I stumbled out of the bathroom. I could feel everypony’s gaze pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. My vision was blurry as tears welled in my eyes.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry you stupid -
It was no use. Everyone could see me crying and they were probably all laughing at me. My chest hurt.
“Go away!” I screamed at the ponies looming over me, “Leave me alone!”
“It’s alright Green,” said Applebloom, “It’s just us.”
“I’m fine!” I sobbed.
“Yer not fine.”
I shivered as a much larger figure blocked out the sun.
“What’s going on here?” Asked Cheerilee.
“Ah think Green is having a panic attack.”
“I’ll be fine.” I grit my teeth. “Just go away.”
“You girls run along now,” said Cheerilee, “I think Green needs some quiet time to calm down.”
I inhaled, and felt the grass beneath my hooves, and the rough, cool, bricks of the wall I was leaning against.
I exhaled. Sweat had soaked into my coat and I shivered; thankfully it didn’t itch.
“I’m okay,” I said.
I want to die.
“Are you sure?” Asked Cheerilee.
“Yes.”
I have to get out of here, everyone is looking at me.
“Okay,” said Cheerilee, “Well I just wanted to see you in my office.”
Oh thank god.
“You’re not in trouble.” She added.
Cheerilee’s office was larger than I expected. It was as wide as the classroom it shared a wall with and almost half as long. One long wall was taken up with pigeon holes and filing cabinets, the opposite wall was covered with children’s art projects; some appeared brand new while others were curling and yellowed with age. At the far end of the room, against the window, was a child-sized cot, partly obscured by a curtain, next to a white locker marked with a red cross. A door next to it led to what I assumed was a bathroom.
“Do you feel like you need to lie down?” Asked Cheerilee.
“No, I’m fine.” I said. “I just don’t want to go back out there.”
“There’s a bathroom here if you still need to go.”
I felt like I did, but I’d just been, so obviously it was just my stupid body being scared.
“I already went.” I said
“So why did you go in the colt’s bathroom?” She asked.
I felt the urge to facehoof. Instead I just groaned in frustration.
“Green?”
“Because I had to pee, alright?”
“What I mean is, why didn’t you use the filly’s bathroom? If you couldn’t find it, it’s just around the other side.”
“Because I didn’t need to pee anymore.” I snarked.
Cheerilee sighed.
“Green, it’s important that-”
A blast of hot air came from my nose and I felt my forehoof scratching at the floor.
“If you think it’s so damn important why don’t you flip me over and check?” I growled.
Cheerilee took a step back.
“You’re not in trouble, Green.” Cheerilee repeated, “But it’s important that I know if there’s a reason you didn’t feel comfortable using the fillies’ restroom. Were the other fillies being mean to you?”
“No.”
Cheerilee waited for me to elaborate.
Fortunately, the bathroom symbols were easy enough to understand. Two pony silhouettes, one with a dress. Unfortunately, I went to the ‘wrong’ bathroom on twenty years of habit.
“I really had to go, so I just ran to the first bathroom that I saw.”
Close enough.
“If you need to use the restroom during class all you have to do is ask.” Cheerilee said.
I cringed.
Cheerilee had been keeping a close eye on the filly during her first class. The fidgety behavior and lack of focus that she had been assessing as a potential behavioral problem, it seemed, had a much simpler explanation.
Thinking back to how painfully shy the filly was, it was easy to see what had happened. Which led Cheerilee to a potential scenario she decided to nip in the bud.
“If it’s too scary to speak in front of everyone, you can just go.” Cheerilee assured.
“It’s fine,” said Green, “I can just hold it until after class.”
“If you need to go, it’s better to just go,” said Cheerilee, “We don’t want you to have an accident.”
I want to fucking die.
She’s treating me like a little kid and- well I guess I can’t blame her when I look like this.
I was stuck like this; and my stupid child emotions had circled back around to crying; and I’d lost any chance of convincing Cheerilee that I was mature enough for self-directed study.
I felt Cheerilee drape a heavy blanket over me. The blanket pressed inwards on my body and helped to ground me in the moment.
If I couldn’t convince Cheerilee that I was mature enough to avoid going to school, maybe I could do the opposite; convince her I was too immature, too ‘damaged’ to attend her class.
“I want to go home.” I pleaded.
“I know you’ve had a rotten day so far,” Said Cheerilee, “But there’s just one more class today and you can go straight home afterwards.”
“I can’t go back to class, everypony will bully me.”
“Nopony is going to bully you Green.”
“You and I both know that isn’t true.” I said. “I was crying in front of everypony and they were laughing at me!”
“Who was laughing at you?”
“I don’t know!” I said, “Everypony! I don’t even know who they are, and they all know who I am, and that I’m a crybaby that they can all bully.”
“You’re far from the only pony to have cried at school.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Why isn’t it the same?”
“Because I didn’t have anything to cry about,” I explained, “And now they all know that they can make me cry and everything is ruined.”
“Did you get bullied at your old school?” Asked Cheerilee.
“I-” I suppose it didn’t really matter what school I was talking about. “Yeah.”
“It’s too soon to give up on ponies you’ve just met. This will be different,” Said Cheerilee, “I promise.”
“Don’t make a girl a promise,” I said, “If you know you can’t keep it.”
“Green...”
“Let’s just skip the part where you pretend there aren’t any bullies in your class.” I said, “I’ve already met one of them.”
“If you mean Diamond Tiara, I’ve already spoken to her,” Cheerilee said, “And she’s going to apologize.”
“Great, so now the class bully has a reason to hate me.” I countered, “Thanks so much.”
“What do you want me to do, Green?”
“That’s exactly the point.” I said. “There’s nothing you can do.”
At some point I’d lost track of the fact I was supposed to be pretending.
“There was never anything you could do.” I ranted. “I put up with it before because I didn’t know any better, but I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Tears were streaming down my face.
“I know you’re having a bad day,” consoled Cheerilee, “But I promise, it’s really not that bad. Haven’t you already made some friends?”
“I don’t want friends, I want everyone to leave me alone.”
I slumped.
“But I know you’re going to force me to go back anyway.” I said. “And if I run away and refuse to go to school, Applejack will get in trouble.”
Cheerilee looked up at a clock.
“Well,” She remarked, “Recess is almost over.
“Great.”
Mind Over Matter? I feel like I've heard of a story titled that before...
Kids are truly terrible creatures. Though in my opinion parents are worse.
I see green was a fan of halo
10687828
I thought I deleted that line...
Oh well. It works I guess.
Uhhh...oh, dear. The downward spiral continues...poor Green!
Hope things don't get too bad for YOU, as well...
Damn...I think Fluttershy has better control over ger panic attacks.
Any updates for the Starwars off shoot planed?
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Funnily enough, that story got an update barely an hour or two before this one did. I had a double take of this chapter title, and that story title.
wow green realy drill'd the hard truth and fact into cheralee there
True, since she did something Diamond has a reason to hate her and will go out of her way bully Green.
If she did nothing, things would just continued being bad and would have most likely have kept getting worse due to Diamond feeling like she can get away with it.
Geez. Feel like I need to reread this story to remember the specifics about your condition, but it sounds like a real piece of work.
I’m not gonna say “I’m sorry this happened to you” cause I feel that you got that enough already. So, I’ll just say, “Let us know if there’s anything on our end we can do to assist.”
10687829
10687828
I mean, who isn't a fan of Halo?
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I’ve never had a Xbox so I’m not, but that’s due to lack of exposure. Pls don’t hurt me.
10687929
I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or to just upright buy you Halo right here and now
10687933
Not my type of games anyway.
well school seems to be going well
10672310
I think the problem here is the way in which you intentionally or not demean others. "Get over it" and "don't do this" aren't exactly used in a polite way.
You could have done, "Don't do this because...-" and then once finished leaving it for the author, or should something happen to leave it open for polite debate. And the phrase, "Get over it" invites some negative connotations.
It also doesn't help when your casually insulting someone with sarcasm when it you can clearly, and easily check someone's stories simply by hovering your cursor over their profile picture. Sure, we can all sometimes make mistakes, but going right for an insult isn't nice. You've been on fimfiction since 2015, you by now should know how to check someone's profile and account creation date.
The way in which you reply to others makes it seem like your insulting others and being a little egocentric. You've stuck to the same idea, that the reader shouldn't have to leave the immersion of the story to figure out a word. Ignoring that you could have used context clues to at least somewhat decipher the meaning while still enjoying the story, you're also ignoring everyone else's input.
You didn't expand upon much upon your own ideas beyond a reader shouldn't have to do this, while ignoring what others have said. Let's say I disagree that it's not the responsibility of another to know what a reader does and doesn't know(which I actually do agree with), I would leave an explanation for why, or why not.
10687943
Aww...
10659006
Bold one, aren’t you?
Oy. As a former bully victim I know the position Green's been put in. You can't win if you say something, can't win if you don't. And even if a parent is brought in on the bully that just makes it even worse, because from the bully's perspective, if a teacher reprimands you for being such, it just makes you angrier and you continue. If a parent is called in and you get in trouble for it, that causes home life problems, and if you're eventually forced to stop because of a potentially dire consequence, then you harbor resentment that could just garner pity, and that's even worse on a bully's ego. Some bullies just can't be helped, and some victims—if they're sympathetic to the bully's plight at all—don't like any of the outcomes. It's rough.
I hope you manage to get to a better position than what you're currently in. I take a lot of medication also, which do terror to the kidneys (to the point where I need a transplant), so sometimes my doses have been dropped to levels that don't always do as much as the doctors would like. I hope you get to a point where you aren't in total misery, because I've been there. Just try to keep a positive outlook if you do.
Oh, poor Green...
Great chapter! I feel like something more than just bullying happened in Green's past life. Poor baby just needs to be left alone and stop being pushed into everything. Hell, she's barely had time to get situated and they're already pushing her to go to school. I feel like Applejack and every adult around her failed her in not letting her rest. If I had a kid who was like this, I wouldn't bring them near a school until I felt certain they could handle it
Stop being such an amazing writer that I have to suffer between chapter releases! No but seriously Green is such an interesting character and I’ve loved the interactions of the characters so far. They feel genuine and natural given the circumstances.
Oooh, sorry to hear about the meds, but beats liver failure.
Out of curiosity, is it a antibiotic? I used to take one for acne which my doctor forgot to inform me was destructive for my liver.
The worst part is that if you try to defend yourself against a bully, you're screwed.
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It's Methotrexate.
I saw this picture on a 4chan thread and instantly thought of this story!
i.imgur.com/vVAXQJC.jpg
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My solution was kind of unique with bullies. I learned the schedule of some of the teachers, where they'd be, and I, it isn't exactly staged because the bully would have given chase had he seen me anyway, but it was kind of. I made sure he chased me into a spot where a teacher would be in a few minutes then I left myself completely open to attack. Wild from chasing me, he started pummeling me to which I put up no defense at all. What eventually happened was pretty much as I had planned. Yes I was beaten up really badly, but the teacher witnessed what was happening and the bully ended up expelled.
After that I wasn't bullied anymore. Seems the bullies really don't want to fight someone who won't fight back, especially if they fear they'd be caught doing so.
10688727
that wont work in schools that have a "no tolerance policy" on bullying because they would expel you too
10688625
Oooh, not the same but sounds like some rough stuff.
Good luck!
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Ahh but I did not throw a single punch. The bully had not a scratch whereas I was damaged significantly. You don't expel an assault victim.
10688862
It's messed up how as a child, you're more likely to get in trouble for defending yourself from a bully, but as an adult, you die if you don't defend yourself from a bully.
I love the Halo reference, especially given how well it fits the conversation. Poor Green, the situation isn't going so well for her. Another great chapter Greenhorne!
Thank you for updating! I really love this story. I am also sorry to hear the news about your health, that really sucks.
Green knows coming events. With AJ thinking green was the subject of foal abuse, he/she could always drop some hints about DT's mom based on "seeing ticks on DT" that reminds Green of him/herself.
If they are "helping" DT, it would get the spotlight off Green.
Don't know if that would count as throwing DT under the bus or saving her.
Poor guy, I hope they realize hes telling the truth soon or their gonna end up driving him completely mad.
10688546
That's because you care too much. Kick them straight down a flight of stairs and own that punishment.
10689245 ...Even proverbial stairs?
10689293
i prefer real ones
That was a pretty good chapter. Sorry to hear about your medical problems though :(
I'm sure you wrote it somewhere, or are tired of explaining it, but what happened? Feel free to not answer that if you don't want to.
Now that Green has defined the box, just needs to find ways to reconstruct it into the geodesic sphere it was meant to be!
10688650
Yeah, that's mine!
I made her a little stethoscope out of some electrical wire and if you zoom in you can read her nametag on there.
Hope you can get cured or get a transplant not sure what your history is there but i love your story and hope that you continue to create.
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I'm not at the point where I need a transplant. I just have enough scarring in my liver that I can't take medication to keep my skin under control anymore.
I'm so sorry I hope you get well soon ❤️❤️
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That's pretty much difference between bully and their prey. Illogically, the policy of some schools of zero tolerance encourages bullies. A bully is one who doesn't care about punishment , despises aithorities and established pecking order: "they peck me, I peck you". It doesn't create a bully, but helps it to grow, the creation happens in-family. And the source are exactly those type of parents whom the zero tolerance policy appeases, they are bullies of sorts themselves.
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I did it with physical stairs, I cannot attest to the effectiveness of proverbial stairs.