What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?

by Appleloosan Psychiatrist

Memories

Scootaloo's mom wasn't always as unrestrained as she found herself in Ponyville. Once, there was an arbiter in both her and Scootaloo's life that watched over every part of them from behind a blurry, defocused gaze that managed to convey an angry, jealous rage and scrutiny even through the bottom of a bottle. He was Scootaloo's father. Not being able to muster up the courage to do so, Scootaloo had never questioned her mother about her parentage - she never asked her mom if this stallion she called Dad was her real dad. Adoption was a no-no word in the household, and Scootaloo couldn't figure out why even after late-night brainstorming sessions with an adopted friend of hers from Ponyville.

No matter how hard she thought, no clear or crisp memories of her childhood remained in Scootaloo's mind. There were blurry images of unicorn stallions, a few fleeting memories of a collection of other ponies Scootaloo could only imagine were her mother's friends or suitors for her attention, but she had no idea who her real dad was. As soon as she was old enough to delineate today from tomorrow, and to remember yesterday, this stallion had been here.

She also couldn't remember if he had always been this cruel. At her young age, Scootaloo had already figured out the dangers of worshipping the past, and an inability to reminisce accurately if present circumstances were bleak enough to obscure. Miserable memories had a way of blacking out anything before them, and like a massive black marker, memories of her father storming around the house in a drunken rampage scribbled all over and hid underneath them any memories of him kissing her goodnight, reading her a story, welcoming her home from school. Even the thought of him leaning over her shoulder and whispering gentle advice into her ear as she fumbled around and scribbled ink on her mathematics homework only inspired the natural subsequent recollection of just how much his breath had smelled like cheap Cloudsdale Whiskey.

Sometimes, while she and her mother were curled up in bed, alternating between crying and comforting the other, she had asked her, why? Why does Dad act like this? Doesn't he love us? And her mother would fumble around words, her equivocation useless in the face of this innocent, wide-eyed pegasus who knew nothing of the world and even less of the types of ponies that populated its gutters and moral back alleys of Equestria. Scootaloo couldn't understand her mother's explanation. Even now, years later, as old as she was, somehow decades older than the ponies sitting across the campfire staring at her, she couldn't make sense of her mother's explanation. It was unsatisfying, somehow, knowing she could never get answers. Her mother had turned into a free spirit with her dad out of the picture, but there was still something that was forbidden in her house - mention of this stallion. Scootaloo would never know if there was a time that he loved her truly, or why her mother stayed with him for as long as she did, or why she smiled in family portraits despite the bruises that cropped up with alarming frequency all over her legs and her side. This stallion whose anger and whiskey-scented breath and vodka-muddled eyes would forever be a mystery to her, for the rest of her life she would never know anything more about him. She understood why she could never bring it up, and would be happy not to if only she had some sort of resolution. Maybe, if she had that, the nightmares she found herself waking up to on some dark nights would start to abate. It's possible that if her mother just answered her questions, laid everything on the table for her, she might be able to stand whenever her mom invited her friends over for a drink instead of fleeing to her room at the chemical smell of cheap alcohol, sobbing.

Back when she was younger, Scootaloo didn't know what was going on. She simply cried when her father began shouting, not understanding why he was mad. She held her trembling mother close and cried when she cried, not understanding why she was sad. As she grew older, she started understanding some of the words that were shot like bullets every night in the house, and she started to cry because she was caught in the crossfire. Scootaloo learned to hate her name - there wasn't once where her parents had a conversation about her that didn't end with her in tears, wishing she could run away.

There were days that Scootaloo tried to do anything she could to help. Days of cleaning an empty house, days she ended by collapsing in her bed, overcome with exhaustion and covered in dirt. Nothing made a difference as far as she could tell. Her parent's screams never became more quiet no matter how much she worked, and the last time she tried to stop them from fighting by shouting over them she was pushed onto her back and almost broke a wing. After that, it became her singular duty in the house to solemnly and steadily retreat to her room once her parent's conversations rose louder than a speaking voice, and to hold her head under a pillow until it was over.

Maybe, Scootaloo thought as she stared at the ceiling, all families are like this? Maybe this is just a part of growing up. She had no one to consult. She had a very difficult time making friends, and most of them could only endure a single afternoon at her home before the shouting and the posturing scarred Scootaloo's friendship. Besides, most of the time she hardly had time to make friends. With increasing frequency, as she grew older, Scootaloo was shunted from town to town across Equestria with a warning that consisted of a grumbled single sentence through a mouthful of food, or something that was shouted up at her after she was told to go to bed. Packed, moved, and stored about like so much luggage, Scootaloo was periodically picked up, carried to some other part of Equestria she knew nothing about, and thrown down upon arrival. There were always excuses but they lacked any explanation that soothed Scootaloo. Her father's "job", something to do with some obscure relative on her mother's side. Scootaloo never received an adequate explanation, but had long ago learned not to ask questions or to protest. She could scream when no one was around, but until then she had to be silent and submit.

It was hardest the first time, but like anything in her life it only got easier as the days went on. The first time, Scootaloo had held her childhood friends close, telling them how much she would miss them and how she might come visit some day. Her entire class, her constant companions since pre-school, threw a going away party for her. Her teachers told her how much potential she had, what a nice filly she was. Those are the types of memories that shone through brightest, thankfully. Most of her time at home was a blurry mess of amber and noise but memories of former friends and teachers were sharp.

She tried to fit into her new schools but it was impossible, and she soon forgot the desire. As a teacher would introduce her to a class, and she'd give a monotone, recited introduction about who she was and what she enjoyed doing, she knew that she would be among these ponies looking at her with emotions ranging from apathy to malice for maybe half a year at most - then she'd move on to another collection of empty faces. Her education was a broken mess, shards of lesson plans left embedded in her and carried from one curriculum to the next, some teachers pulling them out, others pushing them in. Educators would begin a sentence in one language and be speaking another by the time Scootaloo settled in a desk in front of his clone from another city. She didn't bother participating in class after the fourth move.

Teachers saw her as sullen and moody. She didn't get along well with other students, mostly content to ignore them. All the judgements in the world didn't matter to Scootaloo, and she cared about the notes her teachers sent home admonishing her excessive apathy and antisocial behavior almost as little as her parents did. As long as the police didn't show up at the door one night, Scootaloo soon realized that her parents didn't have a care in the world what she did with her life, and she felt liberated at that realization for almost a whole day before the feeling of emptiness sent her peeling back to her home in the hopes that just for once she'd be shown some attention.

Money was always tight with Scootaloo's family. Her father hopped from job to job that all involved him leaving early in the morning and stumbling through the door late at night. All of his jobs, somehow, resulted in him staggering around the house smelling exactly the same - a combination of excessive and pungent oil, the smell of a thick, dried sheen of sweat, and a throat burning odor of cheap spirits. When her mother wasn't unemployed, she worked a wide assortment of jobs, most of them lasting a few weeks. She'd cook for a restaurant one month, clean the house of an affluent pony the next, and fly packages around Equestria another.

Scootaloo's father complained about her mom's work a lot. It made up at least half of their arguments. For the life of her, Scootaloo couldn't figure out what combinations of circumstances would make her father happy - every new development seemed to upset him, and every relapse into a prior state seemed to make it worse. He screamed relentlessly about how many hours she spent away from home, not watching their kid, not cleaning, not cooking, not being in love with him. The times came around often enough that she did spent all her days at home, but that only made him angrier. He began to complain about not having enough money, then, or of supporting a whole family of lazy ponies. Scootaloo didn't know if the conversations varied as she grew older, because after a few years of hearing the same thing every single night her parent's voices became background noise of the creaking house, filtered out and hidden under sobbing or songs.

It was the alcohol, Scootaloo decided one day. That was the problem. Her father was okay - not affable but not abusive - if he hadn't been drinking that day, and every time things became really bad, he sweat the smell of cheap beer and walked in a palpable haze of cigar smoke. She barely knew what he was like without the alcohol, but it didn't take a genius to connect the proportions he consumed to the things he said, and the bruises he inflicted. The revelation fell on her, and it shook her awake. Some of her schools had had seminars of the dangers of alcohol, and every now and then there was an offhand mention of it by her teachers. Those were the few times in the class that she pushed herself up in her seat and listened.

Scootaloo brought this information to her Mother like it was classified, a whispered secret that contained their salvation. It was her Elements of Harmony, something that they just had to work through and achieve and the world would be completely saved, just like the myths. Her entire life she spent stumbling around a swamp but now finally the light was shining and she had something to trot towards. She could finally see for the first time in her life. Just imagining it was enough to make her giddy.

Her mother's lukewarm reception of her idea cooled her enthusiasm. She patted Scootaloo on the head and dismissed it, as if it wasn't the most exciting thing in her life. She acted to it with the same exhausted disconnected dead eyes that she used to look over anything Scootaloo did or proposed.

Until, that is, Scootaloo suggested that she talk to a teacher about it. After all, it was from a collection of disparate teachers that she had even managed to collage a solution to their problems. At that suggestion, Scootaloo's mom was alight with passion. She insisted, No, Scootaloo, you absolutely cannot tell anyone about this. If you do, it will be your fault that this whole family fell apart. If you tell anyone, Daddy will lose his job and so will Mommy, and we'll be homeless. You'll probably go to some strange family to be raised for the rest of your life, do you understand? Do not tell anyone, do you got that? After all I've done for you, after all I've begged with him for you whenever you've been bad, and you're just going to throw us in the trash by telling someone. Despite the fact that Scootaloo was sobbing hysterically before her mother had even finished chastising her, her mom forced her to promise that she wouldn't tell anyone what went on in the household every day. It was a secret hidden among piles of discarded heirlooms and scattered papers, behind the decaying couch bursting at the seams and under the half-eaten floorboards. A secret that no one could know, ever, for fear that Scootaloo might be rescued.

Fine, Scootaloo decided. That's fine. Fine. I won't tell anyone. I don't need any help. The teachers noticed the bruises every so often, but didn't bother asking most of the time, and the cursory excuses Scootaloo gave them satisfied their curiosity, and her constantly combative attitude didn't give most of them much reason to persist in their questioning. Some of them were insistent, though, in offering Scootaloo an ear or a hoof in any problems she was having - one even making the offer her very first day in class. Those were the times Scootaloo almost broke. The times that a teacher pulled her in after class and told her that she could trust him with anything, and even if she didn't have a trusting atmosphere at home, she could tell him anything and it would be a secret. Those were the times that she had to almost yell at a teacher to extract herself from the situation before she started bawling. Those were the times Scootaloo almost broke, but constant fears of living far away and never seeing her family again kept the confessions firmly stuck in her throat.

Some days, Scootaloo wonders what her life would be today if she had broke and told a teacher everything. She was worldly enough to know that while some of what her mother had threatened her with were lies to scare her, most of it had enough truth. She very likely would have been given to a new family in the hopes that they can repair the broken filly she had become, and stitch together some semblance of a normal pony from the tattered, jittery child they had been given. She would have very likely never met the pair of friends to which she was currently delivering a speech without inflection or emphasis while she prodded and disturbed the fireplace, bringing the embers intermittently to life. It was hard to imagine that even if that had occurred Scootaloo would have been any worse off, but you never know. Scootaloo's imagination went to some dark places.

Scootaloo thought she was doing good. She was going to fix her family, her father, and everything was going to be better. She was going to do it without the help of her mother or her teachers or any friends. She didn't know how, exactly, but at least she had a goal.

The true test came about much, much sooner than she would have liked.