Bleachers / Cherrytown / Too Late

A lot more happened that fall.

Daring found herself caught in between her love for chaos and hunger for knowledge, and did her best to keep both needs satisfied. She snuck into parties and knocked drunk creeps onto their back, she stayed late at office hours chatting with her history professor. She used permanent markers to draw crude figures on the whiteboards and spent months perfecting a story for her creative writing class that blew everyone else out of the water (suck it, Zesty).

And then her mom died. And everything seemed to change after that.

Her dad sent a very worded letter expressing his sincerest apologies for her loss and how wonderful a mare she had been. It spelled her name wrong. The funeral gathering was small, but Cheerilee stuck with her throughout, casting reassuring glances in her direction as much as she could.

Her aunts moved in afterwards to help, and eventually they took Daring under her wing. Not much changed in her life thanks to their help: she was able to keep attending the Community College, she didn’t have to move or leave or find a second job.

But something in herself changed.

She shed the ‘disaster’ portion of her name like a snake shed its skin, and instead she threw herself whole-heartedly into writing and studying. The swing in her behavior was shocking and drastic for everyone involved, but Daring didn’t care.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

“Ugh… If this is how they expect us to teach math, then no wonder the average intelligence in Equestria among youth is plummeting.” Cheerilee flipped a page in her textbook with a sigh.

“Uh, actually, I think it must be doing better since you aged out of that demographic.”

“Shut up!”

Daring stuck her tongue out. She leaned back against the tree and gazed at the baseball bat beside her. Cheerilee had apparently kept it after Daring abandoned it all those years ago, and now it seemed to follow them around when they hung out. Sometimes it just felt good to have it in her hooves, to take a few swings with it at nothing.

Cheerilee sighed and shut her book, pushing it aside and rolling onto her back to stare at the sky. “The more I learn about education, the less I want to do it.”

“Then just don’t be a teacher.”

Cheerilee scoffed. “That’s easy for you to say, miss stay-at-home-writer.”

Daring ignored that and opened her notebook to doodle in the margins.

“Anyways. What’s next for you?”

“Uh…” Daring’s pen danced around the page, finishing up a drawing she had started in her statistics class. It featured a pony sitting on a large staircase, in front of a worn brick building. Their head was in their hooves, tears dripping onto the stairs below them. “What do you mean?”

She glanced up over the edge of her book and caught Cheerilee’s gaze. Her friend’s eyes were half-lidded, lazy almost. Quiet, tired, yet still full of life and joy. “Y’know,” she said. “It’s our last year here before the transfer window opens. You going to apply somewhere?”

“Uh…” Daring found herself wandering through Cheerilee’s eyes. She walked past her old apartment, staring up at the window where she could see her mother sitting and crying at the dinner table. She passed the baseball field where they had first encountered one another. But past home plate… There was nothing. “I dunno. Maybe.” She shook her head in shock, yanking herself back to the grassy yard in front of the campus’ main hall. “I’m guessing you are, though?”

“Mm.” Cheerilee rolled over onto her stomach. “Going to have to, if I ever want to land a teaching job somewhere.”

Daring chewed her lip in thought. “Makes sense, I guess. I haven’t really thought about what I’m doing next. I don’t even think I’ve thought about what’s happening tomorrow.”

“Well… Nothing wrong with going one day at a time, I guess.” Cheerilee sighed, her eyes softer than they usually were. “I was worried about you for a while. I’m… Glad you’re doing better.”

“...Me too.”

Daring looked down at her notebook, at the drawing. Then back up at Cheerilee. Then down at her notebook again. She hadn’t just drawn any mare… Daring had absentmindedly drawn Cheerilee.

Sitting on the front steps.

Crying her eyes out.

Something kicked at her chest from within. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart beat a little faster. Fuck. It was something… strange. Something she hadn’t ever felt before. She watched as Cheerilee smiled and stretched, opening her textbook again. “Hey… I’m always here for you if you need anything.”

“T-Thanks.”

Daring turned a page in her book, but her mind had ground to a halt. It was caught up with her drawing, and of the earlier image of Cheerilee laying on her back, looking at her in that strange, calming way. Did it mean something?

It had to.

Was this…

Was she…

She took her pencil and wrote the only thought that entered her mind: I don’t know what happens tomorrow. But I want to find it with you.