//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: Hold on my Ghost // Story: Street Dreams // by DJDJ //------------------------------// When I arrived back home late at night, I could tell it was going to be another sleepless night. I parked my car by the curb in front of my house and entered through the door on the side, straight into the garage. I flicked on the garage lights, set up a few more to light up different parts of the project car’s engine and picked up my torque wrench off the work bench. I didn’t put my wrench back down again until morning, by then, the car was just about road worthy. With a few more hours of tuning, and securing all the bodywork back to the frame and reattaching the front wheels it would finally be ready. I had no intention of getting behind the wheel of this monster however. That was never my goal, in my confused, grief diseased, heartbroken mind, restoring this car should’ve restored the world to the way it was, at least the way it was meant to be. I set my wrench back down on the work bench and headed straight for the bathroom. I was about to take a shower, I even took off my shirt, until I realized I would be seeing Applejack today. I smelled like hard work, I was sure it was something Applejack above all people could appreciate. Before I could wonder why I was trying to impress AJ like that, I was mopping up the sweat from my body with a towel. After my morning routine and pancakes with the old man, I took my seat behind the wheel of my own car. As I was about to start the engine, I hesitated, I lowered the passenger’s sun visor and took out the picture strip Adagio left for AJ to find. I stared at the pictures we took on the pier together, then turned them over to read over Adagio’s message again. After a moment of silent contemplation I opened the glove box and stored the pictures right next to the one AJ gave me. I set off for Sweet Apple Acres. Whenever I was in a contemplative mood, my driving was always mild and cautious. For the first time in too long, AJ and I would have proper alone time, I had no idea what I was going to do. A part of me definitely wanted her back, a BIG part, but would she even want me back? Then there was Adagio, even if AJ wanted me back, if I left Adagio now, she’d just be more bitter and vicious than ever. For the whole drive to Sweet Apple Acres, my thoughts were fixed on why I agreed to this and what I could possibly accomplish here today. I came to a gentle stop by the farmhouse where I would usually park. I sat still, absently staring at the farm house, trying to think of what I should do. Every part of me just told me to go for it. So I cut the engine and went for it. I cautiously walked up to the farm house and knocked on the door. Applejack opened the door and stepped out, “Mornin,” she said indifferently, “wasn’t expectin you so early.” I shrugged. “Let’s, go for a walk.” She suggested, and side by side we aimlessly wandered the orchard. As I glanced all around the orchard disinterestedly, I was vaguely aware that for nearly the whole walk, Applejack was staring uncomfortably at the ground. “So what you want to talk to me about?” I asked her gently. She sighed and answered, “I’m…worried about you.” She finally looked up at me. I looked back at her quizzically, “Whats it to you how I feel?” I asked sternly. AJ looked back to the ground nervously, “I’m sorry for how I acted, I should’ve heard your side of things.” I sighed guiltily, stopping in my tracks and grabbing AJ’s arm, turning her to face me. “Nah, I’M sorry. I shouldn’t have kept anything from you. I was overwhelmed by everything that was happening and I was so afraid of what you would do and how you would feel if you found out. When you found out on your own, it just turned out worse than I imagined and all this time I just thought you hated me for it.” AJ glowered at me and planted her fists on her hips. “Of course I was mad, you lied to me.” I hung my head in shame and kicked the ground idly. AJ relaxed her expression and folded her arms. “I don’t hate you though. I missed you more than anything, we were so close,” “Best friends.” I offered as I looked back up at AJ. “Exactly.” She agreed and smiled at me. I smiled in kind and said to her, “You know I never lied when I said I loved you.” She smiled hopefully at me, “A part of me still loves you…a big part.” I smiled warmly at her and before I realized it, AJ took me in her strong embrace. I returned her grip and took a deep breath before I could articulate my next thought, “I made a huge mistake treating you how I did.” Tears welled up in my eyes, my first instinct was to hold them back, until I remembered whose arms I was in. Then I had no issue letting the tears stream down my face, onto her shoulder. Applejack pressed her face into my shoulder, her voice creaked, “I forgive you. I wish I coulda did so sooner.” I rubbed my hand in a circle on her back, “I wish you did too.” I admitted. AJ carefully pulled back to look me in the eye, still holding me in her strong grasp. “What are you saying?” She asked uncertainly. I took a deep breath and for the first time in too long stared deep into her emerald eyes. “I…really, want you back AJ, a lot.” I confessed to her quietly, as if Adagio was listening from a nearby treetop. Applejack opened her mouth excitedly trying to say something, but I had to stop her before she started. “But I can’t.” The excitement faded slowly from AJ’s face, “Not right now.” Suddenly I was overcome with guilt and I let Applejack go, I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her, much less look her in the eyes a second longer. I shrugged and tried to continue. “I’m with Adagio now…I can’t just, break her heart. She doesn’t deserve that.” Applejack let me go and took a few steps back. As she folded her arms she asked me sincerely, “Do you love her though?” This question caught me badly off guard, I knew the answer, even if I was reluctant to admit it, to both her and Adagio. “I…really don’t know.” I sighed. AJ stepped closer to me, even took my hands in her own. “You do love me, right?” I nodded, she stepped closer, until our faces were inches apart, keeping our hands by our sides. Now, I could look into her eyes once again, and tell her with more certainty than if I told her the color of the sky, “I do.” I stated authoritatively, staring into AJ’s eyes, which were shimmering thanks to the tears forming in her eyes. We stared at each other in tense silence for a few moments, until Applejack slowly closed her eyes and began to lean into me. I closed my eyes and leaned into her until our lips had met. The familiar sensation overcame me, before it made me surrender to more bad judgement, I broke the kiss abruptly. “I love you Applejack.” I admitted, and took her cheeks in my hands. “But we still can’t be together.” Applejack interrupted as I was about to continue. I nodded my head and clarified, “Not right now.” Applejack sighed in disappointment and replied, “I understand,” she planted a firm kiss on my cheek, “I’m just glad to get all our feelings out in the open.” Applejack and I held each other in another strong embrace. “Me too.” I whispered to her. I was sitting back in my car, it was early afternoon and AJ and I had said everything we needed to each other. She offered to let me stay for lunch but I decided it was best for me to go. My key was in the ignition, resting in the off position, I was supporting my chin in one hand holding my phone in the other. I was reading a message I was about to send to Adagio over and over, my thumb traced circles around the send button. The message read, “I’m so sorry. I kissed Applejack.” My every sensibility was telling me to tell Adagio, I’d learned my lesson the hard way by losing Applejack. Abruptly, my thumb pressed down on the backspace button, until the whole message had been erased. “Not like this.” I whispered to myself, tucking my phone away. The following day, Monday, Adagio and I were walking arm in arm to the cafeteria. She couldn’t take her eyes off me as we walked and I would be looking into her eyes except one of us had to watch that we didn’t walk face first into a wall. “You know I hit up AJ yesterday.” I told Adagio, breaking the silence between us. Adagio cocked her head and raised an eyebrow at me. “Oh yeah, how’d that go?” She asked suspiciously. “Good. It went good. We talked” I stammered looking away from her. “What was there for you two to say to each other?” She asked defensively. “Specifics ain’t important, but…” I offered. “But what?” She accused. “I think we should sit with AJ and her friends.” I finished, Adagio glared at me in disbelief. “I’m being for real. You ladies want to fix your reputation, they the only ones gonna give you a chance.” We stopped just inside the cafeteria doorway, Adagio closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Alright.” She conceded. I shook my head in disbelief. “Wait for real?” I blurted before I could think about it. “Yeah. You’re right.” She began leading me to the Rainboom’s table. “If we want to change our image, we’re not going to do it sitting by ourselves every day.” “Alright, that’s a pretty good point. I mean, of course it’s a good point, it’s my point. Yeah.” I stammered desperately confused at how well Adagio took to my idea. Adagio cautiously sat down with me at the Rainboom’s table, understandably, everyone was nervous. Except me and Sunset Shimmer, we eventually got the group chatting like normal, and even made efforts to include anxious Adagio whenever we could. Aria and Sonata meanwhile were content to sit by themselves in the corner of the room. On our way to our next class, Adagio stopped and turned to face me. I looked at her expectantly and she said, “Thank you, for talking me into this. The girls will take some coercion but I think they’ll come around too one day.” A wide smile spread across her face right before she embraced me. She gingerly pecked me on the cheek before heading off to class on her own. When I had taken Adagio and the girls to the races with me, I had forgotten the Wonderbolt’s pin which I stored in the front seat cup holders. I even forgot I was one of them. I had spent the night as the proverbial lone wolf I always was. Ever since the day before, I was helplessly preoccupied by my…meeting? Talk? Whatever it was AJ and I did yesterday, it was occupying my every waking thought. Between one of my races, I was caught off guard when Spitfire approached my car and knocked persistently on my window. I rolled down my window and Adagio and I looked at her expectantly. “You got some stones to go it alone tonight Kid.” Spitfire scolded. I glared at Spitfire “Guess I can’t help myself, must be in the wolf’s nature.” I snapped. Spitfire huffed at me, “You didn’t even come say what’s up to any of us at school. Now you’re out here riding around like you own the joint. What are you bored of us?” “So what if I am I?” I spat back to her. Spitfire glared at me viciously and took a deep breath. “This is your one chance buster, you’re in or you’re out.” She pointed to the pin sitting in my cup holder. I took the pin in my hand, it was an easy decision, all I had to do was picture Applejack and I was inspired to throw the pin out the window at Spitfire, and roar away. “Where’s your friends?” I demanded from Adagio. Adagio recoiled at my irritability and answered cautiously, “They’re usually at the starting line, watching.” I continued down the road to the start line, I got in line for a final race. Eventually we found Aria and Sonata, when I told them to pile in, they were hesitant, especially Aria. She was mostly worried why we were leaving so early. My earlier conversation with Spitfire mixed with my hopeless romantic conundrum had me in a sour mood to put it lightly. I only asked them nicely once, then stood up out of my door and commanded them to come home with more fervor that even I didn’t think I could muster. Even though I was ready to go, I was already near the front of the line so I decided to at least clock out a solo run. However, when my opponent pulled up next to me, I recognized Spitfire’s car. I did a double take when Trixie announced over the crowd “Come one come all! Witness a true battle for the ages,” she pointed to Spitfire’s car, “Canterlot High’s very own legend!” She put her hand down, then pointed at me with the other, “Versus Canterlot High’s Ghost Rider!” I performed another double take, I never listened to Trixie’s ramblings before, so this nickname was completely new to me. “So, what will it be challengers?” Trixie chimed over the crowd addressing us two. Since the last time we raced I knew that Spitfire had been putting work into her car. In the moment, I had no regard for how her car might match up against mine, so I flashed her two large. I was too busy waiting for Spitfire to pony up the cash to notice the shock on Adagio and Sonata’s faces at my unusually large wager. When she showed me as much cash, we stashed our money, rolled up our windows and revved up our engines. My exhaust spat flames and crackled as the engine wound down. At Trixie’s signal, I dumped the clutch and hammered down on the gas. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect start, which gave me an advantage over Spitfire. However, my lead didn’t last long. In a single moment Spitfire had caught up to me. I rode my engine all the way up to the red line, in an attempt to squeeze out every possible horse it would give. I started passing her again until I had to change gears. As quickly as I did so, I still lost some distance on her. Once again I revved my engine up higher and higher, I began passing her again but as the clock was ready to tick over a quarter mile, it didn’t look like it would be enough, until foolishly, Spitfire decided to change gear. In that split second she took to do so she gave me enough distance to win, if only just. Instead of stopping to collect my two grand, I did what came naturally to me and drove on, faster and faster. I was miles out of town before I came down from my adrenaline high and snapped back to reality. I won’t lie, I probably would have gone farther, except it was Aria punching my headrest that snapped me out of it. I took the girls home, left them with a cut of my winnings and Adagio planted an affectionate kiss on my cheek. I went home and set back to work on my dad’s car. By now I had made it a solo project. By morning, I was confident I had finished all of the tuning it needed to be in running order. My confidence turned out not to be misplaced, as I turned the engine over, it roared to life, angrier than ever. Just as well, there was no time left to work. The school day had played out similarly to the day before, Adagio ate lunch with me and the Rainbooms and I took her home after school. I went home to relax for a few hours before picking up the Dazzling’s and bringing them to the races like clockwork. From there, the events of the evening transpired rather unexpectedly. It must’ve been my third race of the night, Adagio wanted to get out and hang out with her friends for a little while. I was left in the car by myself, and as I pulled up to the starting line I reached over and opened my glove box. I pulled out the picture Applejack gave me and carefully read the love letter she wrote to me on the back. “AJ loves you.” I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I wiped them away as I replaced the photo in its rightful place, under the passenger sun visor. By keeping myself so busy, I hadn’t noticed that the race was about to start until it was too little too late. I gave the other driver too much of a lead, I couldn’t make it up by the end of the quarter mile. That was okay, no one’s perfect, except it was a precursor to the events of the rest of the night and even the week. I went home that night with a profit, but a worrying number of losses as well. The rest of the week played out: lunch with Adagio and the Rainbooms, racing after school, putting my dad’s car back together all night. With each passing day, I was more and more consumed by my repressed feelings for Applejack coming up on me. When I arrived back home after school on Friday I sat contemplatively in my car. I thought back to what my dad had said to me right before I started seriously dating Adagio, “Don’t push away the people who love you.” After carefully considering my father’s words, I pulled out my phone and dialed AJ. I patiently waited for her to pick up, but instead I was forwarded to her voice mail. “Hey, Applejack, it’s me…I…I wanted to tell you I’m ready. I’m ready to own up to everything I’ve done. I think it’s long past time for us three to sit down and figure out how we can all come away friends. Hit me up when you can….I love you.” Later that night, I picked up Adagio and her sisters to take them to the races. It was Friday night, chance to win big…or lose big. Worryingly, I had been losing more and more as the week went on. I lined up for my first race of the night, I was visibly nervous, at least I must’ve been because Adagio placed her hand carefully on top of my own and said to me “You’ll do fine.” She cooed gently. I smiled halfheartedly, then turned back to face the road. My start was appalling to put it gently, I ended up spinning away all of my power while my opponent had more than a hundred feet on me before my tires finally found traction. I still had a chance I thought, but somehow, I kept missing gears whenever I would try to shift. This race set the tone for the rest of the night, in between races I obsessively checked my phone for any message from Applejack. Even with a smoking hot girlfriend in the seat next to me all night, I couldn’t stop thinking about Applejack. The night ended with me taking home a total loss. I had some good moments but not nearly enough to salvage any cash. The tension in the car when I arrived at the Dazzling’s house to drop them off was thick enough to cut with a knife. I could feel Aria staring daggers into the back of my seat and I slouched in shame. Adagio took my hand in hers, I looked up to see her smiling at me hopefully. “That. Was. TERRIBLE!” Aria blurted from the back seat. She caught both Adagio and me off guard. Adagio looked back at her irately. “After all he’s done for us, show him some respect.” She demanded. Aria rolled her eyes and huffed, “Looks like we rode this race horse into the ground.” “Ladies…” I interrupted meekly. I had the attention of everyone in the car as I reached under my seat to pull out an envelope. I held it out to Adagio and she stared at me confused. “I was worried something like this would happen. I been slippin all week and I don’t got squat else for y’all tonight.” The girls all stared at me suspiciously and quizzically, after a long moment of silence I elaborated further, “Theres ten large in here.” Adagio’s jaw slowly slacked, “I don’t know what to say.” She whispered. From the back seat, Aria reached over and snatched the envelope, “How about ‘kick rocks’. Come on Adagio we got what we wanted. Time to cut him loose.” I looked back at Aria, then back to Adagio worriedly, “What does she mean?” Aria let out a hearty laugh, when she caught her breath she shouted, “Seriously? This whole time you never suspected anything?” Sonata joined Aria in a giggle fit. Adagio tried to hide her face in her hands, but I brought them away and tried to look her in the eye. “She better not be sayin what I think she sayin.” I warned Adagio. Sonata composed herself long enough to chime in, “Don’t worry, as long as you don’t think Aria’s telling Adagio to dump you like last week’s lunch meat, you have nothing to worry about. Oops! That is what she’s saying!” She proceeded to cackle sadistically. Tears were welling up in Adagio’s eyes and her lips were quivering. She tried desperately to avoid my gaze. “You’re not gonna do it are you?” Adagio stayed quiet, “Are you?” I demanded. “I don’t want to,” She started, her voice quivering trying to hold back her tears. “So don’t.” I interrupted. “Sorry Stud Muffin.” Sonata added from the back seat, “She had her chance to let you down easy.” “But no,” Aria chimed smugly, “she just wanted to do it the hard way.” “Adagio, whats going on?” I took her chin in my hand and forced her to look me in the eye. She cracked and let the tears fall freely down her face. “You know we’ve been using you from the start.” She cried, “You know that.” She broke free of my grip and turned away from me once again. I looked at her expecting her to elaborate more. Aria finished Adagio’s explanation, “If we stuck to our original plan, you and your weird dad wouldn’t have a place to sleep by now and you would’ve never seen us again.” She sighed wistfully, “But then, our fearless leader went and fell in love with you.” Aria gagged, “We made a lot of money off you already, but it looks like from now on, our time will be better invested elsewhere.” “Adagio, you’re not just gonna go along with this. Right?” I begged her. Adagio dried her eyes and looked me sternly in mine. “She’s right. You know what we are. Our kind was never meant to be together.” Sonata and Aria opened their doors and started climbing out of the car. “You heard her. No room for losers like you around here.” Aria huffed. I believed Adagio, until she started to get out of the car. I could see tears flowing from her eyes again. I grabbed her wrist to try to stop her, “I l-“ I started, as I did, Sonata yanked Adagio free from my grasp and shut the door behind her. The three girls beat a hasty retreat into the house leaving me alone.