It was Saturday afternoon, and Flash was spending it at the gym with his younger brother First Base and his aunt Flare Burst. All three of them were in the middle of one of the redhaired woman’s favorite activities, kickboxing.
Flare let out a series of aggressive-sounding grunts as she relentlessly attacked one of the gym’s heavy bags. A few years of civilian life clearly did little to blunt her Army strong edge. Meanwhile, Flash and Base were paired up with Flash in the mitts and Base in the boxing gloves. Flash was supposed to hold up the mitts for Base to practice his punches on, key word “supposed to.”
“Bro, if you’re not going to pay attention, the next punch I throw is going to land on your face,” First Base exclaimed, seeing Flash drop the mitts for maybe the third or fourth time.
“Oh, sorry, Little Bro,” Flash replied, picking the mitts back up again. “I’ve just got something on my mind that I’m having a hard time making go away.”
“Hey, why don’t you tell us about it?” Flare interrupted, taking a break from assaulting the heavy bag. “If you have a problem, talking could help you figure out how to fix it. Even if it doesn’t, getting your feelings off your chest might help you feel better.”
Flash frowned in concern as he looked from his aunt to his brother.
“I don’t know,” he hesitantly uttered, “I’m not sure either of you will be able to help with what’s bothering me.”
“Oh, come on, Big Bro,” Base scoffed, “It’s not like your problem involves a girl.”
First Base laughed before seeing the uncomfortable face that his brother was making.
“Oh my gosh! Your problem involves a girl!” Base shouted in horror. Flash quickly shushed him when the other gym patrons started giving them weird looks.
Meanwhile, Aunt Flare took her cell phone out of her gym bag and quickly made a call.
“Hey, Mom,” Flare greeted the person at the other end of the phone. “Your oldest grandson needs a little help with girl trouble. I’d do it myself, but I figured he could use someone with experience.” She silently nodded a few times. “Great. I’m putting him on right now.”
Flash gave his aunt a disbelieving scowl as he took the phone from her.
“Hey, Grandma,” he greeted as he moved to somewhere more secluded.
Meanwhile, in a different part of town, Twilight and Principal (formerly Dean) Cadance were in Cadance’s loft. With the two of them no longer having a student-teacher relationship and with Cadance and Twilight’s older brother Shining Armor dating again, the two of them were doing something that they hadn’t done in years, hanging out together as friends and potential sisters.
Their chosen activity for the afternoon was marathoning the old Dolly B. movies that Twilight loved to watch as a kid. They had already finished watching the first three movies and were working on the fourth, Dolly B. as the Princess and the Pauper. Twilight and Cadance had just gotten to the part where pauper Dolly falls in love with the king.
“Once a lass met a lad/You're a gentle one said she,” sang pauper Dolly from the TV. “In my heart I'd be glad/If you loved me for me/You say your love is true/And I hope that it will be”
“I'd be sure, if I knew/That you loved me for me,” the king sang back.
As Dolly and the king continued to sing, Twilight sighed, her mind going back to her last “hangout” with Timber. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was practically a grown woman, and she knew better than to expect a fairytale romance out of a relationship. At the same time, she had at least expected relationships to be beautiful and satisfying, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, dating Timber didn’t feel like either of those adjectives.
Cadance must have noticed how Twilight was feeling because as soon as the song ended, she paused the movie.
“Twilight, is everything okay?” Cadance turned to Twilight and asked.
“Yeah, sure. Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?” Twilight half-lied.
Cadance raised her eyebrow. “Oh, really? If everything is fine, then why was the last song suddenly making you feel sad?”
Twilight groaned, putting her hands on her face.
“Okay, fine. There’s this one thing, but you can’t tell my family about it, especially not my brother,” Twilight conceded as she turned towards Cadance. “I,” she hesitated then continued, “Ihaveaboyfriend.”
“Hold on. What? I didn’t quite catch that,” said Cadance.
“I haveaboyfriend,” Twilight repeated herself, just barely slower.
“Okay, I still can’t quite understand what you just said, but it sounds like you’re telling me that you have a boyfriend.”
Twilight gave an embarrassed squeak, once again hiding her face behind her hands.
“Oh my gosh! You have a secret boyfriend!” Cadance cried out.
“Don’t you dare tell!” Twilight screamed back.
“Okay, okay, I won’t,” Cadance reassured her before continuing, “So, what about having a boyfriend is making you sad?”
Meanwhile, with Flash…
“Hey, hun,” Flash’s grandmother Birdie affectionately greeted from the other side of the phone. “Your aunt tells me that you’re having girl trouble. What’s the problem?”
“Well, there’s this girl in school that I really, really like,” Flash admitted, “but she’s with someone else.”
“Let me guess. You want to tell her how you feel, but you’re worried that if you do, you’d ruin her relationship with this other guy and your friendship with her. Am I right or am I right?”
Back with Twilight…
“I, I don’t know,” Twilight cried, once again covering her face with her hands. “Logically, everything should be fine, but something just feels wrong.”
“Wrong how? ‘I think he’s cheating on me’ wrong or ‘I’m not attracted to him anymore’ wrong?” Cadance asked.
Twilight sighed dejectedly.
“The second one,” she muttered miserably.
“How-how did you know?” Flash sputtered in shock.
“Because I’m your grandmother, that’s why,” Grandma Birdie declared emphatically. “Now, about this girl, what is she like?”
“Well,” Flash began. “She smart, like crazy smart, like Iron Man without the ego smart.”
“Alright. Go on,” Grandma prompted
“She always has a plan ready for just about any situation, and when she runs into a problem, she gets to work figuring out the best way solve it and usually does. Granted, she tends to be stubborn and high-strung because of it, but that doesn’t really bother me.”
“Okay, hun, now tell me what she’s like around other people, friends, acquaintances, authority figures, and whatnot. How does she treat them?”
“Well, she’s pretty, what’s the word, intro-introverted, I think. She’s a little out of her element when she’s in a crowd, and she’s just barely learning how to make friends,” Flash replied, “but she’s willing to go out of her way to help people and show them that she cares about them. In a nutshell, she has a good heart inside of her; you just have to dig a little to see it.”
“Hmm, she sounds,” Grandma paused, processing everything Flash just told her, “pleasant. I can see why you wouldn’t want to lose her as a friend.”
“Let me guess. Since you don’t feel attracted to him anymore, you want to break off the relationship. Am I right?” Cadance asked.
“Yes,” Twilight reluctantly admitted.
“So, why don’t you?”
“What? But,” Twilight sputtered in confusion, “I thought couples are supposed to work out problems and make sure the relationship makes it for the long haul.”
“Yes, they are IF THEY’RE MARRIED,” Cadance emphasized. “Married people make promises to each other that they have a responsibility to keep, one of which is making it for the long haul. Couples who are just dating make no such promises. The only responsibilities that dating couples have to each other are to get to know each other, treat each other with kindness and respect, and to see if the relationship has long haul potential, and it sounds to me like you don’t think your current relationship has long haul potential.”
“But-but I want it to have long haul potential,” Twilight tried not to whine. “Besides, just because I’m not attracted to Timber anymore doesn’t mean that he isn’t still attracted to me. If I break up with him, he’ll be hurt.”
“Yeah, yeah, he probably will,” Cadance admitted, “but let’s flip the situation. If you were the one still attracted to Timber and he’s the one who stopped being attracted to you, would you want him to force himself to stay with you even if he doesn’t want to?”
Twilight paused for a few seconds to think.
“Well, no,” she finally replied, “it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Besides, I wouldn’t want to be with someone who only sees me as an obligation. Okay, I think I see your point. So, how exactly do I break up with a guy while inflicting as little pain as possible?”
“Hun, I’m not going to lie to you,” Grandma Birdie continued. “If you tell this girl how you feel, you risk getting rejected.”
“I know,” Flash replied.
“How does that make you feel?”
Flash shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath in and sighed, allowing the tension inside of him to release.
“She’s rejected me before,” Flash admitted. “Well, not officially, but it still hurt.” Flash took another deep breath and clenched his fist. “But you know what? I can take it if she rejects me. She’s not obligated to want me just because I want her, and even if she rejects me, I’ll still keep treating her like a friend, pain or no pain.”
“Well, if that’s how you really feel about the situation, I don’t see why you shouldn’t tell her how you feel.”
“Uh, Grandma, aren’t you forgetting the whole ‘she already has a boyfriend’ problem?”
“Flash, if she’s happy and content with her current boyfriend, knowing that you like her won’t change how she feels about him, and she’ll reject you without a second thought. If she and her boyfriend are having problems, well, let’s cross that bridge if we ever get to it.”
“Okay,” Cadance instructed. “First things first, NEVER break up through text. Breakups should always, if possible, be done face to face. If face to face isn’t possible, phone or video chat breakups are the next best thing.”
“Alright, so,” Twilight hesitantly spoke, “do I just set up a meeting with him and tell him how I feel?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Cadance agreed. “Oh, by the way, if he ever bought or gifted you any jewelry while you guys were dating, he’s probably going to want it back.”
“Well, definitely no problems on that end.”
“Alright then,” Cadance praised. “Is there anything else you want to talk about before I start the movie back up?”
“Yeah, just one thing,” Twilight tilted her head and eyed Cadance suspiciously. “Why did you and my brother break up after high school?”
“Hey, Grandma, last thing,” said Flash. “What if I tell her how I feel, and she decides that she doesn’t want me as a friend either because it’s too weird for her to have guy friends who are attracted to her?”
“Then, you keep treating her like a friend anyway but give her space,” Grandma Birdie advised. “If she doesn’t see that you’re someone worth having as a friend, then it’s no skin off your teeth.”
Flash frowned at the last statement but nodded anyway.
“Thanks, Grandma. This really helped.”
“Any time, hun. I’ll see you all when you get home.”
“Bye.” With that, Flash and his grandmother hung up, and Flash returned to where his aunt and his brother were still practicing. Aunt Flare was holding the larger pads up, helping First Base work on his kicks.
“Come on, kid! I know you can do better than that! Give me your best shot!” Aunt Flare yelled in encouragement.
Flash smiled as Base struck the pads with a loud and satisfying THWACK!
“Oh, that,” Cadance grimaced. “The short story is that your brother and I just needed some time apart. The long story is that the two of us made the mistake of dating as if we were already married.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Twilight asked, confusion scribbled on her face.
“That’s what Shining Armor and I thought too, but yes, it turns out that dating as if you’re already married is a terrible thing,” Cadance answered. “We wanted so badly for us to be each other’s happily ever afters that we were unknowingly pressuring ourselves and each other to fit into what we believed was the ideal relationship, and when reality didn’t line up with expectations, we would get frustrated with ourselves and each other. After we had some time apart, we realized that the relationship fell apart because we weren’t giving ourselves and each other room to be human and make mistakes.”
Cadance paused, looked intently at Twilight, and continued, “Twilight, every knight in shining armor is going to come with dents and scratches, and if you’re completely honest with yourself, you have a number of them too. Part of being in a relationship is accepting those dents and scratches in another person, and him doing the same for you.”
Twilight pressed her lips into a line as she allowed Cadance’s words to sink in. She wasn’t sure what she had expected Cadance to tell her, but she for sure hadn’t been expecting that. She wouldn’t call Timber a knight in shining armor per se, but she was aware that he had dents and scratches. She just chose to pretend they weren’t there while she tried her darnedest to make sure he never saw hers. Could it be that all along, she had been making the same mistakes with Timber that Cadance and her brother had made with each other?
Twilight pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind as she sat back on the sofa and let Cadance hit the play button on the remote.