//------------------------------//
// Battle Scars 
// Story: If I Could 
// by FriendlyTwo3 
//------------------------------//


Battle Scars


You and Fluttershy make it to your house in no time. You’re both soaked to the bone and freezing, but still content. You couldn’t be more relieved. You made amends for what happened as you left school. Will you get a call home? Definitely. Will you get suspended? Most likely. Do you care? Not in the slightest. Were you justified? Damn straight.

Fluttershy shivers a bit. You kick off your shoes and motion for her to stay put. She gives a small nod and you rush into the bathroom, grab a couple towels, and head back. You give Fluttershy the towel as she places her wet sneakers neatly next to yours. She thanks you as she takes a towel and begins drying herself off. You do the same. As she dries herself, you notice her taking a bit of caution around her right shoulder. After a minute or two, you and Fluttershy are for the most part dry, at least hair-wise. You look at her for a moment and smile, motioning toward your room in an over-the-top gentlemanly way. She responds with a giggle and a played-up curtsy, walking past you. You follow her.

Fluttershy very-well knew the layout of your home. You only have a one-story home, three bedroom, two bath. The third bedroom hadn’t been used in a half a year. The last time it was used was when your older brother came to visit for a few days when his house was being fumigated. You haven’t seen or heard from him since then.

You walk through the living room, throwing your backpack on the couch and turning on a lamp. When you came in, the house was pretty dark, due to your mom being at your aunt’s, and your dad, well, not being home in a month or two. Military and all that. You and Fluttershy walk into your room and you turn on the light and ceiling fan and throw your phone on the bed. You have a decent sized room. Nothing too special, but nothing to complain about. You walk over to your closet and dig through until you find a pair of pink and yellow pajamas. Fluttershy suggested a while back that you might as well keep them, as she does often come over unexpected. You hand them to her and grab your own night clothes. You turn around and begin to change. You can hear the shuffling of wet clothes sliding off skin behind you. You can see her shadow on the white wall. You can see the shadows arms come up and toss a wet clump of fabric into the hamper.

Oh, how you want to turn around right now.

But your years of discipline tell you not to, and you don’t. You simply continue to tie the drawstring of your blue night pants. You throw your wet t-shirt onto the floor and put on a loose grey one. As you do this, you hear a gasp behind you. Turning around, you see Fluttershy with her dry tank top on quickly cover her shoulders with the towel. A sheepish grin crosses her face. You stand up straight and tilt your head.

“I-It’s nothing,” she says quickly. Uh-huh. And you’re a talking pony. Fluttershy’s never really been a good liar. You nod to her shoulder. She keeps hold of the towel and sits down on the bed. “What?” You lower your eyebrows ever so slightly and sit next to her, crossing your legs on the bed. You tilt your head a bit more. She looks at you and immediately looks at the floor. You lean toward her, a pleading expression on your face. If something’s wrong, she needs to tell you. Let’s not forget what happened a few days ago.

“Like I said. . .” she begins, her voice growing shakier. The thunder continues to roll outside, and the rain clatters against the roof. “. . . It’s nothing.” You’re still not buying it. Taking a leap of faith, you raise your hand slowly. She doesn’t see it. You ever so slowly extend your arm toward her shoulder. You see her grip on the towel falter a bit. After a second, you place your hand on her shoulder. And when you do, she seems to shatter like glass. She lurches forward and begins to sob. Your eyes widen and you swing your legs off the bed and scoot by her side, wrapping your arm around her. Your other hand slowly strokes her arm. Words start to make their way through her cries.

“I-I’m sorry. . . I-I’m s-so so sorry. . .” Your eyes widen a bit more. Sorry? What could she be sorry for? Is this still about the people picking on her? Did word get out of the incident? Did one of them hurt her shoulder? Is that why she’s crying and hiding it?

“I-I wasn’t thinking. . .! I-I. . . I wasn’t. . . I didn’t mean to. . .”

You want to ask her. You want to ask her so badly what happened. You want so, so much to say something, anything to her, to comfort her, to console her, to tell her it’s alright, to tell her you love her. But all you can do is wait it out. All you can do is wait for her to calm herself down. You can only sit here and watch as she hopelessly apologizes for something you can’t even ask what.

“Sshhh. . .” is all you can get out. That’s all you can ever get out. That’s all you can ever say to people without a pen and paper or a phone. Because literally all it is is breath. You’re not even saying something. Why did you have to be so stupid? Why did you have to run into the Everfree like a fucking idiot?! If you had just shut your loud mouth and listened, you wouldn’t have gotten your god damn throat ripped out! You would be able to speak! To talk! To share your thoughts without taking a full minute to do it! Now all you can do is listen and watch as the girl you love sobs her eyes out for a reason you can’t even ask for!

“I didn’t mean it. . . I’m so sorry. . .!” She continues to weep into her hands. You pull her closer and hug her tighter. With a heavy heart, you slide off the bed and onto one knee. You shift so that you’re in front of her. Placing a finger under her chin, you guide her teary gaze to yours. She looks at you with reddened eyes. You place both of your hands softly on her cheeks. The look you give her silently pleads her to tell you what’s wrong. She starts to calm down after a moment.

“I-I. . .” she stutters, choking down the knot in her throat, “P-Please don’t hate me. . .” You shake your head ‘no’ and lean forward a bit. You push yourself up slightly and plant a loving kiss on her forehead. She sniffs once as you go back down.

“I-I. . . I-I hurt myself this morning. . . Pretty badly. . .”

Your eyes go wide. Your jaw drops slightly. Your shoulders droop a bit. You certainly weren’t expecting that. Quickly but carefully, you remove the towel from her shoulders.

And what you see horrifies you.



Her fair, pale white skin is discolored red from the horrible scars now on her shoulder. They make her once smooth skin rough and painful looking. There are at least eight or nine of them. Some long and deep, some short and tiny. As if she progressively got used to the pain. There is some dried blood stained into her skin, like she didn’t have the time nor the patience to clean it all. You stare up into Fluttershy’s eyes, pleading silently to know why, when, and how. Her eyes tear up yet again.

“I-I-It was. . . this morning. . . I wanted so badly to stay home. . . I didn’t want to go back to school. I wanted. . . s-so much to just. . . stay home and stay with you and not deal with all those people and not go back. . .” It was here that she broke down yet again. You pull up your chair so that you’re not kneeling in front of her. Once you’re level with her again, you wrap your arms tightly around her shaking body. Her body bounces lightly with her sobs. She takes in big gasps of air every once in a while. After a moment, she begins to calm down enough to speak through shaky cries.

“I-I would’ve waited for you. . .! I. . . I would’ve. . . would’ve waited for you to get back from school. . .! We could’ve just. . . we could’ve j-just relaxed and watched a movie and just be together. . .” You stroke her long, soft hair as she cries into you. Your eyebrows furrow as she cries. You hold her tight and make sure she doesn’t go anywhere.

“I-I was thinking about a lot of things last night. . . I thought of what would happen when I went back. I thought for sure word had gotten out about what happened. . . I begged my mom not to send me back but. . .” You softly kiss the top of her head. Oh, man, what happened earlier really didn’t help. You still feel awful about it.

“I thought about som-me other things too. Like what happened a few days ago. Not about what I almost did. . . but. . .” You ease back a little and look her in the eyes, silently telling her to keep going. Her lips curl up as her breath shortens again. “You said my name.”

Oh. You suppose you did.

You forgot all about that. What with everything that’s been going on. The whole situation always plays over in your mind. Every night. Walking out of school, her text to you, the painful run over, the cut on your side (which has formed an incredibly itchy scab), bursting through the door, throwing the bottle of poison and grabbing Fluttershy. You always seemed to forget about that detail. You. . . You spoke her name.

“And it makes me feel so horrible,” Fluttershy continues, “To know how much I scared you. To make you do something that’s literally impossible. That you care so much about me. . .” Her pitch heightens to a near-squeak and she lowers her head. You place a hand behind her head and bring it in to your chest. She doesn’t sob, but she breathes deeply and heavily.

You spoke. And only now do you realize it. After nearly ten years you spoke.

There’s a clearing in the forest. A wide open clearing. The smell of freshly cut grass enters through your nostrils as you run into the yard. You meet the road again as you sprint into the driveway, devoid of cars. You jump clear up the four steps and come to a grinding halt. You allow a single second to catch a little bit of breath. Turning the knob violently, you force the door open, nearly breaking it off the hinges. You bolt into the house until you come to the threshold of the living room. . .

. . .just in time to see her lift the bottle of rat poison to her lips.

“FLUTTERSHY!!”

It all seems so strange. Like a childhood memory you can just barely remember. It plays over and over in your mind. How could it have been done? It’s not a miracle. Miracles don’t exist. It’s not magic. Magic doesn’t exist. The doctor said that if you ever spoke, it wouldn’t be for maybe another few decades or so. So how could it be? You open your mouth slowly, take in a breath of air, and try to project your voice. Nothing comes out but a bit of breath and a squeak.

Why can’t you speak now? Why only then, when your energy was spent and your lungs were heaving? Maybe it was just the adrenaline. Maybe. But even that sounds far-fetched.

But the subject at hand right now is your sobbing girlfriend. You snap back to reality to find that she is staring at you. She sniffles a few times as she sees you focus on her.

“I’ll never ever do that again. You mean too much to me. I won’t ever scare you again. I promise.” She leans forward and puts her forehead against your chest. You softly rub her back and shoulders, keeping wary of the cuts. You grab your phone from off the bed and open the notepad app.

“Have you told anybody else?”

You show it to her, and she shakes her head ‘no.’

“How bad does it hurt when nothing’s touching it?”

“Kind of. . . not really. Sort of like a numb feeling.”

“What did you use?”

“. . . A pair of scissors. I cleaned them off though. . .”

You sigh a bit, and keep writing. Her gaze remains fixed on the floor.

“How bad did it bleed?”

Fluttershy pauses at this one. She shifts a bit in front of you. You keep your gaze on her, looking her right in the eye. She bites her lip a bit as her eyes start to tear up again.

“. . . Pretty badly. . .”

You look at the ground and sigh slowly. Why? Why did she do it? What did she hope to gain by hurting herself this badly? It finally dawns on you the reality of what she did. How badly she was hurt. How far she went to prove a point. A point she easily could’ve told you about. It hurts you just to think about it. To think about her sitting on her bed. To think about her pushing the blade into her shoulder. Feeling how much it hurt, realizing how much it hurt, and keep going. To think she felt the blood going down, saw the blood, and just kept going. After everything you did for her. After everything you all went through. After all the times you told her it was going to be alright. After all the times you held her, stayed with her, cared for her; she still went and did this.

You stand up, wordlessly, and walk out of the room. You don’t want to take your feelings out on her. You don’t look back as you open up the back door and step out onto the back deck. The rain is still coming down with a vengeance, though you stay dry under the overhang.

Does she not take you seriously that much? Does she care about you that little?
No. Of course she does. Don’t even think like that.

You slam your hands onto the wooden railing, open your mouth wide, and let out a silent scream.