I woke up feeling very well-rested, which was both good and bad. On the one hand, it meant I would have plenty of energy for the day ahead. On the other hand, I had stayed up really late the previous night, so if I felt refreshed, that meant I had probably slept through most of the day. Sure enough, checking my clock, I found that it was almost noon. Not wanting to waste more of the day, I sat up, my legs hanging over the side of my bed, stretched for a bit, then got up.
Opening the shades to the windows to let the sunlight in, I did a bit of a double-take. After living in Equestria for a while, the picturesque eventually became the mundane, but this day was exceptionally beautiful. Nothing out of the ordinary (a relative rarity in Equestria generally and in Ponyville specifically) but the sun was shining in such a way that the world seemed brighter. Of course, that was how light worked. But on some days the world just seemed more alive than ever, and this was one of those days. If I strained my ears, I could hear the sounds of hustle and bustle coming from the local market - venders selling their wares and customers haggling with said vendors, capped off by the distinctly higher sound of children laughing - I thought I could hear the CMC, but that could have easily been my imagination. To put a nice bow on everything, the sky was covered about a third of the way in clouds, not blocking out too much sunlight, but providing just enough cover to find a grassy hill with a friend, lie on one's back, and try to make out whether or not one cloud in particular looked more like a falcon or a surfboard.
Deciding that I'd rather not spend another moment inside, I exited my room in the castle. Of course, "My room" isn't entirely accurate. The castle still belongs to Twilight, she just let me live there when I first wound up in Equestria, and nobody ever told me I had to eventually find a new place to live, so... I simply did not.
Exiting the enormous front doors, I made my way to Sugarcube Corner. Having dessert for breakfast would potentially give me a headache later, but at the moment I couldn't find it in me to care. I waved at a few ponies and a scant number of humans as I walked down the dirt roads, my presence in Ponyville finally being seen as somewhat normal ever since the portals between Earth and Equestria were established. Equestria had seen its largest influx of tourists in history around a month after the gateways was fully stabilized and cleared for civilian use, and while it had mostly died down by now, a few humans decided that they were going to live full-time in Equestria. Ponyville's population was still mostly, well, ponies, but there were a few of my fellow apes walking around, and a good number seemed to be heading to the same place I was.
Having lived in Equestria for nearly eight years now, the novelty of how good the food was had mostly been lost on me. However, the other humans were still enamored with it all. Something about the magic in Equestria's atmosphere made preservatives mostly unnecessary, so all of the food tasted perpetually fresh. Honestly, during the initial bout of politicking after the first Earth/Equestria portal was opened and Equestrian royalty met with Earth's world leaders at the United Nations, I was put off by going back to Earth food. Getting to eat cheeseburgers again was nice, but the fruit, bread, vegetables, dairy, and basically everything that wasn't meat was better in terms of taste, texture, and nutrition in Equestria than it was on Earth. It was almost unfair how healthy everything was despite tasting almost like candy. Even the eggplants in Equestria weren't completely disgusting, which I didn't even know was possible.
I digress. Sugarcube Corner was incredibly popular among the humans living in Ponyville. I think that was the main idea I was getting at before I lost my train of thought.
And lo, it seemed as though today was destined to get even better! Entering Sugarcube Corner, I found Twilight at the front counter, paying for some sort of treat. It was in a bag, so I couldn't see what it was, but it smelled faintly of cinnamon.
"Howdy, Twilight," I said, walking up beside her.
"Oh! Good morning, Ryan!" She chirped in response.
"It's almost not morning. I overslept, you see," I remarked intelligently.
"That you did. It was a beautiful day, but I didn't want to wake you. It seemed like you were having a pleasant dream."
"That was nice of you. Though, for future reference..." I trailed off in the middle of the sentence, thinking of what would be best for me to say. "Well, you don't have to worry about waking me, y'know?I enjoy spending time with y- with my friends," The instant the words left my mouth, I began to worry. Was that too forward?
"Well, alright. I suppose that makes sense. It is a nice day, it'd be a shame for you to miss it," Twilight said casually, dispelling my fears. Good. She hadn't caught on.
Hadn't caught on. 'Of course she hasn't,' I thought to myself. 'You haven't given her the opportunity to catch on.' If I had said something corny like 'Oh, Twilight, you are my dream' then maybe I would've had reason to worry, but the thought of saying something that disgustingly sweet made me cringe.
For whatever reason, I couldn't bring myself to broach the topic of me having a crush on Twilight. It seemed so simple in my head: Walk up to her, tell her how I feel. If she reciprocates, awesome. If not, life goes on, we continue being friends, and I eventually get over my feelings. A very simple, easy-to-understand sequence of events, with essentially no shot at anything going awry. Neither Twilight nor I was the sort of person to break off a friendship over something as asinine as non-reciprocal romantic attraction, and I wasn't even worried about the possibility of an unpleasant breakup later down the line. Twilight and I were already very open and straightforward when it came to communicating with one another, so it was practically impossible for a breakup to be caused by anything other than the two of us sitting down one day and having a calm discussion about how things weren't working out and that we should break things off. And if that happened, then good! I wouldn't want her to stay in a relationship out of inertia as opposed to love, and I certainly wouldn't want the same for me.
Of course, none of this information was relevant until and unless I finally plucked up the courage to say 'Hey, I like you a lot. Would you like to go out to dinner sometime?' or something else of the sort.
"Ryan? You there?" Came a voice from beside me. It was Twilight. I had gotten lost in thought again.
"Sorry, sorry," I said, trying to maintain a casual tone of voice that didn't betray my inner thoughts. "I was a million miles away. What's up?"
"Well - we're holding up the line. I was wondering if you wanted anything?" Twilight offered, glancing behind us. Indeed, there were a few ponies waiting impatiently for us to get out of their way, and I chastised myself for zoning out.
"No, I'm fine. Let's just go," As I said it, I realized that the 'Let's just go' sounded a bit more sorrowful than I intended to, and a touch more sorrowful than I felt to boot. I was hoping she wouldn't notice the melodrama, but Twilight narrowed her eyes at my response, and we wordlessly left. We exited Sugarcube Corner and just sort of wandered for a while. Neither of us seemed to know where we were going, but despite the lack of communication between us, we somehow managed to stay side-by-side.
Eventually, we found ourselves sat at a bench in the park. I looked up at the sky. If I squinted, I could just about make out Rainbow's tail hanging off the side of a cloud far above us. It seemed like she was sleeping.
"Hey, are you feeling okay?" Twilight asked, breaking the silence between us. I tore my gaze from the sky to look at her. She had begun eating her cookie - it looked like a snickerdoodle. I guess I was right about her snack containing cinnamon. I found myself regretting that I didn't get one. It looked really tasty. "I just ask because you seemed a bit morose earlier."
"I'm fine," I replied, not sounding fine at all. "I've been better and I've been worse." Eye contact was profoundly uncomfortable for me, but I made an effort to look at Twilight's eyes instead of her mouth, as I normally did with... well, everyone. Assuming I felt up to the challenge of looking in their direction at all.
Twilight's eyes had taken on a distinctly sad, almost pitying appearance. "That being said, there's clearly something bothering you. If you want to talk about it, I'm ready to lend an ear."
Looking at her, I felt like this was it. The moment was upon me. Nobody else would be able to hear us unless they were intentionally eavesdropping or if we shouted. We were alone. It was a nice day. I felt like I looked good at the moment.
And, like clockwork, I fixed my gaze to hers, mulled it over for a second or two, and said "Honestly, it's fine. Just feeling a bit moody right now. Nothing to worry about. I'm glad that you're being considerate, though. Thank you." Twilight clearly didn't buy it, but didn't look like she was going to press the issue further and took another bite from her cookie, looking up at the clouds. I returned to looking around the park at nothing in particular.
And then, a few seconds later, I felt something shift in my chest, almost like a squeaky gear was being oiled up or a screw was being tightened, and I spoke again.
"That's not entirely true. Well, it is true that I appreciate your concern, but... " I was beginning to trail off, but this time, I caught myself, and just went right to what I wanted to say. "Twilight, are you free at around eight-thirty tonight? I'd like to talk with you about what's bothering me then."
"Of course. What are friends for?" Twilight responded, giving me a kind smile. "We can talk about it whenever you feel ready."
"Alrighty. Well, we'll talk this evening, then. For now, I'm just gonna go clear my head," I said. With a wave, I got up from the bench and began strolling through the park. I had suddenly become acutely aware of the fact that there were a lot of ponies around, and their voices all seemed that tiny bit louder than they were before. If I was going to clear my head, I'd have to go somewhere else.
Luckily, I knew just the place. Humming a tune from a song I didn't remember the name of, I made my way to Sweet Apple Acres. There was always a quiet place somewhere in the orchard, somewhere where nobody was kicking trees or plowing the fields. It was a big plot of land, and the Apple family only ever had two or three people working it at any given time, so an isolated spot was never far. Coupled with the gently rolling hills and the shade from the trees, it was perfect for when you needed to get away from it all.
The walk to the farm was uneventful. Approaching the farmhouse, I found Granny Smith sitting in a rocking chair and knitting something. I asked her if I could wander the farm for a bit, and she said I could, as long as I didn't eat any of the apples. This wasn't a problem, as I wasn't much of apple person, but I had learned a while ago that it wasn't wise to say such things at Sweet Apple Acres.
The Apple family took their craft seriously.
Finding a dense patch of trees, I sat down, my back against one of the... honeycrisp trees, I believe. I leaned my head back and idly ran my finger through the grooves in the bark.
'Why did I say that to Twilight? ' I thought to myself. Contemplating my sudden proposal to talk later for a while, I came to a simple conclusion: I liked Twilight, and that meant I didn't want to keep a secret from her. I didn't want to have a bitter pang in my heart every time I looked at her. She was my friend, damn it. Friends are supposed to have fun with each other - not all the time, of course. Sometimes bad things just happened, even between the best of friends. Still though, my unwillingness to just tell Twilight how I felt had gone well past understandable and entered the realm of the absurd.
In my heart, I felt no more doubts. Tonight was THE night. I was gonna tell her, and then I was gonna move on from this ridiculous 'Oh, but how do I saaaaaaaaay it?' stage of my relationship with Twilight. This was it.
My conviction renewed, I checked my phone. Had quite a while to go before eight-thirty, so I got out from under the shade of the tree and found somewhere else to lay, where I could cloudwatch until the time came to head back to the castle.
Cloud-watching, as it turned out, got very boring very quickly without anyone to talk to. After a half-hour of no conversation, I got up and headed back to town, where I very intentionally wasted the rest of my day. Had a talk with Pinkie (well, more like she talked at me for a while and I smiled and nodded and said "Oh, and what did you do?" at appropriate intervals), watched Scootaloo climb a tree and then got her down from the tree when she realized she couldn't get back to the ground (honestly, the CMC getting their Cutie Marks should have meant they stopped wanting to climb everything in sight), skipped stones at a pond, and performed other such tasks that served no purpose other than kill time.
When the time came to head back to the castle, I found that my nerves were not flaring up to any notable degree. This was a good sign: Tonight truly was the night that I put all of this nonsense behind me. With a determined grin, I practically skipped towards the castle. Pushing open the doors (There was no way they were naturally that light, Twilight had to have cast some kind of featherweight spell on them to make them easier to open) I headed to the castle's library, where Twilight could often be found at this hour. Sure enough, there she was, reading a book about sea turtles. The excursions to the library had become a weekly tradition for Twilight and I. We'd pick a random book up off the shelf and just absorb the knowledge. After arriving in Equestria all those years ago, the additional free time I had due to... um, not having a job, was mostly filled by reading, reading, and more reading. I'd been possessed of a love of learning for as long as I could remember, since the earliest days of my childhood. I think that our shared scholastic natures was the first thing that Twilight and I bonded over, even if it felt rather pretentious to call myself a "scholar". Unsurprisingly, our reading sessions had quickly become the highlights of every week for me.
"Hey, Twilight. I'm back!" I announced proudly.
"That you are," She said in agreement, looking up from her book. "And you seem much more chipper than you were earlier." She looked happy about that.
"Yep. Speaking of earlier, remember when I said I wanted to talk to you around eight-thirty? That was fun. Anyways, it's that time now, so I'm gonna talk to you... Erm, unless you're busy, that is," I said.
"No, not at all! I want to know what's on your mind!"
Welp. Here goes nothing.
"Okay, so... I'm just gonna monologue to you for a bit, and then when I'm done... well, we'll see where things go from there." I began, lowering my voice a bit and letting my tone become more serious. Dare I say, it was downright solemn.
"Twilight... I, um, like you. A lot. Not just in a friend way, but in a potentially romantic way."
Wow, saying that felt phenomenal. It was like Atlas having Hercules take the weight of the sky off of his shoulders. Not missing a beat to revel in the feeling, I carried on. I deliberately did not look at Twilight during this. I didn't think I'd be able to continue if I did.
"I know that this is kinda coming out of nowhere, but I've just been sitting on these feelings for a while, and... To be perfectly honest, I don't like keeping secrets from you. I know I'm not exactly the best at articulating my feelings, but if I had to try... You're like, a fixture in my life at this point. Whenever I wake up in the morning, my first thought is 'I wonder what Twilight and I will do today.' Whenever I walk into a room and I see that you're in it, the whole world seems to get a little bit brighter. When I go a long period of time without seeing you, it starts to feel like there's just something missing. I hope it doesn't sound presumptuous of me, but I feel like I just belong next to you. Even when we're not doing anything together, even when we don't speak to each other, my life is just inexplicably better when you're a part of it. So, to avoid rambling any longer... If you were to ever find yourself at all interested in the possibility of a romantic relationship with me, I would be elated to just... see where that road leads." After saying all of this, I found it in me to look at Twilight. I couldn't read her expression. "And if you're not interested, then that's fine too! We'll just continue as we are now, and I'll be content knowing that I have the privilege of calling you my best friend. You don't have to give me an answer now. Just... think about it, okay?" I finished with an attempt at a smile. Twilight's face remained neutral for a few seconds, and then she smiled.
"I promise you, I will think about it. And when I've finished doing that, I'll get back to you. Okay?" She said kindly. God, her smile and her voice and her everything was adorable.
"Good, good. Well, I'm gonna go to bed early tonight. I don't wanna sleep in too much tomorrow and miss out on another gorgeous day. Enjoy your book. I can't wait for our reading session on Thursday!"
"Me neither, Ryan," Twilight replied. "Sleep well, okay?"
"Will do."
And with that, I left the library and headed to the kitchen to get some ice water. Downing the glass in one gulp (I'd just realized I hadn't had a drop all day) I filled it up again and took it to my room, where I put it on my bedside table, far enough away from me that I wouldn't accidentally knock it over in my sleep.
I put on my pajamas, turned out the light, and went to bed with a smile on my face.
I slept well.