It’s him.
Yup, blinking repeatedly didn’t change that fact. It’s still him.
Of all the miserable timing in the world – shit.
No no no no no I’m not prepared I don’t know what to say how can I even bring myself to look at him when–
“Do I know you?”
I swallow, my hands curling into fists as my nails dig into my skin. I keep them behind me, out of his view. I slowly look up and make tentative eye contact.
He tilts his head. “Are you okay?”
I force a smile, quite possibly the fakest of my life – and that’s saying something, because basically all my smiles are fake. But this one is taking far more exertion to maintain, and even then, it doesn’t feel like I’m managing more than an awkward smirk.
“I’m fine,” I say, lying through my teeth. “Just… a little nervous about school today.” That part’s technically true, albeit the understatement of the century.
“Are you new? When did you move in?” At the latter question, he points at the apartment door I just stepped out of, Room 312.
He’s standing in front of Room 309.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. He knows something’s wrong, he knows something’s weird, I’m not prepared, shit I had a plan and now my plan is ash like all my plans because they’re stupid like I’m stup–
“A little while,” I say, the moronic words tumbling out of my moron mouth. “But I still need to introduce myself to a lot of people. Not many people at school know me.”
And whose fault is that?
He nods slowly. “Uh huh.”
I can feel my heart colliding with my ribs as he continues to look into my soul. Or maybe look for my soul. I’ve had good reason to suspect there might not actually be one there for him to find.
If I had, could I really have put myself in this situation?
Wait, that’s ridiculous. A soulless monster couldn’t have done what I did. A soulless monster would’ve been smart, methodical, goal-oriented. I wasn’t any of those things. I’m just a stupid impulsive dumba–
“Sorry, I’m just kinda surprised I didn’t hear about you moving in,” he says, snapping me back to reality. “Or hear you move in, really. But I’ve been a little distracted lately, and I was at band practice all day last Saturday.”
I nod. I can’t say anything else, because whatever I say will just make it worse.
“But hey,” he shrugs, “if you’re looking to introduce yourself to people, well, I’ll give you a head start. My name’s–”
“Flash Sentry,” I finish his sentence.
Why did I do that seriously why did I do that what is actually wrong with me–
“Yeah,” he says. “Ummm… did the landlord tell you about me, or something? I swear, I don’t use guitar amps in the building anymore, that was years ago, I have a place for that now and everything I do here is acoustic.”
I hold back a giggle. I remember those days. There’d been so many complaints, but I’d never really minded the noise.
Not that I can bring that up right now.
“Anyway,” he says, mercifully failing to follow up on whether the landlord had actually told me anything about him, “what’s your name?”
I should run I should flee I can’t do this I’m not prepared I’ll screw up I can’t handle this I should just run back to my bed and hide and live the rest of my life under the covers and never see the rest of the world again, it sounds so nice and peacef–
“Wallflower Blush,” I say, holding out a hand.
Wait, I’m doing what?
He steps over to me and takes it. “Nice to meet you, Wallflower. Come on, let’s get downstairs. You’re at Canterlot High, right? I can give you a ride, if you want…”
His voice fades into the background as all I can think about is how much I’m ruining this, like I ruined it before, like I ruin everything.
Moving day.
You’d been so excited for moving day, hadn’t you? So damn excited.
Little Wallflower Blush, age 11. So hopeful, so dumb. Because you thought things would be different.
They’d have to be different, right? Sure, you’d only moved to a different place in the same town, and sure, everyone you’d gone to school with at Everfree Elementary would still be at Canterlot Middle School with you, but that didn’t matter. It was a fresh start, right?
You didn’t even make it down the hallway to your new apartment before proving yourself a masterclass in terrible first impressions.
You’d wanted to be helpful, of course. You never much liked being a kid, or being treated as one. So you’d asked to carry a few boxes up by yourself. It made you feel big, after all. Responsible, like grown-ups.
And to start, you grabbed the cardboard container with all the potted plants. A bit heavy, sure, but all you needed to do was take it up the elevator and walk down to room 312. Simple.
You made it just a little ways down the hall after leaving the elevator, barely able to see where you were walking over the box you were struggling to keep balanced, when you suddenly collided with the boy you hadn’t noticed stepping out of the room to your right and, reeling, fell to the floor, losing your grip in the process.
That was a moment you immediately wished he’d forget. And it only got worse from there.
He’d fallen to the floor as well, but he did manage to catch the box – with his leg. He yelped as it impacted, then winced as he pulled the bruised limb from underneath it. You had only just managed to lift your head in time to witness all this, and as it happened you felt your heart sink.
Suddenly the fresh start wasn’t feeling so fresh at all. If only you could make that moment go away. To say nothing of the next moment, when you crawled over to him and started babbling like an absolute idiot.
“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh I’m sorry! Oh no oh no are you okay?”
Seriously, could you have sounded dumber if you tried?
It was only then that you actually got a good look at the boy. He seemed about your age, though a bit on the lankier side compared to most boys you knew. (Then again, you were pretty tall for your age too – stupid pre-pubescent growth spurt.) He had scruffy blue hair and was wearing a black t-shirt with the logo of some band you didn’t recognize. He didn’t seem to have any head bruises, thankfully, but he was groaning, eyes closed, hands clutching his left leg below the knee.
“Is– is anything broken?” you asked, voice trembling.
The boy finally spoke. “No, don’t– ergh –think so, just…” He slowly began to sit up, and his eyes–surprisingly soft eyes, you noticed–opened, looking at you. “Wait, who are you?”
You gulped. “Me? Um…”
I’m only just beginning to understand the gravity of my error in judgment.
Not the Stone – I’m fully aware of how utterly wrong that was. It’s been a full three days since Sunset Shimmer and her friends shattered it in the CHS parking lot, after I witnessed the sheer horror of what I’d wrought upon her in my blind rage. They’d given me what comfort they could, but it had been a long, long weekend of painful contemplation. A weekend to realize how much damage I’d done with the Stone before those final three days, and reflect on the memories that weren’t coming back.
I’d spent much of the last day trying to think through how to begin reintroducing myself to the world around me, how to take advantage of a fresh start.
For some people, the chance to meet someone again for the first time would be nothing short of a miracle. “Clean slate” has such a nice connotation, after all. The chance to do everything right, to know how to avoid the terrible mistakes that ruined everything, to create a relationship built solely on positives.
Looking at Flash here in the slowly descending elevator, as he can’t help but side-eye me and wonder why I’m acting so bizarrely, I’ve realized I’d thought about that all wrong.
It’s not a fresh start.
Maybe Flash doesn’t recognize me at all. Maybe the Stone really was that thorough, on the day when I decided he didn’t need the pathetic waste of space that was me in his memory. Maybe there’s no residual image of the Wallflower Blush he met six years ago, the girl who shared a bus stop with him for years before he eventually got a car, the girl he’d shown off his first real electric guitar to, the girl he’d let pet his dog so much in the hallway, the girl he’d continued talking to even as the rest of the school began to ignore her.
But I remember.
I never tried using the Stone on myself. I can’t pretend I never thought about it, but I didn’t. And so all the memories I erased had a perspective-flipped backup copy, and I’m the disk they’re stored on.
And when I see Flash’s inquisitive face, all of them play out in my brain, a cacophony of images and sound, moments I destroyed for him – but not for me.
This isn’t a first impression. It’s not a second chance. I already met Flash. I already know him. I’ll never be able to pretend otherwise. Because to think of what I have as a clean slate is to ignore how I got it in the first place.
After everything I did, I can’t bring myself to pretend this didn’t happen. I can’t rebuild my life on a lie. The people I stole from don’t deserve that.
Especially not him.
I take a deep breath.
“Flash, I–”
And that’s as far as I get before I’m gagging, choking on my words, tears flooding out of my eyes as so much weight crashes down on me at once. I look away from Flash’s eyes as I feel my knees give out beneath me, and suddenly I feel his arms grasp my waist before I fully collapse.
I’m off to an incredible start.
“Oh my gosh, W- was it Wallflower? What’s happening? Are you okay? Do you need me to take you back upstairs? Do you need me to take you to a hospital?”
Wait, what? Why?
“J-just,” I manage to blubber out, “just take me to school, please, I-I-I’ll be fine…”
He pulls me into a hug. He doesn’t question the fact that I’m a crying weirdo he doesn’t know, who’s having a complete meltdown in front of him. He just sees me in pain and doesn’t hesitate to help.
Is there some unconscious part of him that does remember?
Or maybe this is just who he is, whispers a voice I don’t recognize, one I barely notice as I continue to sob into him.
For whatever reason, you tried to find any way not to answer the boy’s question, as if you could feasibly have kept your name from the neighbor boy you were almost certainly going to school with, and as if there were any good reason to do so. But the truth ended up spilling out of your mouth anyway.
“I-I’m Wallflower. Wallflower Blush. I’m… moving in.”
The boy raised an eyebrow. “You’re my new neighbor?”
You nodded. “312.”
“Oh,” he replied. “I’m 309, if the open door there didn’t make it obvious.”
You weren’t sure if he meant that to be some kind of joke. In fact, you still haven’t figured that out. You definitely didn’t laugh, regardless.
“What’s your name?” you asked.
“Flash Sentry. Can you help me up?”
Of course you hadn’t offered to help him up yourself, he’d had to ask.
You stood up, ignoring any pain in your own body, and stretched out a hand for him to take. He grasped it and pulled himself off the ground – it took some effort on your own part not to topple back over – and got to his feet, wobbling a bit and wincing as he put his left foot firmly on the ground.
“You sure you’re okay?” you asked again.
“I mean it definitely hurts and stuff, but it’s not broken,” he said, flashing a tiny smile as he let go of your hand. “Trust me, I know the difference. This one time, my dad and I were–”
Suddenly, you heard the noise of the elevator moving from the end of the hallway. “Oh no!” you yelled, cutting Flash off. “My mom must be at the elevator with more stuff! She’s gonna see I dropped…”
Not bothering to finish that sentence, you ran over to the box and looked inside. Sure enough, while two of the four plants were seemingly intact, one had tipped over, dirt half-emptied, while the other’s ceramic pot had completely shattered.
“Gods no…” you moaned; a pretty pathetic moan, too, even by your standards. “Mom’s gonna be so mad, I asked to carry these up and I couldn’t even do that much!” You trembled, bracing for the sound of the elevator rising, when suddenly you heard a quiet cough.
You looked up. Flash was still standing there. (Were you expecting him not to be?)
“Why would she be mad at you?” he asked. “I mean, it was clearly an accident, she can’t think you dropped those on purpose.”
“No, I dropped them because I walked into you! And I dropped them on you!” Your face fell into your cupped hands as you physically reeked of shame.
“Nah,” Flash replied. “I walked into you. I wasn’t watching where I was going, I should’ve seen you there. Honestly, it’s kind of a thing I do.”
“Still…” you said with an annoying whimper, failing to look up. Somehow, he didn’t seem to notice how ridiculous you were acting.
“If it helps, I’ll stay and tell her it was my fault. Don’t worry.” He grinned. “Are you going to Canterlot Middle School this year?”
He didn’t even know you, and he was gonna take the fall for you? Even after you made him take a literal fall?
Why?
You finally looked up, seeing the warmth in his eyes. You nodded, despite the lack of comprehension.
“Right on.” He gingerly walked up to you. “Look, don’t worry about this whole thing, okay? It was just a little accident. I’m sure I’ll get to know you at school and seeing you around here and stuff.”
He stretched out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Wallflower Blush.”
You accepted. “Nice to meet you too, Flash.”
I’m finally managing a degree of composure by the time Flash pulls into the parking lot.
He’s already moved the gear shift into park, but before he can remove the keys, he looks at me. “You sure you’re okay? I can walk you to the nurse’s office, if you need help finding it.”
I’m very familiar with where the nurse’s office is, but that’s not the most pressing matter at the moment.
“Flash, I know…” Well, that’s one more word than I managed before. Too bad they’re the wrong words.
He kills the engine, removes the keys, turns and looks at me.
I start over. “Flash, we know each other. We’ve known each other for a long time.”
To my surprise, he doesn’t balk. He doesn’t suddenly gawk at me like I’ve grown a second head. He just… keeps looking at me, and asks a simple question.
“How do you mean?”
If only the answer was simple.
“Well… you know… about all the magic that’s been at the school, ever since that sophomore Fall Formal?” That was a dumb way to start.
He merely nods.
“Um… anyway, I found…”
And I do my best to tell him everything I could about the Stone, and what I’d done.
“...it’s finally gone, now. And now… now I have to start putting myself back out there,” I say, sniffling. “But more than that, I have to make it up to people. Even though most of them have no idea who I am, or that I did anything wrong.”
I realize I haven’t been looking him in the eyes for several minutes now, and I slowly raise my head.
He’s not smiling. I don’t know how he possibly could have. But he’s not horrorstruck, either. Instead, there’s an odd warmth in his eyes. I say odd not because I’ve never seen it before – I’ve seen it plenty of times over the years, in fact – but those were all when I knew him, and he knew me.
Except once. There’s that voice again.
I can see him processing everything I’ve just told him, but I’m caught off guard when he responds.
“So… who were we, to each other?”
I freeze. He wants me to do… what? Six years. He wants me to sum up six years… or tell him every detail of six years? How? I can’t keep him sitting in this car forever. What do I do what do I say how do I–
“We were neighbors,” I blurt out. My brain rebels with second-guesses, but my mouth keeps going. “We weren’t always the closest, and we didn’t hang out in school a lot. You were always a lot more popular than I was. But sometimes we’d talk, and sometimes you’d show me stuff you liked, even though I was always too uncomfortable showing you anything I liked. When we were at the bus stop in middle school, it was always good to have you there with me, and feel that much less… alone.
“And… I’m not really making it sound like we were friends, but in a way… I think we were? I was never sure. In some ways we were almost closer than most friends, the stuff you’d share with me when it was just us and trust me to listen, but then later in the day you’d just feel completely unapproachable. But I’m not good at understanding relationships.” I sigh. “But I do know that… the first day we met, when I moved in, you helped me. I needed help, and you gave it to me. You cared.”
Did I just say all of that? Did it… make sense?
Flash nods, then sits quietly for another moment. The car goes silent again. He looks away, toward the school building, and my head droops. I wait for him to step out of the car, walk off, and never deal with me again.
He turns back. “That was a lot, wasn’t it?”
My breaths are coming in ragged gasps. “Yeah. It was.”
He looks me in the eyes, and, astonishingly, he smiles. “If you want, I’ll be free most of this afternoon. Do you already have my phone number?”
I can barely believe the words I just heard. “I…I do.”
“Give me a text. I should be at the apartment most of the day this afternoon.”
What is actually happening right now I don’t understand how he can do this what I did was cruel and he knows it why is he being so nice–
Because that’s how he is. Don’t you remember?
And suddenly I can hear the voice again, and I finally recognize it. A memory. An instant in time I’d tried to ignore, finally making itself heard against the chaotic barrage of half-lost moments.
The first first meeting.
I swallow as I try to bring myself to face that moment. It continues to whisper at me.
He doesn’t need to know you to see you and think you’re worth helping. That you matter.
But I hurt him–
The first time you met him, you dropped a box of plants on his legs, remember? He still helped you then.
That was completely different–
Is it that different to him?
How could it not be?
Because maybe he doesn’t see someone evil, or stupid, or unworthy. Maybe he sees someone who could just… use a hand.
I don’t understand.
No, you don’t.
The specter of the past dissipates. I blink, and I see Flash again. I try to remember what he’d just said to me.
“O-okay.”
His smile fades. “There is one thing I want to ask now, though.”
Oh. “What is it?”
“You said you regret all the memories you took, and, listening to you, I believe you. But if you don’t mind me asking… why did you take mine?”
I can feel tears well up in my eyes again, but I try to hold steady. Something feels like it clicks as my mouth starts to move.
“Because I… I didn’t understand. I looked at you, and how we were, and… I just didn’t believe that someone could just want to help me, I guess. I couldn’t accept what I had. So I just… took it all away. And that was it.”
He keeps looking toward me, though I don’t know if he’s looking at me. The gears must be turning in his head, trying to piece together what I just said.
I’m still not sure I really get it either. But I think I’m starting to understand.
And that’s when I notice Flash’s outstretched hand.
“It’s nice to meet you, Wallflower Blush.”
I stare, just for a moment. Then I reach out.
“Nice to meet you too, Flash.”
If only for a moment, you felt calm. Contented. Like things just might turn out alright after all.
