Today was really weird. They said they wanted me to go to a special class, and if I did good enough, they said they’d let me out of observation without the restraints. I was surprised at first when they started wheeling me into the medical wing, but then they said this class was going to be a special friendship group with Thirteen and another pony. I was really happy to hear that. I’m almost never in a class with Thirteen. Or in a group class either, really. Most of my classes are just me and one of the teachers asking stupid questions about how I feel about things. Usually I only see Thirteen in the day-room. She really likes her classes. But most of hers are just regular stuff like math and reading. She told me there were some pretty silly classes about feelings, too. I could here Thirteen talking before we even went in the room. There was another filly too, but she was talking really quiet and I couldn’t make out her voice.
Then they wheeled me through the door and there was Gale Storm, with her face all stitched up (honestly, I thought I had done way more damage than that), and she was talking with Thirteen, and for some reason Thirteen was actually smiling. Not that smile she gets when she plays stabby-stabby, either. She was smiling like she smiles when she’s really just happy. I don’t know what I was supposed to feel. I was angry, I guess. It made me mad that they would let that bitch anywhere near my sister after what she had done. But I was confused, because why was Thirteen smiling like that? Why was she talking to that pegasus like they were actually friends? Did she forget that Gale had tried to KILL her? That made me mad again, because the teachers had tricked Thirteen into thinking she was safe around that… monster! I know, I know, ME calling somepony a monster, right? But she had stomped on Thirteen! She actually squished part of her middle flat!
They both looked up when they rolled me in, and the room went silent. I glared murder at that stupid pegasus and for one minute if it hadn’t been for all the restraints I would have torn her apart. But then she just gave me the most pathetic, doe-eyed look of terror, and I thought for a moment that she was going push back right off the edge of her bed. And then Thirteen actually scowled at me, and she said, “Stop it sis! You’re scaring Galey!”
I think that might have been the first time Thirteen had ever looked at me when she wasn’t smiling. And that look on Gale Storm’s fat stupid face… it should have made me feel good, but it didn’t. It made me feel like I felt the first time Z saw me after my transformation when she tried to hide Facehugger behind her and I realized that she was trying to protect her from me. It was a kind of sick feeling, and I found I couldn’t look anypony in the room in the eyes.
Thirteen and Gale did most of the talking. It’s hard to share your feelings when you’re strapped to a gurney wearing a muzzle. But the teacher didn’t seem to mind, and I think maybe that was part of the point. I was supposed to listen. If I listened to the stupid fat pony's sob story so they'd let me out of observation and give me back my day-room privileges. It’s amazing, how far you’ll bend backwards just for a few stupid outdated board games. And as I listened, I found it harder and harder to hate the damn bird-pony.
Her dad… he liked little fillies. He was one of those ponies I would have drained dry and beaten half to death to be found in an alley behind the Tasty Treat back before Mom saved me, and Z, and Train Wreck… back when I was on my own. She tried to tell her mom, but then her mom got mad at her and beat her up and told her to keep her mouth shut. It reminded me of some of the stories I’d hear Carrot telling Z when they thought I was asleep and were all cuddled up. Gale said she started eating more and more, because she thought maybe if she got fat her dad wouldn’t think she was pretty anymore, and then her mom wouldn’t hit her and they could be like a normal family. It didn’t work that way of course.
So then the other colts and fillies started teasing he, but they figured out pretty quick that it was hard to pick on a pony who’s bigger than you. So then she became the bully. After everything she went through she was the bad pony for standing up for herself! I have to admit, it was a story I understood. I knew what it was like to be labeled a monster for fighting back. Finally she couldn’t take anymore, and she just grabbed a knife and stabbed her damned pervert father in the shoulder. The guards got involved and the whole thing came out. Secrets always do. She had finally escaped, but no foster family was going to take a filly who stabbed her own father. Stabbing was something only bad ponies do, after all. So she ended up here.
It’s weird, but it turns out that her and Thirteen were actually friends. They had a lot of the same classes and were in the same friendship group, even. That day in the day-room she was just having a bad day. It turns out that was her I heard screaming that day. She was being rough, but she didn’t know Thirteen was soft like that. Gale Storm doesn’t really have many friends, because of the bullying, and Thirteen doesn’t have many friends because the stabby-talk. And Gale thought she had just killed her only friend. And then I tried to bite her face off.
Because Gale Storm is really a victim. And Pinkie 13 is really misunderstood. But deep down inside, I’m really a monster.