Direct-Access

Sunset?

Wally?

It’s really you! I can’t believe it! Did you know about this?

No, I didn’t! ponyTwilight just gave this journal to me.

It looks just like the one I used for talking with her except this one has a potted plant thing on the cover.

Oh, that makes sense! The one humanTwilight gave me has that sun thing on the cover. You know, the one that’s on all your shirts and bags and stuff?

My cutie mark?

Yeah! So you’re a magical pony now, right? I still can’t believe

Are you okay?

Ugh, sorry, you can’t see it but I’m just smiling and crying right now. I needed a moment.

It’s okay, I needed one, too! This feels so unreal.

Yeah. Twilight just said something about wanting to give me some privacy and left. I guess I scared her off.

Or she just wants to give you some privacy! It’s what the Twilight here did.

She just showed me to my room here, said she had a gift for me on the desk, and left.

It’s been a long morning.

How’s that been? I guess you’ve been there for a few hours now?

It’s been familiar but also not?

I used to live here in Canterlot Castle before I came to your world, which was six years ago and twenty years ago at the same time somehow, so a lot’s changed.

But they’re taking it slow. There’s a lot of ponies they want me to meet, but they’re letting me take all the time I need.

That’s good. I mean, it’s a lot, starting an entirely new life in a new world but also not really.

Yeah, it is! Though I don’t know how I feel about meeting the pony versions of all of our friends.

Did they ever find that pony version of me?

No, still no trace of her since the record of her selling her shop and leaving years ago.

Oh, that’s a shame, I was really hoping you’d be able to meet her.

I mean, she grew up in Canterlot the same time and age as you were, but you don’t remember her at all? There’s no way pony me wasn’t unrequitedly crushing on you that whole time while you didn’t even notice her.

And if you reconnected and fell in love with her, wouldn’t that be perfect? What a story that’d be!

Always seemed like the best way things could turn out for everyone involved.

Ugh, Wally!

What?

It’s just

Really nice talking to you.

I wish you could see the smile on my face.

Me too. Ugh, it’s so lame that we have to write out little words to sound like ourselves.

Like that ugh that I wrote just now.

Yeah, haha.

Oh wow, I can still hear your laugh.

Really?

Yeah, it’s like you’re right here next to me.

Good.

So where are you now? How was your morning?

Wally?

Sorry. I’m still here.

I’m still on the same spot of grass by the garden you left me at. It’s really nice.

It's even nicer and quieter during the day since it still feels like this place should be buzzing with students, even though the school looks like a weird military fortress thing now.

I’m still holding the blanket we slept on around me, and it’s like I can still feel your warmth even though I know the last trace of your body heat is gone by now and all that’s left is mine.

Ugh, I don’t know why I told you all that.

I’m glad you did. That’s what I’d be doing right now if we were switched.

No you wouldn’t.

What do you mean?

If we were switched I could never do what you did.

No matter how selfish it’d be, nothing in the world could make me let go of you.

Not even if it meant that this stupid universe exploded years earlier than it would've.

I’m really really glad I didn’t have to do what you did.

All I had to do was sit here and do nothing. That’s what I’m best at.

I know it would’ve been hard, but I think you would’ve done the right thing.

Then I’d be where you are, clutching that blanket and hating it, too.

No, like I said, you wouldn’t! If you were where I was, you would've said goodbye to me this morning when I left.

I understand why you couldn’t, believe me.

You have nothing to be sorry about for hurting too much.

No, that’s the thing! That’s not what I’m sorry about!

I mean, I’m sorry about that, too, but there’s more!

Me making you leave me here asleep on the morning you left forever wasn’t because it would be too hard for me.

It was because of what I could do.

Do you remember when you and your friends destroyed the Memory Stone, then you apologized to me after I put you and your friends through everything I did?

Then you reached your hand out to me.

Of course I do.

It was the most important moment of my life.

Yeah? Well guess what!

Even when I was smiling and crying and hugging you, saying how much I regretted everything, the whole time I was hiding away a shard of the Stone on me for later.

I knew how Memory magic worked. All I had to do was have a part of me really believe what I was showing you, and that’s all you’d ever see with your Empathy magic.

Even though deep down I could never let go.

I could never let go of having that option if I ever needed it.

Wa

The reason I didn’t go this morning to say goodbye wasn’t because it would hurt too much.

Nothing could make any of this hurt more than it already does.

The reason I didn’t go was because I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from ripping every memory you ever had of me out of your head before you went through.

That’s what I meant when I said I wouldn’t be able to take it.

I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation.

Wally.

So you see? I never changed at all. Not really, deep down.

I’m still the same selfish, fucked-up, creepy loser who can’t stop herself from messing with the memories of everyone around her without their consent because she’s a psychopath who’d rather not exist in anyone’s mind than be a bad memory in it.

So you didn’t go. You knew you couldn’t stop yourself if you were there, so you didn’t go.

That’s the same thing as stopping yourself. I’m proud of you for that.

What? Proud of me? For lying to you all this time?

Even up to the last moments we’d ever share together? Ever?

Well you’re telling me now, and I’m glad you are. And I wish you’d told me last night so you could hear this from my voice.

You really did change, then. You didn’t stop erasing memories just because we destroyed the Memory Stone and you couldn’t anymore. You could’ve kept doing that this whole time, but you never did, not even once! That really means something.

You never did use it, right?

.

I wish I could say I did.

But no. I never did.

I’m proud of you for that, too.

But I never should’ve had that power in the first place. I never should’ve hid it from you.

No, you shouldn’t have. But in a funny way it makes me feel a little bit better.

You know how I worried about the imbalance between us.

I could reach into your memories whenever we touched, whenever I wanted, but not the other way around.

That never seemed completely right to me.

But I always let you do that. I wanted you to.

And ugh, you’re doing it again.

Doing what?

This wasn’t even supposed to be about me, but I still made it all about making me feel better somehow. This was supposed to be about you.

I knew you really, really wanted me there this morning, Sunset. You tried to not make it obvious but I knew.

It’s what you wanted for your last moments in this world, and I couldn’t even give you that.

I took that away from you.

I wanted you there because I wanted you to not feel alone.

Twilight, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and you.

The most important people to me in any world, sharing the hurt of saying goodbye together.

Yeah, so I messed that moment up not just for you but for all of your friends, too.

And if we hadn’t felt you not being there then that would be proof that we all got along just fine without you and you might as well not be in our lives, right?

But that’s not what happened.

You’re doing it again.

Doing what?

Being on my side even when I’m not.

It’s important to me that someone is.

You can’t keep doing this. You’re in a whole other world now, and you can’t even come back to this one ever.

You can’t keep doing this for me!

The last thing I thought I’d ever do to you was take something away from you, it’s not fair to you to keep doing this!

You never took anything away from me.

I knew how to hold you close without waking you.

I felt the softness of your hair against my face.

I couldn’t have asked for a better last thing ever to do with my Empathy magic.

I let all of your memories of us flow through me, so I could live through every moment we’ve shared together one last time.

And because it was the last time, I didn’t do what I usually do. I didn’t feel guilty about how unfair it was that I could never give you the gift of seeing you through my eyes.

I just focused on feeling thankful for the gift of seeing me through yours.

To know, to feel, all of the love you had for me whenever you thought about me, looked at my face, felt my touch. A love as bright as the sun, so rich and warm, filling you up until it spilled over, so precious that you felt like you could never deserve even a fraction of it in your lifetime. So intense than you felt like you always felt awkward expressing it because you thought you could never do it justice. But you didn’t have to. I could just feel it all. Every little bit.

It was the best goodbye I could have ever gotten.

And it probably shaved a few seconds off the lifespan of your entire universe.

Times billions of people, that’s a lot. But I did it anyway.

I keep telling you we have a lot in common.

.
.

You’re not supposed to do this.

Do what?

Stop me from pushing you away.

Stop all this from stopping like it’s supposed to.

You can’t get rid of me that easily.

You should've used that shard on me when you had the chance.

Skill issue, really.

Ugh.

Do you know what you’re cursing us with?

I do.

Do you really? Because I can’t let this blanket go, even though every inch of it that touches my flesh burns, because my body knows that your body is supposed to be there but it’s not, and it never will be again, ever ever ever.

And I wish all those scary science people had their calculations completely wrong and that even with you and every magic pony person gone from it this whole universe would still collapse tomorrow because I can’t stand the thought of just going on for years and years knowing that I’ll never be able to feel your touch again, see your smile again, hear your laugh again.

But I can’t. I can’t let it go.

Yeah.

It just hurts.

It really sucks, doesn’t it?

Yeah.

It does.

And what, we’re just going to have years of this?

This half-life together?

Where all we ever can be to each other from now on are words written on a page?

I'd rather have this half-life with you than any other life I could have had in any universe.

Nothing in the world could ever make me let go of it.

…

I hate you, Sunset Shimmer.

That was very good dramatic use of dots.

The way each one thudded onto the page.

Classic.

Thanks.

Ugh.

Sigh.

Can you hear me sigh?

It’s like you’re right here next to me.

Good.

Sigh.

So I guess we’re really doing this?

It looks like we are.

Great.

But you know, it’ll be really different. It already is!

But not completely!

I mean, this does sort of feel just like texting when we’re not in the same place, and we do that all the time.

Yeah. But that’s dangerous, you know?

As long as I’m just sitting here with this thing, I can make myself believe that hey, we’re just texting while you’re on a trip to Equestria, but then one day you’ll come back home.

That’s a really nice thought.

Some part of me imagines my door bursting open one day with you in pony form coming through to visit me.

Even if that means your universe will start collapsing, too?

Ugh, as if I needed another reason to not be at the portal this morning.

Maybe it was a reason for us both.

I really wanted to see you as a pony.

I bet you did!

But seriously, it’ll be really different. You’re not here anymore.

So there’s no one to stop me, you know?

What if I just sat here and did nothing but talk to you through this journal?

Then it’s not weird that you’re not here.

I saw how guilty Principal Celestia or whatever she really was looked about all this, she’d totally let me do it.

If I do that for long enough I could even watch the grass grow all around me.

You know how much I love plants.

You’re right, Wally. I won’t be there to pry you off the floor when you really can’t make yourself.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no one to stop you.

Twilight and all of our friends are still there.

They’re not going to let you rot in the garden of our old high school.

Ugh, you’re right! They really wouldn’t because they actually care about me and stuff.

So if I lie down here long enough they’ll get worried enough to make me get up and drink water and eat and all that like you would.

Yeah!

Except that they probably won’t make out with you about it after.

What? But that’s the best part!

I know, right!

So that’s why you have to do this yourself, even if it’s really hard.

And I know it is. It would be hard for me, too.

I know.

Sigh.

It’s going to be really hard.

I know. I’m so sorry.

It’s not just this. Not just leaving this spot where I felt your touch for the last time ever.

After I do that, I have to go back to our apartment.

How could I ever change the very last sheets you ever slept in?

How could I ever wash them? Or your clothes?

Wally. Please wash my clothes and your bedsheets.

But how could I? How could I ever get rid of the last thing I have that smells like you?

I don’t think I can! And all that’s just the beginning.

Everything I do, every little thing I change, every little bit just erases more of the last traces of you ever being here.

It’ll be hard. I know. And it’s not fair.

I’m the one leaving you the hard part.

All I can do is be supportive words on a page.

Everything in your world, picking up all the bits of my life that I left behind, you have to be the one to do them now. For both of us.

Okay.

Maybe I can do that. For both of us.

And that starts by getting up from that spot on the grass you must’ve been lying on since this morning.

Can you do that for me?

This all feels so familiar.

Really? I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day quite like this.

I mean, not this exact thing, but just a lot of this conversation.

We’ve had similar ones, similar patterns, like a million times, ever since I took your hand in that parking lot.

Ever since we started dating.

Like when I’d doomscroll on my phone until 1AM even though I could have cuddled up next to you in bed any time and that’s my favorite thing to do in the entire world and ugh I don’t even want to think about how I’ll never have the chance to do that again.

But you’d coax me through letting go of whatever was keeping me until I did, and do it just as patiently a week later when it happened again, and you’d tell me that I am getting better but it feels like all I do is trap you in this endless cycle of gently guiding me to being better to myself, which seems so stupid!

Like why can’t I just learn to be better to myself and that’s it?

You make being there for you sound like the hardest thing to do in the world, but it’s really not.

I love you.

I love seeing those moments when you do learn to be kind to yourself.

When you are kind to yourself.

I love seeing those moments when you’re happy.

And they’re really easy to make happen.

They make me feel good.

You make me feel good.

Wow.

I guess I’m just really lucky.

Whatever I did to you with the Memory Stone gave you the exact right kind of brain damage to have the worst taste in girlfriends imaginable.

Groan.

Can you hear that?

Yeah. It sounds exactly like the one you did every other time I’ve ever said that.

Good.

Okay. I did it. I got up.

I’m now facing away from the spot where I felt your touch for the last time forever.

I’m writing this while I’m walking to the old school entrance. I know Twilight and all the rest will be waiting inside.

I hope you appreciate this because it’s way harder to do than texting while walking. I hope you’re happy.

I do, I really do! I really am.

I’m with them now.

Everyone says “Hi”.

They’re saying a lot of things.

I think I’m going to turn the page and let them write in it, too.

But right now I’m grinning and crying again because this is really nice and it’s like you’re really here, but at the same time it’s very much a reminder that you’re really not and never will be.

And I feel so happy but I also feel so much pain at the same time in a way that feels inseparable, like the happiness can’t exist without the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life happening at the exact same time.

And this is what all of the happy moments in my life, every single one for however many years we have left, that’s how all of them are going to feel like from now on, aren’t they?

How am I ever going to get through it?

One day at a time, Wally.

We’ll take it one day at a time.