You Can't Help Who You Love

by Feather Flyer

Mr. Melody's Words of Wisdom

The soft ring of guitar chords sounded in the otherwise silent room. Shimmer's fingers strummed the strings slowly as she absentmindedly played. She sat on a stool and stared at the floor. It was round near the end of her weekly music lesson with Mr. Melody. Her tutor packed away his instrument slowly. Glancing behind him, he saw Shimmer idly plucking and playing. He frowned. All throughout the lesson she had been acting that way. She seemed distracted. Not paying attention to half of what he was saying, staring into space, nodding her head and humming in agreement without even registering that he was asking a question...All this was troublesome.

Usually, Shimmer was bright and happy to play with him and learn something new. The two of them would cover a lot of music in just one day, the sounds of their guitars bouncing, echoing, and intertwining to create a beautiful piece. But not today. She wasn't there. Sure her body was but not her mind. Mr. Melody sighed before turning to face his tutee.

"Shimmer."

"Hmm." Strum. Pluck.

"Is something on your mind?"

"Hmm." Ting. Pluck.

"Are you even listening??"

"Hmm." Bum. Bum. Dwang.

Mr. Melody placed his hand over the fingerboard of her guitar, resulting in some sour notes. Dwop. Bah-doing. Shimmer looked up at him, her attention fully on the man before her. Seeing his unhappy expression she sighed. No words of explanation needed to be said. It was obvious.

"Gee, I'm sorry, Mr. Melody..."

He moved his hand away from the guitar and sat back in his chair. His grey eyes studied her in puzzlement. He brushed a hand over his slicked back hair.

"Tell me what's wrong."

Shimmer tapped two fingers on the instrument tucked under her arm.

"Nothing..."

Glancing at him, she could see he thought differently. His upper lip twitched, the stylish mustache sitting atop it slanting in a way that accentuated his expression. The I'm Not Buying It look. Shimmer smiled sheepishly. He was giving her the same look her own father would give her in this kind of situation.

"Young lady, you may not think I know when you've got something troubling on your mind but I know. I've raised my little Octavia for fifteen years now. I'd say I'm an expert at this," Mr. Melody said in a slightly prideful tone all the while being serious.

Shimmer nodded and smiled. "Yeah, you're right. I do have something bothering me."

"Do tell."

"Well..."

Shimmer stood up from her stool and placed her guitar in the open case beside it. "I...know this girl who...she kind of messed things up? Between me and my friends, that is..."

Mr. Melody raised an eyebrow. She continued, avoiding his gaze.

"I had two friends. You know of them, Mr. Melody. Sugar Belle and Double Diamond. Well, this other girl in a really...really weird way made things out so it looked as though I caused tension between the three of us. They kind of formed this two member hate club or something and...hated me. Then, at the, uh, the Spring Fling, I tried to get them to be my friends again. But it turned out that..."

Shimmer sighed and said in one breath, "It turned out they started dating through their shared hate toward me but the hate they felt was really toward that other girl but they didn't know that so everything got awkward and it would never work out for us to be friends again since we'd all be thinking about that."

The girl rubbed the varnish on her guitar as she squirmed. She bit her lip as her teacher said nothing. In her mind's eye, she could see him sitting there with his eyes closed, arms crossed, and the most stern expression on his face. Mr. Melody was a tough guy to crack when it came to emotions. At first when she started her lessons, Shimmer felt uncomfortable with his serious face and extreme levels of pride and judgmental eyes. But after a while, Mr. Melody softened up and became like an uncle to her. Shimmer had met his daughter at least twice but that was beside the point.

Even though her teacher was a nice guy when you got to know him, you could never tell how he would react to things. So Shimmer crossed her fingers and toes and hoped he wouldn't go into lecture mode like when she missed a chord.

"All I have to say to you is this..." Mr. Melody began slowly.

Shimmer turned around, her worried expression contrasting with his bored/serious one. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

"Your friends are losers."

"...What?"

"Your friends are losers."

Shimmer stared at her mentor in disbelief and wonder. Mr. Melody started talking keeping an emotionless face but having a lively voice full of irritation.

"Think about it. If they ditched you after whatever that girl did then they don't know you. They don't really know what kind of person you are. I'm not too sure what happened in detail since you were being vague, but regardless, only true friends would stay by your side. Sugar Bomb and Double Dunce were even stupid enough to use the excuse of 'hating you' to date! Come on, how dumb can you be??"

Shimmer's shock quickly turned into amusement and she stifled a laugh. "It's Sugar Belle and Double Diamond, Mr. Melody."

"Oh, right. Spice Bitch and Dubious Dickhead," the man said sourly.

Shimmer erupted in laughter.

"MR. MELODY!!!!!!"

He shrugged and ran a hand over his hair. "I mean, you don't need to be bothered remembering their names when they shouldn't mean a thing to you." He shrugged again for emphasis. "You have other friends, I believe."

Shimmer nodded. "Yeah, I have a friend named Twilight Sparkle."

"Twilight Sparkle? My Octavia has mentioned that name before. From what I could tell she was some popular girl at Canterlot High. Did she transfer to your school?"

Shimmer stiffened before answering.

"Uh...Yeah!"

"Well, anyhow, you have Twilight to hang around. You don't need to worry about them. She knows about this other girl and didn't ditch you, right?"

The girl nodded.

"That's a good friend. Now about this other girl...What's her problem?"

Shimmer felt a quick moment of anger. Sunset. She was such a bitch. The girl didn't even apologize one bit. The next time she saw her she was going to give her a piece of her mind. But at that moment, she felt uncomfortable about talking about her problems with Mr. Melody. She usually could solve them on her own and didn't need others advice. She sighed and answered his question.

"Well...uh, she's...she's just a jerk..."

"All I can say is just ignore her and move on. She helped you more than hurt you, actually. That girl showed you who were your true friends and who weren't. Think about it that way and you won't feel bad."

Shimmer hadn't thought of it that way. It made Sunset's wrong doing more tolerable to handle, but she still thought what she did to be awful. Shimmer agreed with her mentor and stood to her feet, her guitar now packed in its case.

"Well, I'm off, Mr. Melody. I have to get home. Thanks for the talk."

"No problem, Shimmer," he said. "Anything to make you feel better."

The girl smiled and turned to walk out the door.

***

Shimmer's Point of View

I stood at the corner as the Midnight bus sped off as per usual and the flurry of others hurried home. Tugging at the strap attached to my instrument case, I started going down the same old road that separated Pointeville and Canterlot. Mr. Melody's words had definitely lifted a lot of pressure off me. They made me think about how much I benefit from Sunset's actions. But all the same I didn't want to benefit from them. I want my old friends back. I wish none of this mess happened. I wouldn't have to learn how crappy those two are as friends and hate my other self. Which, in a way, is kind of like hating myself but it's...not?

I sighed and shook my head. Don't think about it. It'll only give you a headache. Sunset isn't worth thinking about. Just ignore her like what Mr. Melody said and everything will be fine.

Just then I heard a loud roar coming from behind me. I didn't think much of it. There was almost never any traffic on this road but when there was it usually was some delivery truck going to one of the factories around here. I continued to walk with my guitar hugged against my back like a backpack. Unfortunately, the guitar handle was no longer there from when I bumped into her. It had gotten all rickety and eventually fell off. At least there were hooks on the back of it so I could attach straps to wear it.

The roar of the truck grew louder. I tilted my head. It sounded more like a motorcycle than a noisy truck now. Probably just someone making a short cut through to the highway that was not too far from here. The sky was dark and I could make out a few stars. The far apart streetlamps made it hard to see the sky without having to look up into its orange-ish light.

Suddenly, a rush of air whipped by me as the supposed motorcyclist zipped by. My hair decided to blow up in my line of vision so I raised my hands to smooth it back down. I heard a loud screech and the quick click of a key cutting the engine off. Once my hair was tame I looked to see who it was that made such a blast of wind and locked eyes with the them.

It was Sunset straddling her bike with a helmet in both hands.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the late chapter, my friends. Usually I give you guys one every week but time flew by.

Comments

[TheArquius]

*gasp*
Do you have any popcorn?

[Dorath]

This ought ta be good ....
<passes MargopoloGX some popcorn>

[AshChaser]

6251039
the sky!

[HellBreaker]

this is why Sunset Shimmer is best poonie

[Feather Flyer]

6254487 Glad you like the story, my friend!

[HellBreaker]

6255252 I try

[Awesomo3000]

6253185 Here, take mine.

[Feather Flyer]

6254357 Wow, bro.

[Shaud]

Short and sweet, I like Mr. Melody!

[knigsonic]

6253185 Nay Nay, but better make some

[TheArquius]

Myar!!!

[Feather Flyer]

6286616 Depends on the date, month, and year you were born really. Unless you failed a grade or two. 13 year olds going on to being 14 usually are 8th graders. 14 going on to 15 are 9th graders in America.

I'm glad you like the story!

[Seeking Dusk]

Mr. Melody is right. Huh. I never even thought of that. One bad fight out of the blue and you totally break off a friendship with someone? That is a bit shallow. The cold shoulder I could get, but totally breaking it off? Sheesh...

Right, right... found this story today. It's been awesome so far. Teens are annoying. Like Trixie. Trixie is a bitch just as much as sunset was.

[The Slending Angel]

"Oh, right. Spice Bitch and Dubious Dickhead," the man said sourly.

WOW. JUST... WOW. I wish my teachers were that fucking awesome.