“Hello,” said the brown pony with a briefcase and a full suit on for some reason. The colors you could see out of your right eye were dull now, but at least they were not completely gone. “I’m here to talk to you about what happened yesterday.”
You stayed quiet and tuned him out. Nothing he was saying was going to be anything new to you. You already did your best to make a brain damage joke when Cheerilee and Snowflake showed up for a visit. You must have actually had brain damage because by the end of it you and Snowflake had to calm down a rather upset Cheerilee.
After that you noticed the fact our eyes were acting funny. Your left was still bandaged but hurt like Tartarus, and colors were starting to dull. Nopony could come up with why, and your dad was out working out of town again so they were at a loss for whether to explain it to you or not. Maybe the blow knocked something lose. It really didn’t matter though. All you could think about was how over your life was now.
“…and that’s why I think you may have a case against this pony who caused your accident,” finished the stallion. “I could milk her for all it is worth, maybe even a malpractice suit on the hospital if something should go wrong with surgery…”
Surgery? Was that an option? You didn’t care, you just drowned him out. You didn’t want to bother with things anymore. All you wanted was to just curl up and wait for your father to pick you up. If only you had known, that would be the worst thing you could have had at the moment.
Pain. That was the only word that came to mind as you slowly rose from the floor. It wasn’t the usual pain either. It was a splitting headache unlike anything you had felt before. You couldn’t even enjoy the precious few seconds before your eye completely focused and you were unable to keep its partner open for fear of an even greater headache.
Hoping this wasn’t something new you’d have to start living with; you started rubbing the back of your head to dull this mystery pain slightly. You had definitely fallen asleep on a floor. Problem was this wasn’t your house. The paint job was nothing like what you and Noteworthy had and there were no obvious signs of a party having taken place.
“Oh no,” was the first thought that came to mind, “this is definitely not good. This is the last thing I need on my very first night here.”
In your life you had had some pretty good and pretty bad relationships of all sorts, from one night stands to long standing ones. But this was a first. You had never gotten blackout drunk before. And worse yet while you could still taste the Alcohol a bit on your tongue from a partial throw up, you don’t remember actually drinking alcohol at the party. Not even taking a sip of possibly spiked punch. What was the last this you remember?
Then it hit you, the last thing you could recall was Rainbow Dash kissing you. But something must have been up with that. You remember shortly after taking a big swallow, but that couldn’t have been enough to get you that drunk, could it? You wouldn’t put it past the prankster to slip you something but this could not be her.
“Well,” chimed a voice from behind you. “Glad to see you’re finally awake.”
With a start you found yourself clinging to the ceiling like a freighted cat and looking down at the mare who had said that. You considered getting down once you saw who exactly it was, but normal biological reactions to waking up without your medicine in effect and seeing a mare was making you thank your cat imitation right now. “Hey Cheerilee,” you voiced in embarrassment flapping the best you could to keep your problem from being known to your old crush.
“Hello Buckstreet,” Cheerilee replied holding back a slight grin. Oh that was right, you had gone and also let the party find out you had all the Buckstreet Boys songs with no resistance. Combine that with a few even longer memories and it dawned on you that you’d be living with that stupid nickname yet again thanks to Cheerilee.
“Please,” you hoped as you voiced to her. “Please tell me no one else is gonna call me that.”
“No promises,” Cheerilee replied, “I did avoid calling you that last night but after what happened I can’t exactly say it won’t be on somepony’s mind.” You proceeded to bang your forehead against Cheerilee’s ceiling. “Now come on down, I made breakfast.”
She started to trot away and shook her plot a bit at you teasingly. “Don’t worry, we didn’t do anything funny last night. I just thought you’d actually get some sleep without anypony drawing on your face at my house.”
“Well that was a relief,” you thought trying to keep dirtier thoughts down. How exactly Cheerilee could do this to you without having malicious intent was confusing but not all together unpleasant since it was still a good view after all these years. In fact it was even better than you remember since you were only a very small colt at the time. Okay you had to stop before you were forced to spend even longer clung to the ceiling, time to act more like frightened turtle than a cat.
Following Cheerilee into the kitchen you found your senses met with a nice plate of scrambled eggs and some orange juice. A simple breakfast to be sure, but as you observed, it was far more thought out than you could have guessed.
Half of the meal was what one would expect, light fluffy yellow chunks that you’d be able to inhale if you didn’t enjoy the taste of the slight salt on them so much. The other half of the plate had a very brown look to them the darkened the entire set and made it look a bit flat even if it was still chunky. The darker one was something you had come up with as a kid that Cheerilee enjoyed and improved on as you found taking your first bite. Burnt buttery eggs full of chili power and garlic that instead of making one sick was enough to be delicious, just the way you loved it.
“Didn’t think I’d get the chance to have you over so soon for this,” commented the mare across from you. “So how have you been?”
“Good,” you replied sipping some juice. Honestly you expected this talk to happen much sooner but Cheerilee must have learned from her previous attempts.
“Snowflake told me you broke up with another mare before coming here. Care to share with me since Snowflake didn’t bother?”
“No,” you grumbled. “It’s sort of only stuff guys would get.” Then again Snowflake didn’t really agree with you either but you didn’t want to talk too much about relationships with an ex-girlfriend, no matter how close you were before.
“Okay then, change of subject,” she stated folding her forehooves. “Why the hay are you working for Rainbow Dash?”
That’s right, today was the first day of work wasn’t it? What time was it anyway? Either way it was a good way out of this conversation. “Speaking of which, I gotta go. I’m likely late already and.”
“It’s not even dawn yet,” Cheerilee replied curtly. “Unlike you, I didn’t get high and then mix it by drinking whatever it was Vinyl Scratch gave you and Rainbow.”
“Who?”
“Oh dear, you don’t remember?” She sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Well that is going to be awkward.”
“What is?”
“Tell me why you think it’s a good idea to work with a mare who gave you a physical defect and I’ll tell you.”
“Touche Cheerilee.”
“Well,” she encouraged, “go on.”
“Nothing much to say,” you replied, “You know me already. I don’t hold a grudge on her. It wasn’t her fault I ended up like this.” You opened your bad eye and closed the good to emphasize your point. “Luckily having seen Cheerilee before your accident you knew what colors where from where so the random swirls were actually easier to see their intent and direction for the most part. Like suddenly being able to understand that a odd shape in a painting is a bird when the artist explains that is what it was symbolizing to him.
“That’s exactly it,” she replied, “I do know you, sometimes more than you could since nopony can really know everything about themselves. And I agree it wasn’t Rainbow’s fault and that you shouldn’t hold a grudge.” So far so good, “However you are holding one.”
And there it was, “I am not.” You really tried to keep the daggers out of the tone but it was hard. You settled on not continuing to explain.
“Yes you are. You may not know it but I can tell it from how you were acting at the party and from how you were acting during that little chase yesterday. It’s in the way your body is moving around her. You want revenge on her, and from what I heard about your last girlfriend I think you may be having issues with it even more now.” She tried to reach across the table for you shaking hooves. “I’m still your friend and I don’t want you to do something you regret. Please tell me you don’t plan to tell Rainbow what happened.”
“Of course not,” you spat pulling away. Now your eye was starting to hurt. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine Cheerilee. I can work well with Rainbow if I try and I guarantee you that I’m not out to break her heart or anything. Besides, she’s too much like Lightning Dust for me to feel comfortable trying.”
“I never said you were going to break her heart,” she countered. “But now that you brought it up, tell me. What do you think is the reason the two of you broke up?”
“I don’t wanna talk about this.” You slid out of your chair and started for the front door.
“That’s a closet,” Cheerilee announced before you started opening the door. “You can’t just push this stuff off. If you bottle up feelings it’s just going to explode one of these days. I’m just trying to help.”
“Well don’t,” you said coldly, “I don’t want you as a friend. I never did. I can handle myself, always have and always will. Now leave me alone.”
The sound of you slamming the front door behind you rang enough for somepony to peak out and stare at you. You had to take several deep breaths before you calmed down. You needed to get your eye patch before you got to work, now wasn’t the time to be angry. You swallowed that down and with your last breath and began your stomp home.