I Will Never Leave You
I Will Never Leave You
“Therefore shall a man leave his father
and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh.”
-Genesis 2:24-
I paced along the front hall of my house, waiting for the unmistakable sound of the doorbell buzz. Where could he be, I wondered to myself and as if on cue, the doorbell rang. I galloped along the hallway to the door, my blue and white hair coming undone from its pin. I was never one for fashion anyway. I straighten my dress as I open the door.
“Hello Colgate. Wow, you look amazing tonight!” my date said as he looked over my light blue dress with tiny hourglasses hugging the hem.
I blushed and looked away, smiling nervously. “Th-thank you. You don’t look too bad yourself.”
He was sporting a smartly pressed button-up shirt with an hourglass symbol, similar to the one I had, on the left breast pocket. Underneath the hourglass said the company name he worked for and the number. He held out an arm and asked, “Shall we?” I giggled, took his arm, and we walked out to his car.
When we arrived at the restaurant, we ordered our food, and waited in a slightly uncomfortable silence for the other one to speak first. Dr. Hooves (though he likes to be called Time Turner) and I have been going out for a couple years, and we still knew almost nothing about each other. I decided to start since this silence was starting to get painful.
“So, you work for the Timely Insurance Company?” I asked timidly.
“Yes, I do,” he replied. “I help ponies decide if how much certain damages would cost and how much our company would be willing to pay to cover those costs. It’s a tough job, but somepony needs to do it.” He winked. “So what do you do?”
I looked at the floor, kind of embarrassed. “I don’t really do anything. I sometimes do volunteer work, but nothing that provides any kind of income. Most recently, I helped Ms. Sparkle with a shipment of new books. I got some pay out of that. Before that, I helped decorate the town hall for the Annual Ponyville Festival.”
Turner leaned in, interestedly. “Oh, the festival. I always wanted to go. What’s it like?”
“It’s nothing special,” I shrug. “I just put up a banner that says Welcome to the Annual Ponyville Festival. Or at least, high enough for the pegasi to hook it on the town hall. So I don’t really do anything important.” My head slumps slightly in depression.
Turner looks at me concerned. “Whatever happened to that dentist job you had? I thought you were good at that?”
I feel tears threatening my tear ducts with overflow. “I-I-I qu-" I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears started leaking down my face, leaving mascara trails as I try to control my sobbing, without much success. My date rushes over.
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he says, putting a comforting hoof over my shoulders.
I just shake my head as my body continues to tremble and occasionally heave as a particularly heavy sob leaves me. He takes me in his arms and rocks me gently back and forth. I hear another pony walk up and Turner says a couple words and the other pony leaves. I continue to cry for another ten minutes, and he never once lets go of me. I eventually calm down enough to sit back up. My hair is a mess, but I don’t care.
“Will you be ok?” Turner asks, cautiously letting go of me. “We can go, if you want.”
I shake my head, sniffing. “It’s ok, I’ll be fine,” I say, my voice cracking slightly.
We get to eating with Turner still sitting beside me. He helps me eat a few bites before I recover enough to feed myself. I occasionally miss my mouth and Turner is more than gracious to wipe the food off my chest or anywhere else it lands. At long last, we finish eating and our waiter presents the bill. I take out my wallet, but Turner pushes it down with a hoof. “It’s ok. I got it. It’s no problem.” I return my wallet to my handbag as he pays the bill and leaves a tip. We hop up from our places and exit the diner.
On the car ride, he doesn’t say anything, but he casts glances at me every once in a while. A light rain starts up and its light patter against the glass is the only sound. As he pulls up to my house, he gets out, opens my door, and uses his jacket as cover from the weather. I reach the front door and unlock it. I turn back to Turner and ask if he would like to come in. He respectfully declines.
“Please, I insist. I could use some company. Please stay a while.”
He looks around and sighs before locking his car and following me inside. It’s a nice two-story middle-class house and a slight scent of mint toothpaste. It has a decent amount of furniture and a nice 30-inch flat screen television.
I walk up to my room and throw my handbag on my bed. The room has an oak desk in one corner with a Pink Fluoride: Dark Side of the Tooth poster above it. In another corner is an armoire where I keep all my casual clothes. My formal clothes I keep hanging in bags in my closet, which resides next to the armoire.
I sit on my bed and start taking off my makeup, and I hear hoofsteps on the stairs. There’s a gentle knocking on the door.
“Come in. It’s unlocked.”
The doorknob slowly turns and opens. Turner looks in and comes to sit next to me. He doesn’t say anything, but silently looks around. I see him crack a smile when his eyes land on the Pink Fluoride poster.
“That was a good album. It’s probably my favorite one so far.”
I give a small smile as I work on removing the mascara streaks from my cheeks. “I know. It was a beautiful album, yet rich and powerful at the same time. Just like you.”
My cheeks flash a heavy red in embarrassment. Why did I say that? I’m such an idiot! I dare to glance up and find him looking at me, but not with anger. In his eyes I saw confusion, a hint of fear, and curiosity. I quickly look back down with my cheeks burning. “I-I’m sorry. That was stupid. Please excuse my rudeness.”
He stood up and walked in front of me and knelt down. I looked up and his soft blue eyes as he stared into my blue ones. He leaned forward as I did too and our lips met. It felt like a spark erupted between us as our lips connected. My heart was pounding faster and harder than it ever had before. I was worried that my first kiss was going to be bad, but Turner knew what he was doing. His tongue lightly prodded mine and I met mine with his. I shifted on the bed to meet his level. He put his hooves on my waist and I felt a flood of excitement rush through me. I undid his tie and unbuttoned his shirt and he let the shirt fall to the floor. He grabbed the bottom of my dress and pulled it up and over my head. I see the blue silk glide past my eyes before it quickly changed to a yellow pattern as the hourglass hemline passes my sight and Turner slides my dress off, and drops it on top of his clothes. I lean back as he crawls on top of me. We continue to kiss, our bare bodies warming each other.
===
“Turner?” I ask an hour later, lying under the covers with his hoof draped over my torso.
“Hmm?” he replies. He was behind me, lightly caressing my waist with his hoof, occasionally sending a chill down my body.
“Do you like me?”
The caress stopped and I heard his breathing stop momentarily as he let his brain take in the question.
“Yes. Yes, I like you a lot. You’re beautiful, smart, graceful, everything a mare should be.”
I turned over to face him, the covers pressed against my chest. My cheeks started to glow. “Turner?”
“Hmm?”
I licked my lips. “Do you love me?”
It took a little longer for him to respond. I watched his baby blues flick down, to the side, to me, the side again, to the bed, and finally back to me. “Yes Colgate. I do love you. I love you very much.” He sounded so sincere it made me a little bolder to ask my last and final question.
“Turner?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you marry me?”
This took the brown Earth pony completely by surprise. His head snapped up so fast I heard a vertebrae pop. He looked a little shaken, but he assessed the situation and took a deep breath. His response chilled the very core of my body and my ears flattened against my head in horror.
“No.”
“But-but-but you said you loved me!” I almost cry out as my voice rises in pitch as tears make their way to my eyes. I started to breath very hard as the sobbing neared my mouth.
“I’m sorry Cols, but I can’t marry you. If you will listen, I have a good reason for refusing.”
I was having a hard time listening to anything. I’m now out of bed, putting on a pair of pants and snapping on a bra and throwing a shirt over.
“Wait Cols. Where are you going?”
I don’t answer as I grab my handbag and start to head out the door of my bedroom. I felt his hoof grab to my forearm. I try to rip my arm out of his grip, but his grip is too strong. I swing my bag to where his head should be but he grabs it with his other hoof and throws it on the bed. He then wraps both of his arms around my body, pinning my arms.
“Let me go!” I scream as I try to free my arms. He says he’ll let me go when I settle down and agree to listen to what he had to say. I continue to fight for a couple more minutes until my muscles are aching. “Fine. I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
He gently sets me down and unwraps his hooves. I adjust my bra and straighten my shirt. I sit down on the edge of the bed as he sits down in a chair by the door.
“Colgate, I already told you I like you. I even told you I love you. Those things are true. I also told you that I can’t marry you right now. I would if I could, believe me. But right now would be impossible.”
I just glared at him. I wanted to snatch up my handbag and whack him across the face. But I was never really into violence. I continue to listen to what Turner had to say.
“I already said that I have a good job. I don’t care that you don’t have a job. It doesn’t bother me. But the problem is that I don’t have enough to keep us happy for long. We would have a wedding, go someplace expensive for the honeymoon, get back and live in happiness for another couple weeks, a month at most. Then we would be out of money and we’d be forced out on the streets. I said I can’t marry you right now, and right now I can’t. It doesn’t mean I won’t. But give me another couple months and I will get that promotion I need, and then I will marry you if you still want me. After that, we can go anywhere for our honeymoon, Neighagra Falls, Haywaii, Las Pegasus, wherever you want.”
I finished listening to his speech. If what he said was true, I must have been too distressed and thought he said ‘I won’t marry you.’ My body was still wearing off from the adrenaline rush. I got up and walked around the room to no place in particular. Turner just watched, but I had the feeling that if I bolted out the door, he wouldn’t stop me. He had said what he needed and didn’t care if I believed him or not.
“I will wait for you, Turner,” I say softly. I don’t face him, but I make sure he hears it. This is his cue to leave. He grabs his clothes, puts them on, and walks to the doorway. He stops just before exiting and says, “Although I may not always be with you in body, I will always be in spirit. In that way, I will never leave you.” He exits the bedroom and walks out the door, starts his car, and drives off. I watch him drive away as a tear of happiness leaves my eye.