’m literally keeping her out.

“Oh, um, I’m… I’m really sorry, I’ve kept you out here all this time, I didn’t even…” I find it genuinely impressive how little sense I make in my rush of half-finished stuttering apologies, the flourish of clumsy legs stumbling to one side while holding the front door open just topping off the apologetic mess I offer to Wallflower. “Please, feel free to come in!”

Something wrenches my mind to an ugly place as I think back to yesterday. “Uh, I mean, only if… if you want to. If you’re okay with it.”

And with it, Wallflower seems to take a metaphorical step backwards too, regressing back to civilised pleasantry. “Thanks, Sunset, I appreciate it.” She offers, taking a step inside.

The moment passes, but the shot of anxiety still lingers. I can’t even tell if it was a disaster averted or some figment of my own patronising hyperawareness. Whether I should be careful of what I say, what I ask, what I demand, or whether just thinking about that only serves to insult her. Closing the door and running Wallflower through the layout of the place as though I were an air hostess pointing out the emergency exits, ‘regression’ really does feel like the best way to describe what’s happened to this once-hopeful chat.

It’s amazing how quickly that natural conversational flow screeches to a halt, leaving naught but an anxious spiral in its place.

So do what you always do. Take the same way out you always take.

“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, tea?”

“I’m fine without, thanks, don’t worry about me.” Wallflower responds, halting me in my tracks. This wasn’t part of the plan.

“I mean, I’ll be putting the kettle on anyway. It’s no problem.”

“I’m… I’m fine. Or maybe just water or something, if you’re insisting.” Wallflower, a slight thing at the best of times, seems to shrink in on herself as she sits on the sofa, as if trying to inflict as little of herself as possible on the fabric’s surface. Her voice shrinks along with it, tailing off as she droops to look at the empty table. “I’ve already interrupted your morning, I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have…”

One of those stupid ideas of mine sparks to life. The kind that can only go one of two ways with no middle ground, the kind that’s best delivered via the medium of finger-guns and sarcasm. If it works, maybe it’ll put Wallflower at least slightly more at ease. If it doesn’t? Well, at least I’ll be consistent in failing.

“You know what you need?”

“Hm?”

“A hot chocolate.”

Wallflower just winces in response. It’s like her body is hard-wired to reject displays of friendliness, and it takes all her willpower to accept anything beyond the most basic of polite formalities.

“But not just any hot chocolate. A proper hot chocolate. I’ve got a recipe here somewhere, I know I do, it’s like… I mean I’ve never made it before but I’m pretty sure I got diabetes just from reading the ingredients list. You melt three kinds of chocolate along with the cocoa powder, mix in milk and a bit of cream- oh! Could throw in some vanilla extract as well, I’m sure I’ve got some around here…”

It’s so wildly over-the-top that she can’t help but see the funny side, and Wallflower actually laughs as I run through an increasingly ludicrous list of potential flavourings.

“Alright, alright!” She finally relents, shutting me up. “I’ll have a cup of tea, please. Milk but no sugar, thank you.” She’s still reserved as ever, but at the very least it’s said with a smile.

A nod of acknowledgement, a brief affirmative, a stroll through the kitchen doorway. Something cracks. Something fractures. Something breaks, only slightly, as I let out a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding. The monotonous busy-work of flicking the kettle on and preparing the mugs at least kills the time, but without being wrapped up in that conversational back-and-forth it’s amazing just how quickly everything falls apart. How quickly I’m pulled back to what happened yesterday, or dragged forward to what I fear is going to happen today. It’s like the simple act of chatting away serves as the glue that holds one together in the moment, or maybe it’s instead a potent suppressant, just about able to hold back so much ugliness before it breaches the dam.

Before long, there’s nothing left to do except wait for the kettle to boil. Its odd, crackly rumbling drowns out any potential for conversation, so instead I lean back against the counter idly. In amongst the cacophony, though, thoughts and memories bubble to the surface, the kettle’s white noise acting as the perfect conduit for my mind to conjure up a million different things that I’m about to get wrong.

Hell, how about what I’m potentially doing wrong right now? Is black tea okay? Should I have offered something else as well? Should I have retreated back into the kitchen at all, leaving Wallflower alone in a stranger’s living room?

Why am I even standing like this? Forearm up, fingers loosely curled upwards – even to someone who doesn’t share this particular habit of mine, it doesn’t take a genius to come up with some less than pleasant implications. I really hope Wallflower doesn’t look through the doorway into the kitchen.

So then why am I standing like this? Some kind of bizarre, pathetic attempt at attention-seeking, a cry for help that I hope no-one hears? What the hell is the use in that?

So put your arm down and stand like a normal person, you idiot.

Inexplicably, I don’t.

The click of the kettle switching off fails to snap me out of the trance I’m in, but at least refocuses me onto a half-productive task. Pour the water, then wait in awkward silence for the tea to brew. Wisps of steam curl upwards from the drinks as colour bleeds into the boiling-hot water. It’s mesmerising, in a nothing-else-more-interesting-to-look-at sort of way.

You know, if you wanted to you could just take your hand and plunge your fingers right into the-

I look up. Immediately. At anything else. The cabinets, the wall, anything, and my breath catches in my throat. It’s a stupid idea, and I know I’d never, ever do it. But it’s still unnerving just how easily the thought popped into my head.

There’s a voice from the other room, and hearing it almost reminds me that I’m supposed to be a functional, social person again.

“You know, uh… you really don’t have to do anything, Sunset. Much less anything as fancy as… whatever the heck kind of hot chocolate you were describing earlier.” I’ve thrown the mask back on before she’s even finished the sentence, hastily and awkwardly and showing all its cracks and marks and horrible raw blisters. At least only I can see them. I hope. “Like, that’s effort. You don’t have to burn yourself out just to cater to me.”

I jab a teaspoon in her rough direction playfully, now fully committed to the act. “Hey, I will burn myself to the ground if it means lifting someone else up.” Maybe it’s prudent to leave out that I have, in fact, done exactly that, and on more than one occasion too.

“Hey, if you manage to burn the kitchen to the ground making hot chocolate, I’ll be impressed. Dinner and a show, huh?”

The smile almost makes it all the way to my eyes as I absorb myself in the well-practised movements. Teabags out, milk in, the shrill, bell-like tinkling of teaspoon on ceramic as I swirl the liquid around briefly. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the act of making it as much as the drink itself that can work miracles to calm the nerves, just like it’s doing now.

Maybe if I say that enough times, it’ll become true.

“So anyway,” I announce my arrival as I wonder back to the living room, mugs in hand, “what brings you around? To what do I owe the pleasure?” I pass one of them – only now do I notice that it’s forest green – to the girl, who accepts it with a muttered “thanks” before taking a dainty, polite sip.

“What, aside from the free cups of delicious tea? Yeah, I… hm.” Wallflower jokes at first before she averts her eyes, her face overcome with a calm kind of solemnity. She’s taken the mask off of her own will, rather than letting it reach the point where the chips and cracks start to show through. “I got a bit… well, concerned, I guess. It’s kinda stupid to say it out loud.”

I overly-slowly, overly-gently take a seat next to her – far on the other side of the sofa, I wasn’t about to take any risks there. “I don’t think it sounds stupid, Wallflower. What’s on your mind?”

“So…” Her thumb traces across the edge of the mug as she condenses the swirling thoughts into coherence. The pause lasts a bit too long, though it isn’t to figure out what to omit, what to convert into a half-truth. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“So last night, I was thinking about the conversation we had in the café. And it… Look, I think it’s fair to say that we didn’t part on the absolute best of terms, right? Like, that’s a given, and we can go with that?” She doesn’t say the words hurtfully, or angrily. Just states it, neutral, as though fact. To get it out of the way and move on from there.

A bashful little smile of my own forms as I reach up to rub my shoulder. “I’d say that’s being pretty diplomatic about it, honestly…”

She continues, as though reciting a well-rehearsed and well-refined speech. Maybe it is one. “And I did some weird things, and you-“ Until something yanks back on her, and she’s overcome with a brief panic. “I mean, you didn’t do anything weird, it’s more like-“

“No, yeah, I… I did. I did some weird things.” I interrupt. “We both… yeah. We both did some weird things.”

Fortunately, she relaxes slightly at the disarming shrug I offer her. Mutual self-deprecation seems to be familiar territory to the both of us.

“Yeah, I guess we both did, huh? So I was thinking about yesterday afternoon and I just… I was concerned that you wouldn’t react… particularly well to it. In… hmm.” Wallflower pauses, as though she can’t figure out the words.

Or she grinds to a halt, as though she can, and realises she can’t really say them. “In a few different ways, I guess.”

It doesn’t take a mind-reading manipulator to make the connection.

She’s got me dead to rights, and a deep shame settles in my gut. On top of that, it’s equal parts saddening and consoling to know that there’s a reason she can see right through the façade. My forearm grows warmer as I clench my hand into a fist subconsciously, and for a single moment I worry whether the movement has exposed a tiny section of bandage from beneath my jacket.

“I mean… it’s what I would’ve done.” Wallflower continues, timid, hesitant. “Which- I know, that’s really presumptuous to say and I’m probably just projecting. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-“

“No, you’re, uh…” I interrupt her at that spark of self-doubt. The kind that needs to be caught and smothered before it has the chance to grow into a blaze. “You’re pretty much spot-on.”

She stares at nothing for a moment, her expression torn between fear and resigned acceptance. “I kinda hate that I am. Sorry.”

I can only sigh and shrug to diffuse… whatever’s happening. I can’t tell if either of us is making things better or worse, or if we’re just filling the space.

“Don’t be.” The negative sentiment leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, even though it’s well-intentioned. “Or… I mean, at the very least, I’m sorry too.”

That’s not much better, to be honest.

It feels like we’re in some kind of stalemate. We both know, or at least think we know, but neither of us has the courage to say anything in case it goes as badly as we’re fearing it will, and so the talk staggers to an awkward, lingering silence instead. For all the hesitations and attempts at careful wording, we’re both still stumbling through this conversation with all the grace of someone who’s been kicked in the head.

Or maybe it’s just my turn to shamelessly project now.

I take a sip from the lukewarm cup in my hands, pretending to be doing something useful with the time. Wallflower’s got it right – having something to hide your face behind is pretty nice.

“So… legs, as well as forearms?”

I just about spit-take my tea straight across the living room, my entire body convulsing as it struggles to keep the liquid down. It does, sort of, and as it shoots down my airway instead I erupt into a coughing fit.

“Wh-What?!”

Wallflower is beside herself, hands clamped across her mouth as though she’d spat hot acid at me. Her eyes say it all: That was it, she’d ruined any chance she had, she’d be thrown out and told never to return and she’d leave knowing how much damage she’d done to the one person she’d tried to help. I want to console her so much, tell her that she’s wrong, but these stupid bodily reflexes won’t let me.

It takes a solid ten seconds before she realises that my coughing fit has turned into a laughing fit, and both of our breaths steady. I’m still speechless, though.

“I… wh- how did… how?”

Heart still hammering in her chest no doubt, Wallflower looks more than a little bashful. I can’t tell if there’s regret laced in there as well, but I hope not.

“Your, uh, just now. Your fingers twitched a little, brushed across your legs. Maybe it was a bit of guesswork, but…” Wallflower says, a whisper-quiet confidence in her words.

What else can I do but give her a crooked smirk and an accepting shrug? We’ve come this far, it’d be rude not to be honest at this stage.

“Sometimes legs, sometimes forearms. Half the time… I mean what does it even matter, I guess. Just pick a spot and go to town.” My own words surprise me, and I ugly-snort in laughter before I can reign myself in. “Goddess, that’s sick…”

And yet, as sick as it is, it feels like the ice has been broken. At least I hope that it has, as I continue: “How about you, anyway? I mean, come on, I told you mine…”

That shrug of Wallflower’s returns in full force, sarcasm dripping from her before she’s even said anything. “What, you think I wear this stupid sweater as a fashion statement?” A thumb rubs a spot on her left arm back and forth, as though feeling for something beneath the fabric. “Forearms and shoulders for me. Goodbye, feeling comfortable in summer.” She says it with a smile, though there’s a depressing undertone to the sentiment. Maybe it’s a bit of a stretch but…

“I mean… you don’t have to be resigned to long sleeves, if you don’t want to.” I scour my memory banks for one of those late-night Internet binges. “There’s makeup and, uh… stuff.”

From the look Wallflower gives me you’d think I’d stepped in something and dragged it across the carpet. “Makeup.”

I think her right eyebrow is about to enter low Earth orbit.

“Sunset, have you ever heard the phrase ‘polishing a-‘”

“Oh, no! I mean, like, scar concealer. To reduce their appearance, if it’s something you feel self-conscious about. Rarity’s a magician at matching skin tones, I’m sure I can sneak some advice from her.” I wonder if that’s going too far, being judgemental instead of helpful.

Making her even more self-conscious.

“Only if you want to, of course.” I hastily add.

“Hmm…” Wallflower casts a wary eye to her sweater sleeve, at the muted earth tones of the drab-looking thing. “I’ll think about it, actually. Thanks.” She says, and I actually think she means it.

Then she grips her sweater sleeve, just the tiniest bit, and the air in the room changes somehow. It’s a subtle change, and I’m not sure what it means, but it’s clear that the topic is shifting well away from dark humour and fashion advice.

“So… there’s another thing I wanted to mention as well. If it’s okay.”

My smile falters.

“Of course, Wallflower, what’s up?”

“Look, maybe I shouldn’t bring this up, but… what happened yesterday? With me flinching? Heh – well, flying away really. But…”

Something ugly starts to roil in my gut. Bile, raw and caustic, rises up and threatens to spill over. It takes an audible gulp to swallow it back down again.

“I know what I was looking at afterwards, what I kept staring at, and… and I think you knew too.” A smirk crosses her face but it’s a long, long way from the friendly thing of five minutes ago. “Wasn’t exactly subtle, was I?”

An invisible weight grows to hang heavy on my neck as I’m reminded of what happened; what I caused. Against my best wishes I think back to that stupid little pendant, a crutch to be used as either a shortcut for any real attempt at emotional connection or a powerful tool for suggestion and manipulation. There was a reason I threw it in the bottom of a drawer last night. There was a reason I slammed that drawer closed, hoping it would be lost among the clutter and eventually forgotten.

“It’s not your fault, Sunset.”

She’s right.

That bile rises again. The acid burns my throat.

She’s right and you can’t accept it.

I keep swallowing it, suppressing it, but even I can tell. Eventually, something has to give.

Because everything needs to be about you, doesn’t it?

It’s only when I look down that I notice my hands have balled into fists, shaking with… with something. It’s only by staring into the middle distance and listening to nothing but my breathing that I’m able to unclench them, my fingernails leaving faint divots in the skin.

“I mean honestly?” Wallflower continues, prompting me to refocus on her. “It’s kind of my fault.”

What.

“With how I reacted, I should’ve been more considerate, and I apologise for-“

“No.”

I don’t say it. I spit it, mouth moving before my brain can reel it back in.

“No, don’t you dare blame yourself for this.” I’m on the verge of both hyperventilating and not breathing at all as I try my hardest to ignore the girl next to me, even as I’m speaking to her. “You weren’t the one who caused it, who- who forced themselves on someone without even thinking!”

Something ugly sparks inside me. Something that burns any sense of logic or rationality to ashes. Something that’s been smouldering away for the past twelve hours just waiting for a light – and a dark part of me wonders if it’s been waiting for a long, long time before then. “I mean, they say hindsight’s twenty-twenty, but it doesn’t exactly take a genius to think ‘Hey, that person who’s really introverted and hates confrontation? Maybe trapping her in a room, grabbing her by the wrist and forcing yourself into her innermost thoughts is a bad idea!’” My head snaps in her direction, white-hot anger in my veins, and-

And she’s terrified.

Brown eyes are locked onto me, pupils shrank to pinpricks. Green hands are clenched, subconsciously gripping the sofa cushions like a vice. Wallflower’s entire body is leaning away from me, ready to spring out of my range at a moment’s notice.

The only noise in the world is the sound of my own panting breaths, and the blood rushing through my ears.

People have told me for a long time that I’ve changed. Reformed. That I’ve earned redemption, that I’m not who I was, that my past is not today. But sometimes, it seems like nothing changes. Not in a way that matters.

Sure, the threats, the violence, the manipulation of others is no longer. I’ve learned, or relearned, how to care about someone beyond what I can get out of them, cultivating mutually-beneficial relationships rather than parasitic ones.

But the anger’s still there, the hate is ever-burning. It’s just directed inwards now instead of out. Wallflower’s seen through that now – maybe she always saw through it – and she got burned for it. A spontaneous outburst, scorching those who got too close. Those who wanted to help.

Sometimes splashing water on a fire just makes it worse – the violent action causes it to flare up and spread uncontrolled. Sometimes a fire needs to be smothered instead.

“I don’t want you to blame yourself for what happened.” Her words are a salve, a blanket to the flames I spat at her twenty seconds ago. “I also understand that saying that doesn’t necessarily make it happen. I’ve heard it enough times myself.”

It’s either courage or a desire for penance that makes me look Wallflower’s way again. Fortunately, the anger’s gone, burned up, and only defeat remains in its place. As for Wallflower, though? She looks… contemplative. Like she’s thinking of taking a little risk of her own.

“I mean… how many other people did you do the same thing to back in the day?”

I don’t want to think about it. “I know, I know, it was such a stupid thing to do and I completely-“

But she beats me to the punch, interrupting that train of thought before the wave of self-loathing drowns out her point.

“No, wait. Honestly, think about how many other people’s minds you’ve read. Did anything bad happen to them?”

And I pause, giving it some real thought for the first time in a long while. Wallflower can see it as well, and her knowledge of the conclusion I’m coming to – albeit slowly and reluctantly – buoys her as she continues.

“So it’s unreasonable to take one single anomaly and use that to tarnish something that was completely fine for everyone else.” She shrugs, perhaps seeing a bit of herself in the inner conflict I’m working through. I sure as hell notice how much those words sound like something I’d offer a panicking Twilight, or Fluttershy in the midst of an anxious breakdown. “Of course, you might still feel that way, and that’s fair, that’s valid. Feelings are stupid things sometimes, I guess.”

I almost want to defy her, to keep on that road of self-hatred because… I don’t know. Because it’s the easiest option? The most familiar? But there’s no energy left for that, so with a sigh I just let the last of the bile out. It’s almost cleansing.

“I just… I didn’t even think about it, about what it could’ve meant or could’ve done to you, I just did it.”

She leans closer to me, just a little, and I secretly thank myself for accepting defeat. That spark of self-loathing defiance would’ve wanted to push her away.

“You weren’t to know. Trust me, my reaction yesterday goes way beyond anything that happened between us back then.”

I shudder. Sometimes a vivid imagination is a curse.

“And honestly? Yeah, when you read my mind, you probably didn’t think about it, you probably did just do it. But at least you did something. Better that than constantly dwelling on every potential outcome to the point that you end up doing nothing at all.” It’s an odd way of lifting my spirits – subconsciously offering that I’m not the only one capable of shameless projection.

Wallflower carries on with a weird smirk, the kind that betrays the little wickedness hiding behind her usual modesty.

“So hey, I guess on average, we nearly form a single functional human being, huh?” Before I can keep myself in check, I let out an unexpected chuckle, slightly more than half-hearted. Self-deprecation to the point of self-aggrandisement – that’s a new one.

Wallflower can only continue: “Nah, you’re right. We’re pretty far from that.”

That chuckle grows into a proper laugh. A quiet one, but it neatly reflects the relaxed smile that Wallflower offers me. I can’t tell when the walls between us broke down, but I don’t think I care.

I take a sip of my tea, still just about warm, and for the first time this evening it goes down easily. It’s soothing, a natural accompaniment to a conversation both serious and silly. Wallflower does the same, tipping the mug so that it almost disappears in amongst her wild green hair, before leaning back.

I don’t believe it. She actually looks contented.

For the next few minutes, that’s it. With nothing but the distant sounds of midday life coming from outside and the occasional swig of tea, we sit here and just… be. Neither of us feel the need to fill the air.

It hits me like a brick that my self-destructive internal monologue, normally an ever-present drone at a time like this, is quiet.

“It’s kinda messed up, don’t you think?”

My heart almost jumps at Wallflower, of all people, being the one to break the silence. That far-away, introspective gaze is back on her face, rolling an idea around in her head.

“What is? Aside from just, well…” A smirk and a shrug, another little way of bridging the gap, “everything.”

She reciprocates, a bashful smile meeting my own self-deprecating one. At least, I hope it comes across as self-deprecating.

“I mean… what led us here. How casual this is. How nice this is. I… I don’t know why the thought entered my head: If I had friends,” I open my mouth to interject but she’s on a roll – better not to ruin a good thing over a tiny comment like that – “I’d say that we met up for drinks and a chat and they’d be like “oh neat, that’s cool, so how did you two get in touch again?” And… I’d have to lie.” She hums, pondering the idea a little. She doesn’t seem disturbed by it, just… contemplative.

I think back to yesterday, to the hanging out and the spacing out and the long-sleeved jacket and the tongue, bitten hard enough for me to taste copper. To doing everything I possibly could to hide the ugly truth from Twilight and Rainbow.

Despite the fact that Twilight already knows. Despite the fact that I honestly believe Rainbow would care, would try to understand.

“Hm.” I say as the thought rolls its way into my own head. “I guess there’s nothing quite like mutual participation in unhealthy coping mechanisms to break the ice.”

I blink. Wow, that really does sound messed up now that I’ve said it out loud.

Wallflower giggles instead, before lifting her half-empty mug into the air. It’s an odd sight, this grandiose display rounding off the end of nothing but silence and the occasional reluctant concession. At any other time, I’d think she was raising a toast, but what the hell even is there to raise a toast to?

“To being just as messed up as each other. And to all our efforts in striving to be better.”

It takes five whole seconds of my mouth gaping open like an idiot before I’m able to close it. She actually is raising a toast.

What can I possibly do except respond in kind?

“To being better.” I reply as our mugs clink together. It’s such a stupid thing, and done over such a disturbing, disgraceful topic, and yet somehow the absurdity of it all just makes me smile.

It feels like we’ve come full-circle, back to the casual pleasantries and light humour we shared at the start. But there’s a different air to it now, an ease and contentment that seems to uncoil that ever-present spring in my chest without the need for a distraction or a knife. It’s only a little, and there’s a part of my mind saying that given what we’ve been talking about, I kind of shouldn’t be taking comfort in it. But as I look over to Wallflower, who in a way has been far braver than I’ve ever been by knocking on my door in the first place after what I did to her, those little pangs of guilt don’t hit quite as hard any more.

Then she downs the rest of her drink in what I can only describe as a ‘chug’.

“Well now I’m glad I didn’t make you that hot chocolate. If you’d tried downing it like that, I’m pretty sure the sugar rush would’ve killed you.”

“You’ve got to admit, though,” Wallflower replies, resting her drink back on the table, “what a way to go.” She reaches into a pocket and pulls out her phone, before blanching at what’s displayed on the screen. I do the same, and give pretty much the same response – time’s gotten away from us once again.

“I’d probably better go, I’ve spewed quite enough angst at you for one day.” Wallflower rises from the sofa, and with it, the tiniest hint of that shyness from earlier seems to return.

“I mean, you’re happy to stay for lunch if you want.” I propose. Although it’s way later than we both thought, something tells me to at least remind Wallflower that she isn’t nearly the inconvenience that she assumes she is. “I’m sure I could whip something together, or go… I dunno, somewhere.” Yet that fog’s starting to creep back, and the suggestion falls apart right at the end.

“Thanks for the offer, but nah – there’s day-old soup calling my name at home.”

It’s only a couple of seconds until we’re both at the front door, but it’s still enough time for the uncertainty to return, the fear that I’m leaving something unsaid. Something tells me I shouldn’t bother, that I should be happy with the light humour and polite smiles.

But I open my mouth anyway – it needs to be said.

“Hey, Wallflower?”

She pauses, half-turns.

“I just wanted to say… given everything that’s happened, given what I did yesterday, and through all the awkwardness, it…” I scratch the back of my neck again – damn it I’ve got to stop doing that – pausing before I have the chance to pile any more regrets onto what I told myself would be a gesture of gratitude. “Thanks for coming over, is what I’m trying to say. Really.”

Wallflower’s expression softens a bit, as though reminded of her own regrets and what-ifs of the past couple of days. “Hey, no problem Sunset. Thanks for getting back in touch.”

In quite possibly the worst way you could have.

Wallflower turns back to face me as the door opens, a blast of midsummer heat pouring into the room and intensifying the encroaching mental fog.

“I’ll catch you round, Sunset, yeah?”

Despite the fact that I’m rapidly reverting back to my normal depressive state, I can’t help but put on a smile of my own.

“Catch you round, Wallflower. And enjoy the, uh… soup?”

Wallflower giggles while I briefly wonder how she can eat soup, on a day like today, in a sweater.

“And enjoy… I’m guessing that’d be breakfast for you, wouldn’t it?”

Oh yeah, I’d completely forgotten about that.

Something sparks, or tries to spark – a memory, or a reminder, or… I don’t know. Something I should have said, something I should be saying now, something I should apologise for or a reassurance I should be offering.

“Will do.” But nothing materialises, and before I know it the moment’s gone.

Then the door closes, and all is quiet but for the continuous recollection of every mistake and misstep from the past hour, swirling around my head endlessly.

The spring inside my chest begins to coil again.

Exhaustion

I’ve been staring at the knife in my hand for the past ten minutes. Normally its blade would already be stained by now.

Not stained red as you might think – that only happens if you make another cut close to where you’re already bleeding, or if you hold the knife in the wound for long enough for the blood flow to start. No, normally it’s this faint, almost greasy stain that smears over the cutting edge. Whether it’s fragments of skin or plasma or something else entirely, I don’t even know. I don’t want to know.

But the blade’s still clean. Instead of physical sensation, it’s thoughts that suffuse me instead. Of this morning, of yesterday afternoon, of what went well, what went wrong, what simply went. Of the mistakes I definitely made, could have made, probably didn’t but that won’t stop the ‘what-if’s and the rumination. All jumbled together in this tempestuous mess that’s making me unable to tear my eyes away from this stupid, destructive little temptation.

I know it’ll help, is the worst part. At least temporarily. Will clear that fog, that haze, for a few hours, a few days even. But I hesitate, instead turning my thoughts to Wallflower.

What would she be thinking right now? Is she in the same place as me, dwelling on countless minutia, perceived mistakes that I’ve completely forgotten about by now? What would she feel if she was still here? Shame? Disappointment? Understanding, the kind that neither of us wish we felt?

Or maybe she’d feel the exact same way I’m feeling right now. ‘Conflicted’, for want of a better word.

Or maybe she’s just having a pleasant evening after enjoying a hearty bowl of soup. Not presuming that someone else is feeling the same way she is in the vain hope of explaining away some nebulous cloud of self-destructive thoughts.

My weary gaze travels over to my other arm as it rests on my leg, palm-up. It settles on the spot just below the wrist, and I clench my hand briefly, watching as the tendons tense and flex beneath the skin. It starts to make me feel sick.

That’s good. If I feel sick because I’m terrified of damaging something important, it means I’m less likely to cut.

Or cut there, at the very least. Your thighs are already scarred to hell, so why not just-

Don’t think about that. Focus on that sick feeling, let it keep you grounded, because it’s better than anything else right now.

Really? Better than that shameful, horrible feeling of complete relaxation, of letting out all that tension when you-

Especially that.

And suddenly, through the faint nausea that comes from being made acutely aware of exactly how one’s own body functions, I wonder why the hell I’m here. Not even in the pseudo-philosophical sense of pondering some grand meaning to existence, but why I’m here, right now, in the living room, mesmerised by the light glinting off a blade that for some reason I’m still staring at.

Why the temptation is still there.

Because today went well. It went really well, in fact. Even with the ever-niggling suspicion that it was all a show for the sake of politeness, it’s hard not to realise that Wallflower and I made a connection that I don’t think either of us thought was possible. Over such a messed-up topic, we found something to take comfort in, something worth laughing about.

And yet, through so many missteps. So many trip-ups. So many times you tried to take something hopeful and drag it by the hair back down to your level.

I don’t realise I've been smiling until it’s wiped back off my face. A train of rumination releases its brakes, and slowly it gathers momentum – reminders, recollection, repulsion. At the cowardice, the inappropriate humour – hell, the very first words I spoke to her were about the worst ones anyone could possibly have picked. Making her feel responsible for the disaster I caused at the café, and responding to that by…

I never even apologised to her.

I completely blew up at Wallflower, near as dammit sent her into a panic attack, and I couldn’t even be bothered to eke out so much as a ‘sorry’.

Seems like I answered my own question, then. I think it was better left rhetorical.

And so I’m back here, dwelling on what I screwed up, what pain I could’ve caused, how things could’ve gone differently.

My grip on the knife’s handle tightens, just barely.

‘How things could’ve gone differently’. Now that’s a thought that takes me back a long time.

Not just a different time, though, but a different place, a different world. A different goal, a different mentor… but the same failures.

For a moment, the whole façade threatens to come crashing down. What others have told me, what I’ve told myself, the very person I’d hoped I’d turned into. But give me half an excuse and I repeat history: Charge into battle, get mad when it doesn’t work out, then flee like a coward, filled with the urge to tear something apart. Be it myself, or Wallflower, or Princess Twilight, or…

Sometimes it really does seem like nothing ever changes. Not in a way that matters.

The cutting edge rests against the skin, a light pressure making the flesh deform inwards slightly. All it would take is the slightest movement in either direction. A momentary slip, deliberate or accidental, to succumb to that temptation. It wouldn’t even be that big a deal – the stained bandage from yesterday needs changing anyway, and it’s concealing an ugly, gaping wound that no doubt is going to leave a hideous scab in a few days. What’s another couple of cracks on something that’s already mangled beyond repair?

But the knife doesn’t move a single millimetre.

Because somehow, all the setbacks from the past two days, all the awkwardness, all the failures, bring with them a strange reassurance of their own.

I can’t even figure out why. Is it the sense of connection? The feeling that I’m not alone? A strange, self-pitying, rather pathetic thought, since I was never alone in the first place. After all, Twilight knows. Rainbow cares. But Wallflower? Wallflower understands.

Was it the perseverance? The fact that through screw-up after screw-up, Wallflower kept trying. We both did. Either through a simple gesture of kindness or defusal through humour or just gritting our teeth, neither of us cut our losses when it would’ve been so easy to.

Or is it simple pain empathy? The subtle itch in my arm that always flared up when I saw the scar tissue, and the matter-of-fact conclusion that I’d be cold and dead before I just ignored Wallflower’s struggle, for better or worse.

Does it even matter?

Slowly, carefully, I lift the blade clear of my forearm, making sure not to slide it horizontally in the process. A thin line of blanched skin is left in its wake, and it quickly fades to a healthy amber, uniform with the rest of the unmarked skin. Like nothing had happened at all.

It’s a quiet breath that I let out of my nose, an almost imperceptible unfurrowing of my brow, but it feels like the first movement I’ve made, the first noise I’ve heard for hours. The apartment’s quiet at this point in the night, neither peaceful nor dead. Just still. Pensive. Waiting for a release that never came.

But the blade of the knife flips closed with a snap, and with a trembling resolve I decide to leave that particular release unsatisfied. At least for this evening.

The soft clack of metal on glass echoes throughout my living room with a certain finality to it. There’s still that horrible tenseness in my shoulders, that coiled spring inside my stomach, but even then I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding.

It’s probably too late in the evening, anyway. Just one of the lessons I wish I’d never had to learn: Cutting while tired is a bad idea.

I almost laugh. Of all the justifications, the one that comes to mind is ‘it’s getting a bit late’.

Whatever excuse I can take, I guess.

It’s a bizarre feeling, starting to put away my supplies without a bandage around my arm to show for it. The thought hits me as I’m carrying the gauze and tape back to the medicine cabinet, instinctively holding my arm up at an awkward angle while shuffling across the room. Normally it’d help prevent blood from dripping down onto the floor and staining everything, but without having to be constantly mindful of bumping an open wound against stuff I can’t help but pause to admire the utterly ridiculous pose I’m striking.

I put my arm back down, resting it against my side. Somehow, holding the medical supplies in my other hand, it feels unnatural. Like I’m using the wrong personality for a particular social situation.

But I continue anyway, and by the third trip to return the tissues to the bedside table, it feels like any other evening. Any normal evening. Any evening where I haven’t spent the last hour lost in my own stupid head, desperate to do something horrible.

Spent the last hour wasting time and not even bothering to go through with it in the end.

Spent the last hour overcoming the urge, I very quickly correct myself. It’s not cowardice that I didn’t go through with it, it’s strength that I didn’t succumb to the temptation.

Maybe the next time this happens, I’ll say that and actually believe it.

Coming back to a clean coffee table, untainted by drying red stains and crumpled tissues, it feels almost strange. Some subconscious part of my brain knows how an evening like this is supposed to go; knows what is supposed to happen, what the consequences are, and how to deal with those consequences. Now that it hasn’t happened, now that the plan’s gone awry, it doesn’t quite know what to do.

Twenty minutes spent staring at something that you know is going to happen, and then it just… doesn’t. There’s no fanfare, no congratulations, no reward, because why would there be? Why should I be feeling proud for doing something that everyone else manages on their own with no problem at all?

My mind wanders, once again, to that flash of purple on green.

But it’s not in shame. It’s not in fear. Instead, it’s with the kind of quiet realisation that can only come about when there’s nothing left to focus on but your own thoughts. When you stop, take a step back, take the same broken logic that you’ve applied to yourself for years, and try to apply it to someone else. And even though you’ve known all along that it’s broken logic, that you shouldn’t be tarring yourself with that brush, somehow thinking of tarring someone else with it exposes the whole self-destructive lie for what it is.

Because I know, here and now, that it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I tell Wallflower that overcoming that urge is nothing to be proud of.

And if anyone else tried to say that to her? I think I’d kick their teeth in.

“Hm.”

The sound echoes throughout the apartment as I come back to reality. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing in the lounge like an idiot, but I don’t particularly care – I didn’t have anything planned anyway. I still don’t quite know what I should be doing, but at the very least I’m now able to default back to my normal routine and wind up the day.

Which, in some bitter twist of irony, starts off with replacing the dressing from yesterday’s cut.

But somehow, the act isn’t imbued with the sense of shame that it normally is. Instead, it’s a necessity from a past slip-up, not a reminder of a disgusting failure. A seldom act of self-care and not some pitiful attempt at damage control. Even as I peel the medical tape off and wince at the sharp stinging sensation that tears through my arm, it’s bizarrely, perversely uplifting to know that it’s still the right thing to do.

The context may have changed, but the act itself is as well-practised as ever. Remove the gauze and wash the wound under clean water. Replace the dressing with a clean pad, replace the bandage, replace the medical tape. It’s become autonomous by now, simply a skill learned through experience, and it’s not easy to push back against the pang of guilt that comes from reminding myself of exactly how I gained that experience.

Then it’s done. Wound bandaged, dried blood washed off, with nothing to show for it except a neat square of gauze on my forearm.

But it no longer feels like I’m hiding my shame. It’s just the next step towards healing.

I still look at the used first aid supplies with a scowl, though, cramming them deep into the bottom of the wastepaper basket. Some vain hope that they’ll be forgotten by proximity, even as the injury warms my arm up uncomfortably and makes it impossible to truly ignore. I wonder if I’ll forget about them once the sensation subsides, or in an hour, or a day, or a week. I wonder if I even want to, or if I need that constant reminder so that I don’t forget what I’ve done. I wonder if that would just make the whole thing worse and that what I actually need to do is stop letting this dumb thought live rent-free in my head. Of course, I won’t.

But does it even matter?

One thing’s for sure, though: It takes longer than it takes for me to trudge to the bathroom, grab my toothbrush, and wrap things up for the day. An odd feeling of something close to – but never quite reaching – normalcy, some switch flicked in my brain labelled ‘reset to defaults’, and I carry the feeling with me to my bedroom, until I finally drop my head, exhausted, onto a pillow.

My breath comes out of my nose in short, sharp puffs, just above a jaw that I only now realise is still clenched. And time ticks on, as it so often does in the darkness and stillness of an empty apartment at midnight, agonisingly slowly.

Eventually, consciousness simply stops being worth the effort.

As I finally start drifting off to sleep, I don’t have a smile on my face. I’m still just as tense and restless as before, mind still circling around, worrying about countless stupid minutia that I know it’s pointless to worry about now but that sure as hell won’t stop me from worrying. That urge, that terrifying logic, is still there and I hate it even more than what it’s caused. I’m not happy. I’m not proud.

But I’m not drifting off to sleep with another new bandage on my arm. I’m not drifting off to sleep feeling the stinging warmth of a fresh wound that’s as sickening as it is soothing. I’m not worrying about rubbing my arm against something while I sleep and waking up to red-stained bedsheets.

And maybe that’s a start.