Maybe it’s wrong how I feel. I mean, for the longest time she was untouchable: she was Flash’s girl, and then when she left him she … changed. I can’t explain why but when she was punished for her sins like Satan struck down by the archangel Michael, something about her changed. Maybe it was her circle of friends, maybe it was the public information that she’d actually been a girl in foster care all this time or she was adopted or something like that … or maybe because I had the chance once to meet her sisters, and they were as wonderful as all those girls on the Disney Channel. Heck, if I didn’t know Sunset, that Octavia girl? Oh, she’s got bedroom eyes.
But most of all, I think it was the Vibe situation that did it. I was lucky: while technically I was one of the victims, the guy that had his eye on me admitted in court that he just couldn’t get it up that night. I suppose I should count myself fortunate that he didn’t know what Viagra was, or I’d have been in serious trouble. As it is, people think I slept with Frosty Mug, but he wouldn’t have been my first choice – because my first choice has always been her and I get excited and nervous thinking about it at the same time.
My name is Compass Rose … and I’m in love with Sunset Shimmer.
“Rose! That’s sick!” I knew I shouldn’t have told Tennis Match, but she’s my best friend and I have to confide in someone, right?
Or rather someones.
Meanwhile, my other best friend, Scotch Bonnet, looked at me with disgust. “Her? Really, Rose, I thought you had good taste.” She and Sunset have never gotten along and it’s sad because, ironically, they’re very much alike – far more than they think.
“Matchie, that’s not fair. You tell me all the time about how you wish you were Flash Sentry’s girlfriend.” To me that’s sick. Given what happened just weeks ago, to find out that Flash was one of the ones involved … well, that’s been somewhat of a shock to everyone. I guess if I were het I’d probably want a guy like Flash, but then again Sunset Shimmer didn’t want him either. “And you, Scotch, you should give Sunset a chance. She’s changed, really!”
“Look, girl, I don’t need to hear about how you scooped your pink taco thinking about Sunset,” Matchie tells me; in hindsight maybe that wasn’t such a smart thing to admit. “Plus, aren’t you here to talk to her?”
“I’d rather be somewhere else,” Scotch admits.
I ignore her and get back to the newest Tomb Raider novel. I know people say that Tomb Raider is just for kids, but I grew up being a Daring Do fan, and I have all the books. Sometimes I even imagine myself as Daring sweeping Sunset off her feet just before she’s sacrificed to a pagan idol, and then carry her off to the bedroom….
Finishing the page, I put my book down to say something else, but then I hear a beautiful voice ask me if there’s anything else I need. And I look up and see the most beautiful eyes of cyan in a face of soft skin, framed by locks of red and yellow. For some reason, Sunset wears a hairstyle that’s decades out of date but I think it looks sexy; it certainly looks better on her than Featherlight – and she looked sexy in the 70’s too.
The things I want to do with her right now … it puts Matchie’s “pink taco” comment to shame.
This is my chance to say something. But what do I say? “Sunset, I want your baby!” No, that’s stupid. “Sunset, you were meant to be mine!” No that sounds desperate. “Sunset, I want to do you until your brains leak out your ears!” Yeah, Rose, that will really get her attention then. I think she mentioned her brother’s a police officer?
“Don’t mind her, Sunset, she’s autistic,” I hear Matchie say and I want to kill her just for that. Fortunately for me Sunset giggles at my brainfart and I deal with that.
“What I want is for you to go away, you cunt,” I hear Scotch growl.
“Scotch, be polite, okay?” I tell her. Finally working up the courage to talk to Sunset I try not to get lost in her eyes while I place my order. Really, I’ve always liked coming to Sugarcube Corner but the fact that my girl works here makes it even better.
Well, I wish she was my girl….
“She doesn’t lean that way, you know.” I turn to see Rarity, looking at me. Don’t get me wrong, I like Rarity – Fluttershy’s pretty hot, too – but Sunset’s sexier.
“Excuse me?” I say.
She smiles at me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world as she tells me, “My dearest friend Sunset is oblivious about these sorts of things, but I can tell and you’ve been looking at her like ... well, suffice to say, I can tell when someone is trying to undress someone else with her eyes.” Rarity gestures at a bench near us and we sit.
“What, are you in love with her too?” Hiding it isn’t going to help, not if Rarity’s competition.
She laughs. “I’m sorry; Sunset and I are close but not that close. Plus, there’s a gent that I have my eye on … but he’s taken, and I worry about it no more.” She then looks into my eyes and adds, “But I don’t want to see anyone hurt. Sunset isn’t the most, how shall we say … humane when it comes to affairs of the heart, and I wouldn’t want to see you hurt. Let’s just say that there were several things that drew Flash and Sunset together, and she grew up – he didn’t.”
“So I still have a chance?” I ask.
“Perhaps, but I say that as ‘in the realm of possibility’ rather than ‘in the realm of certainty’. Sunset might find love again … it might even be with you … but I don’t see so. She has bigger issues on her mind right now, and if your love for her is sincere then you may want to wait until her issues are … dispensed with, as it were.” She gracefully rises from the bench, and looking back at me says, “I hope you do find love, whether it is with Sunset, or another. No one deserves to have their heart broken.”
“You sound like a girl that has,” I tell her. She says nothing and instead walks away.
“Today’s the day,” I tell myself at the breakfast table.
“You gonna be okay, Rosie?” my brother, Vector Line, asked. Line’s studying art over at Shasta University and, unlike our parents, he was the first one to accept that I’m a lesbian. Don’t get me wrong, my parents came around eventually, but my big brother was always there first.
“Yeah I’m just worried if she doesn’t like me.”
He laughs and tells me, “Well, there’s always Nice Smiles.” Smiles used to be his girlfriend but once dared me to kiss her. Line walked in to us making out and while he forgave me, it was the end of them. It was how I found out I like girls. It was also how he found out that she was cheating on him with a lot of guys and girls. Definitely a slut. Cute face and a good kisser, though.
“No thanks Line, not into sloppy seconds,” I joke back. But then I frown and say, “I don’t know what I’m afraid of: her turning me down or her accepting me.”
He pats me on the shoulder and says, “Whatever the answer is, Rosie? I know you’ll succeed.”
“Sunset?” I run up to her while she’s alone. I timed this day perfectly: Rarity’s out sick, Rainbow’s at soccer practice, Pinkie’s off with the cheerleading squad, Fluttershy’s attending one of her school clubs, and Applejack is busy chatting with Matchie, who promised to keep her busy for me giving me the chance to ask Sunset.
“Yes, can I help you?” Oh God, those eyes – those unworldly, untamed eyes that make me just want to kiss her until we’re out of breath and groping for each other’s shirts and….
Easy, Rose. You don’t want to blow this one.
“Do you have time to talk?” I ask her.
“Listen … Compass Rose, contrary to what my friends might think, I do notice things. And right now I know what you’re going to say. And while I’m flattered, I like guys.” My heart crushes as she says those words. Part of me wants to die right then and there, while another part of me wants to just kiss her and beg her to do anything she wants to me, but I know that’s a line I can’t cross. I’ve known a few people like that and I wouldn’t want to be anyone’s “slave”.
But to my surprise, she kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “But pay attention to your surroundings, Compass Rose. You might be surprised by what you see.” Saying nothing more, she walks off leaving me curious as to what she’s talking about.
“Um, Compass Rose?” I turn and there’s a girl standing right next to me. I’ve seen her before; she’s one of the eighth graders that attends Central just across the grassway from us.
“Yes?” I ask her and I notice that she’s not much shorter than me even though she’s what two years younger? She’s got cute eyes and hair though.
“Hi,” she says with a smile and – why is she blushing? “My name is Boysenberry and … well….” She then kisses me. It’s sloppy and halting; not much different from my kiss with Smiles. But there’s something there: a warmth and eagerness that I didn’t have with Smiles (which I thought was just a dare at the time.)
I break the kiss and ask, “Why?”
“Because I like you,” Boysenberry blushes again and admits to me that she’s been watching me ever since she found out she likes girls, and even bragged to her friends that “the prettiest girl at CHS” was going to be her girlfriend. When she says that I blush as well.
But then her eyes turn away and she says, “But I didn’t know Sunset was your girlfriend.”
“She’s not.”
“Really? Because she kissed you … and she’s watching.” Boysenberry points and just behind the bushes, I swear I can see a flash of red and yellow. Did she do this for me?
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I tell Boysenberry. “If anything, she’s … um … an old friend. Yeah.” At least I think I remember going to school with her in the second grade. I really didn’t pay much attention back then.
“So then … will you be my girlfriend?” Boysenberry asks me and she’s a lot more daring about it than I ever was. I like this girl’s style and she’s cute, but she’s a junior high student. I’d never hear the end of that.
So I lean down, kiss her – just a peck of a promise, nothing else – and say “Not right now. But when school lets out for the year … first day of summer, you and I are going on a date okay?”
“Promise?”
“Well, you’re the one that asked me out. It’d be mean of me to turn you down.”
She smiles and runs back to her friends, who were clearly waiting as well, then waves back at me. I blow her a kiss and they giggle as they get on the bus. I hear footsteps behind me and I ask “You knew, didn’t you?”
“It’s a kind of magic,” Sunset tells me with a grin. I smile knowing that my life’s about to change somehow. I’m going to miss those erotic cyan eyes of hers … but hey, girlfriend now!
That has to count for something right?