“Hey, Sweetie Belle. Wanna skip class?”
What the hell am I doing?
The April air is cool. And for some reason, I’m headed north out of the city on a bus with Diamond Tiara. It doesn’t make sense that she’d want to ditch school. It didn’t fit her brand. She was the self-stylized “princess” of Canterlot High, the richest and most fashionable girl in tenth grade.
She cared a lot about appearances. In fact, on the rare occasion that we talked, it was always about fashion and what I’d be modeling for my sister. Today, she’s immaculately dressed in a flower skirt and a cropped Madoka Magica t-shirt, with ironed hair that curled to her shoulders.
“Where are we going?” I ask her. “And why me?”
She shrugs. “Maybe I just wanted your company.”
“Bull. You have Silver Spoon and a dozen groupies. Try again.”
Tiara thinks for a while. “I figured you wouldn’t rat me out. I like my friends, don’t get me wrong, but I know them too well. Silver Spoon means well, but sometimes it’s hard to know. As weird as it may sound, I trust you to do the right thing.”
The right thing? “What do you mean?” I ask.
But Tiara deflects. “Heads up, this is our stop.”
I look over to where she’s pointing. We’re at Whitetail Village, just outside Canterlot City. There’s an Old Town here, two streets of western-themed antique shops, bars, and restaurants.
“Thanks for coming with,” Tiara says in an almost shaky voice as we step off the bus. “It’s hard to explain, but I promise, there’s a good reason. You’ll understand.”
What can I say? It’s hard to say no to Diamond Tiara. Pretty soon we’re strutting down the street with Oreo-creme ice-cream cups. We eat at a retro 70s diner on the edge of the Old Town—not really western-themed, but neither were the Toyota SUVs in the car park. I order something called a “Breakfast Explosion,” a burger made of waffles, thick-cut ham, sliced sausage, and bacon. Tiara orders a salad, a loaded hot dog, and a classic cheeseburger. Extra pickles.
After that we go shopping. There are some antique shops selling really cute—and cheap—old-fashioned dresses, the perfect thing for a cottage-core look. I fork over a twenty-dollar bill to the clerk for three dresses.
“Did you know they do sales every Friday?” I ask Tiara as I come out of the store. “I think I might do this a few more times. Diamond?” I look around and she’s not waiting for me by the door. I don’t see her anywhere.
After a few minutes, I feel stupid. Of course she didn’t trust her friends, they were just like her. Is this some kind of joke, or did I bore her? Standing there with an armful of dresses I didn’t know what to do.
The bus station is crowded in the Old Town, so I keep going.
I keep going until I cross the street and see the roof of the AMC theater in the distance.
I keep going until I find Diamond Tiara standing alone at a gas station next to a McDonald’s. Across the street she’s looking at a three-floor building. The big sign at the side lists dental, cryotherapy, pediatric urgent care. She ignores all of them, staring instead at the entrance to the clinic on the first floor. It’s a Planned Parenthood.
“Tiara?” I ask, the rest of the words stick in my throat. “Why am I here?”
“No one else can know.” She has this sick look of dread.
It’s early, but I look across the street and I can pick out a handful of people with signs. “It’s not too late,” they say. “Every life is worth it.” Some are worse.
Diamond Tiara grabs my wrist. “No one else can know,” she repeats.
I simply give her a nod without asking anything, though she reads my mind and gives me an answer anyway. “It was at that dumb party I threw when my parents were out. I could’ve sworn we used protection, but I might’ve been too drunk to check. Maybe I didn’t put it on him right, or it broke, or slipped off. I don’t fucking know. I just—” She pulls at her perfectly curled hair. “I just want to get this over with.”
“Hey, chin up,” I put my arm on her shoulder. “You’re getting through this.”
I walk her across the street into the parking lot, where one of the protesters, a lady in her forties, jogs up to us and shoves a pamphlet into my hands. It reads, “Equality begins in the womb,” over an image of an embryo.
“Thanks, but we’re fine,” I tell her, pushing it back into the stack she’s carrying.
She shoots me this nasty look like I spat in her coffee. “How old are you two, anyway?”
“None of your business,” Tiara snaps. We almost walk away without a scene, before Tiara turns and yells at the woman. “Bitch!” Before the other protesters can reinforce their vanguard, I pick up the pace and lead Tiara into the clinic.
What happened next was almost surreally normal. I sit down in the lobby and watch Diamond Tiara go up to the front desk. She talks for a few minutes, suddenly on the verge of tears, but the clerk manages to calm her down.
Tiara receives some forms to fill and then she sits down next to me. “So, they’re going to run some lab tests and do an ultrasound. It’s going to take a while, so you don’t have to wait. Just having someone help me through the door was enough.”
I nod, but I don’t get up from my seat. Instead, I pull my phone out and find something to pass the time with. “I already committed when I ditched class,” I tell her. “So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait.”
“Thanks,” Tiara says with a smile. “You’re a good friend.”
