//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Second Chance // by Bolt Blazer //------------------------------// “He he he he” That was my wake up call. I shifted slightly and turned to the source of the giggling. “Did you have a good night's sleep?” Adagio asked in a teasing tone. “Oh hush,” I replied sleepily. “Oh come now Bolt, I know you liked the fact we slept together,” she said smugly. “Wh-what!? No I didn’t! I snapped back with a small blush on my face. Adagio started to snicker and then began laughing, “I’m just messing around with you Bolt, no need to get all flustered about it.” I rolled my eyes and smiled back before giving a slight chuckle. There was a small silence before Adagio broke the silence. “Hey, thank you for talking to me for a bit yesterday. I really needed that,” she said with a small smile. “My pleasure. If you ever need someone to vent to for any reason, just let me know and I’ll listen,” I replied with a smirk. “I suppose every road to recovery starts off rocky in the beginning,” Adagio said. “And we’re going to see how that path is carved, regardless is it’s easy as pie or as hard as Hell,” I said as I got up from the couch. It didn’t take much longer for everyone else in the household to wake up and get ready for the day. Breakfast came and went, then we got all freshened up and dressed for the day and soon enough, we were on our way to school. Just like the day before, the walk felt longer than it usually did, but it didn’t seem like the girls cared because they looked like they were enjoying the walk and it was nice to see. Especially for Adagio. She had a much more confident and content look on her, which was a very refreshing sight. I gave her a small smile and she noticed me smiling at her and gave me a playful wink. I gave a slight chuckle and she giggled a little bit. “What’s so funny you two?” Midnight asked. “He he he, nothing,” Adagio replied with a smirk. “Alright,” Midnight said rolling her eyes. Soon enough, we arrived at school and, as expected, there were some glares and some malicious whispers from the students. I was worried that it might ruin Adagio’s newfound confidence would get ruined by this but, low and behold, she kept that confident look on her face and continued on. Eventually, we found the others hanging around the soccer field again and they waved when they saw us approaching and we returned the gesture. Sunset then turned her attention to Adagio. “Feeling any better today Adagio?” Sunset asked. “I’m feeling a bit better, yeah,” Adagio replied. “It’s going to be a bit more difficult than I thought, but the best I can do is try to make the best of it.” “That’s great to hear,” Sunset replied. Eventually, the bell rang and everyone made to their respective classes. As expected, as we walked, we got stares and heard more malicious whispers from other students. I saw a tiny smile on Adagio’s face, however, her eyes showed her hidden sadness. We reached Adagio’s class, said our goodbyes for now and went on our ways. It seemed like an average high school day, aside from the odd stares by some people aimed at me. I decided to not pay much attention to it and focused on my work instead. I was able to ignore the stares and awkward glances, at least until theater ended that is. As the bell rang and we gathered our things and walked out of class, I got tapped on my shoulder. I turned to see who it was to find Trixie standing there. “What do you want Trixie? I need to get to my friends,” I asked, annoyed. “This will only take a minute, Trixie just needs to ask you something,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Fine, I’ll bite. What is it?” I asked. “Why are you spending time with her?” she asked. “Who? Adagio?” “Yes! Why in the world would you be hanging out with her?!” she said angrily. “Why the hell are you so concerned with who I surround myself with?” I snapped back. “You know damn well what she did to all of us. Everybody knows what happened! I just don’t understand why you would be hanging around someone like her!” she shouted. “There is this little phrase called “forgive and forget” Trixie. It might not be easy to do, but you should probably take a moment to learn it,” I replied, getting angrier with every passing second. “Oh please! After the stunt she pulled, Trixie is just flabbergasted that you’re anywhere near her!” “Well, guess I’m just odd that way, eh?” I replied. and walked off, severely ticked off. I entered the cafeteria a few minutes later and found the girls after getting some food, sitting down almost immediately and everyone took notice at how quickly I sat down and said nothing. “Is something the matter darling?” Rarity asked. “Yup,” I replied. “Well what’ got ya in a slump sugarcube?” asked Applejack. “Let’s just say that Trixie got on my nerves again, basically saying I had no right or need to be around Adagio after what happened,” I replied, as Adagio looked down, obviously feeling guilty about it. “Unfortunately that’s Trixie for ya,” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “I really should’ve expected that from her, but I didn’t,” I said. “Yeah, probably because you dated her for a while,” Pinkie said. “Ugh,” I groaned and then slammed my face into the table. “Don’t remind me of that please.” “Oopsie, my bad,” Pinkie apologized. “Wait, you dated her?” Adagio asked, stunned. “Yeah, thankfully it didn’t last too long,” I replied. “I know you don’t like being reminded of it, but how did it all come crashing down?” Adagio asked. “Basically, as cliche as this is gonna sound to everyone, she started out as this super quirky and fun girl to be around who did some fun party tricks. As time went on, however, she became a lot more conceited and started to really only care about herself and her desires and put others, myself included second. To put it bluntly, she turned into a bitch.” “I see, I won’t push any further,” Adagio replied. And not much was said after that. I hate bringing up my past with Trixie and even though I like to forgive and forget, she’s an exception to that, so yeah. Lunch was soon over and the school day followed soon afterwards. The rest of the dschool day was rather uneventful; homework was completed, dinner was made and eaten, and people went about their business. Right now, I was just laying on my bed, just browsing through social media seeing what everyone was up to. Same old thing as usual, and nothing that surprising anymore. I wasn’t listening to music at the moment because I just wanted to be alone with my own thoughts, which can be needed some days. At some point, I heard an acoustic guitar playing faintly. I got up to see if Midnight was playing (as she does every now and then) but when I went to tell her to tone it down a bit, I saw she was taking a nap and her guitar was in her case. The guitars music was still flowing through the house. I followed the noise as I got closer and closer to the source of the music. I eventually followed the music to the garage and opened it to hear the guitar, while slightly out of tune, slightly louder than when I had heard it before. I opened the door to find Adagio strumming the guitar. She was playing fine, but also looked like she was struggling a bit. I made my presence known by chuckling a little bit. “Not too shabby,” I said. She almost whipped her head around in surprise, upon hearing my voice. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you,” I said. “It’s fine, I just didn’t hear you come in,” she replied a little embarrassed. I shrugged my shoulders. “Interesting how you heard my voice but not the garage door opening,” I said. “I was probably playing a little loudly at that point in time, so maybe that’s why,” she replied. “I guess that makes sense,” I said. She just shrugged with a small smirk. “Also, I didn’t know you were interested in playing guitar,” I said. “I just found it laying in that open case and just wanted to try it out. I’m obviously not a tremendous player,” she said. “Every great musician started out as an amateur, but the more you spend time with it, the more you grow and get better at it,” I said, smiling. Adagio looked back at the guitar for a few seconds looking it over a bit more and then turned to me and asked, “You think you could help me with getting better?” I kept my smile and replied, “Sure thing, I’m not the greatest teacher ever, but I’d be willing to help out.” “Thank you Bolt,” she said with a small grin. “No prob,” I replied as I turned to leave. “Would you want to meet in the music room after school tomorrow?” “That sounds ideal, sure,” she replied. “Sweet. Night Dagi,” I said. She giggled a bit and replied, “ Sweet dreams Bolt.” I then left to have her to strum to her heart's desire. I closed the door to the garage and turned to walk towards the stairs to find Midnight standing a few feet away from me. “How long have you been standing there?” I asked. “Long enough,” she said cheekily. I just shook my head and walked away while Midnight kept a smug look on her face. After School The school day came and went and eventually, it was time to meet up with Adagio in the music room. I mentioned that I would be staying late to be doing this with Adagio, to which she was fine with. I got to the room at around 2:50 and found that it was just me in the room, so I set my guitar case down, pulled my guitar out and warmed up for a few minutes before Adagio walked in carrying a guitar case. “What took ya so long?” I asked jokingly. “Well, I had to ask Sunset where the music room was. Even though I was here before, I never got too familiar with the school grounds,” Adagio said. “Yeah, that makes sense,” I replied. Adagio pulled out a chair, put her case down, opened it and pulled out the guitar that was inside it. “So Midnight let you borrow her guitar?” I asked. “Yes, she apparently overheard us talking last night and gave it to me sometime after I woke up this morning,” she said. “Gotcha,” I replied. “So, what should we start on?” Adagio asked. So for about an hour or two, I was able to show her a few warm-up techniques and some simple chords, to which she seemed to pick up rather quickly. It was obvious that she was a fast learner and that made it less like a lesson and more like a fun jam session. She looked like she was having the time of her life as the session went on and we kept playing little songs here and there. She looked like she was getting that spring in her step back and becoming a lot happier. We had finished playing a few chords before I noticed how orange the sky looked and saw the time. “Hey Dagi, it’s starting to get dark, I think it’s time we head back home,” I said. Adagio saw the sky as well and nodded. “Alright, let’s head out.” We packed up out guitars and headed towards the exit of the school. There were a few students still lingering around, but mainly it was from some clubs and some athletic teams and a few people just hanging around. As we went out the front doors, Adagio spoke up. “That was really fun. A little painful in the fingers, but fun nonetheless,” she said cheerfully. “It’s gonna hurt for a while, but you’ll get used to it once the calluses build up,” I replied. “I have a good feeling I will,” she replied. As we continued our walk, I looked towards the skies and couldn’t keep my eyes off of it. The late summer skies were shining brightly with some clouds in the sky adding some pink to the blue and orange combination that was lingering in the sky. It was almost looking like it was coming from a fantasy world because it just looked unbelievable. I noticed Adagio couldn’t take her eyes off of the sky either and she got lost in it’s radiance. “You know, in all my time being in this world, I never really got to take the time to look at this world in this way but, it’s really breathtaking,” she said calmly. “Sure is. Sometimes you need to just slow down, forget all the bullshit and take in these beautiful pieces of art that the world gives us. I know it sounds like some Hippie Island Love Shack stuff, but it’s true,” I said. Adagio chuckled. “Well, someone’s been watching a lot material on that internet thing that everyone uses.” “Welcome to the modern era toots,” I replied cheekily. “Huh, that’s a phrase I haven’t heard in quite some time,” she chuckled again and I shook my head a little with a smirk on my face. We eventually made it back home to where we took care of homework, conversed about the day and relaxed for the rest of the evening as we prepared for the last day of the first school week and the weekend would be upon us and the plan to help Adagio more would now commence.