Always Counter Clockwise
Yellow.
Your hair needs more yellow.
So, fumbling through my pen box, I pull out a highlighter. It's almost dry... but... I think I can do this. I have to do this. It is my holy mission to do this.
Just a few more swipes... swipies... and...
Hee hee... yes yes yes...
It's perfect.
You're perfect.
My eyes travel down the black outline of flowing hair, filled with red ink from my grammar marking pen. The bands in between are just the right touch of neon gold. And then—below the cartoonishly simple chin—there's a patch of yellow skin... highlighted bosom... and the rough, daring hash-marks of a black jacket over a blue ink blouse over blue ink tights over—
The boots!
I forgot to finish your boots!
My fingers dance through the pen box. I hold my breath, my ears echoing with the muttered voices of students all around me. At last, with a squiggle of black ink, I fill the articles in. You're no longer standing on nothing.
And at last... you are complete. Frozen in time. Alone.
Too alone.
My heart beats and beats as I draw my pen to the left of you. I pause... linger... and then my heart beats louder as I dip the pen and start just one blue line space below your head on the notebook paper. I draw a grape with straight-black hair and even straighter bangs. Then I add the flimsy facsimile of a dress blouse and skirt... knee-highs. Who cares. I'm but a shadow. There's nothing in my arsenal that even vaguely matches lavender, so I settle for a hash mix of blue and black ink, with two square frames across the grape for “glasses.” That should be enough. I know who I am. I only wish you knew who you were... to me.
It's now that I realize that I've left out one thing. An arm. My arm. There's a vast vacuum in between us, filled by blue lines, signifying nothing. Well, that just won't do. My heart beats the hardest, because I know what's going to happen next. I feel the pulse in my chin... my bottom lip as I smile... as I bite down hard... as I squeak—stifling a squeal with each centimeter it takes to draft my stick hand at a sloping angle, connecting... merging with yours. Everything joins across the divide. Fingers. Palms. Knuckles. A ring? I fumble for my highlighter and—
“Haha! Sounds great! Lemme just roll it by Twilight! Ahem.” Bootsteps thunder across the universe, and there you are—the real you... the very real and very much breathing and very much smiling you... standing above my desk... above me... above my drawing. “Twilight! About where the study group is meeting up! Should we go to Lyra's house or—” Those perfect twin turquoises blink, and that's when I realize you're staring... at my dream... my doom. “Hey? Whatcha drawing there?”
“Uhhh! Ohhhh-uhhhh!” Scramble scramble flail wheeze! “Nothing! Just... uhm...” With a cough and a shudder, I rip the notebook sheet neatly out from its metal rings, fold it three times, and shove it with rocket engineering grace deep into my backpack sitting behind my desk seat. “F-f-fiddling around with a few math equations for the upcoming group project! Eh heh hehhhh!” Ziiiiiiiip. Our double life is now sealed neatly away, hidden safely inside a canvas sarcophagus with constellation patches and star stickers. I adjust my glasses and look halfway towards you, rubbing my hands together in pensive... uhm... pensiveness. Oh jeez... you look so tall from this angle. “So... are we... uh... ch-choosing group partners, or...?”
“Uhhh...” You chuckle, your cheeks dimpling outward in golden glory. A breathy tone overtakes your womanly voice, and I'm melting all over. “The groups were already chosen... by our teacher...” You point flippantly at the clock's minute hand. It's a softball pitch further than it was five blinks ago, and all of them spent preserving you in stickfiguragoria. “...twenty minutes ago?” You giggle. Oh gods... “I was just discussing with Lyra and Amethyst where we wanted to meet up on Monday.”
“Oh... uhm... right. The meet up.” You and me. “For math.” Doing math. “In a group.” Mathematical math, with line graphs, calculators, fingers, lips, breaths... “You and me...”
“...and Lyra and Amethyst. Right. Heehee... soooooo... where should we meet up?” You turn and point at two teenage blobs standing a million miles away. “Lyra and Amethyst were suggesting Lyra's house, since it's so close by the school.”
“Well... uhm...” I stand up, fidgeting... fidgeting some more. I tug the edges of my skirt down... then ruin the moment by standing pigeon-toed in your shadow. Darn it. You're going to see at this rate. One of these days you're going to see me melt! “If... if that's what the group wants, then that's fine by me.”
“Twilight, you're a part of the group too,” you say, waving a hand... such a beautiful hand. It's hard to believe it was ever once a hoof. Hoofsies... hoofsy girl... heeheehee... wait... what are you saying now...? “...that your input matters just as much as the others, don't you agree?”
I bite my lip. I push my glasses up, feel them slide down, then push them up again. “Sure!”
You blink, raising an eyebrow. “Sure what?”
“Sure... to... whatever you just said right now!”
You cock your beautiful head to the side. “So you're cool with us going out to study at the gazebo out by the lake?”
Cheese and crackers!
“Lyra's house! Lyra's house!” I wheeze, clutching my wrists so hard that they nearly snap off. “I mean...” I stand on the tippy-tips of my dress shoes to look over your graceful shoulders. “If that's alright with you, Miss Heartstrings!”
She waves. Amethyst waves. Gandhi waves. I don't care. I rock back on my heels until you're all that I see again.
“Great!” You smile, folding your arms. Your jacket is a black hole and I'm careening on the event horizon... oh aasimovs... “Then it's settled! I'll tell the girls we'll meet up at Lyra's place to start our assignment!”
“Okay...” I exhale through a warm grin... maybe too warm. “It's a date...” Getting warmer. “...to set for... learning... exercises!” Warm warm warm! I tilt my head down so that the shadows over come the rosiness. “...with the whole group!”
BRIIIIIIING!
I'm done!
“Aaackies!” I jump in place, hugging myself.
Everyone around us gets out of their desks in a uniform zombie shuffle.
“Relaa-aa-aax, Twilight...” You chuckle, waving a hand. “It's just the end of the period!”
“Iknow!” I grit my teeth, my spectacle'd eyes tied to your fingers like an anchor. “Iknowthat!”
“What, was the bell at Crystal Prep... like... way quieter or something?”
“Uhhhh... sure?”
“Well, this should be really awesome,” you say. You turn to wave at Lyra and Amethyst Star as they walk off with their book bags. “I've never felt so good about a study group before.” You smile. You're so kind... so kind to everyone. It's incredibly hard to believe that you were ever... ever... uh... she-demony? Then again, I was once she-demony, and look how I came out. So much melting... all the time. All day, every day. Around you. Oh god, you're talking again. “...don't you think?”
“About what?” I wince, waiting to explode.
You don't, so I don't. “Because this will be my first group math assignment with you,” you say. Ah jeez. “I mean... eheh... no offense to Lyra and Amethyst, but they aren't exactly Stephen Hawkings.”
“Hahaha... yeahhhhh...” I speak while inhaling. Every vowel sound whistles. “Can't wheelchair if their lives depended on it.”
“Er... I mean... they don't exactly... erm... share our scholastic ambition,” you say with a wink... a wink shared between us. It's sweeter than oxygen, and I savor every molecule of it. “But so long as we're working together, this assignment should be a cinch.”
“Heeee... you think so?”
“Absolutely! You beat my brains in with your... brain's end at the Friendship Games! Live and on stage!” A chortle. So heavenly. “Remember?”
“Ehhh-heheheheheh...” Heaven help me. I'm a woodpecker on valium. “Ohhhhh... I wouldn't say that for sure. Heheheh...” Gulp. “I mean...” I reach back, patting my hand around my desk until I find it—my backpack strap. “We came awfully close. UHHHH... in the equation we were both solving. I mean. Eheheh...” I hunch backwards, melting again. I slide one arm through the backpack and then the other. I hoist it over my shoulder like a crucifix of stomach-expelled butterflies and quiver in your you-space. “It didn't prove anything except that we are nothing but... the same... and that's something!” I swallow another lump and squeak: “Right?”
“Heh... okay, Twilight.” You wink. “I know better than to fight you in a humility war. Just bring your brain to Lyra's house on Monday afternoon at four o'clock so we can ace this assignment.”
“So long as you... uh... promise to bring your brain too!” I backstep. “Preferably in your head!” I hug the backpack straps, backstepping harder... faster. Breathier. “Because... uhm... it's a good head. And stuff.”
You giggle. Fireworks in the brassiere. Your eyes are on me as you wave. “So long, Twilight. Take it easy this weekend, won't you?”
“I'll try!” And I dash out into the hallway, propelled by gasps and gastrointestinal weightlessness. Oh gosh. Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh! You think I'm smart! There's something about me that you like! And it's not something that has to do with that princess horse from beyond the oats dimension! Heeeeeeeee!
Three days...
Three long days and we'll be number crunching together!
Well, okay, so maybe it's two and a half days... sixty hours at the most... but still!
And it'll be at Lyra's house. I hear it's a quiet place. Close to the school. To the library. Omigosh! What if we go to the library together? I've always wanted to share the group study cubicles with someone else! We'd be all alone... just the two of us... separated from the rest of civilization by row after row after row of racks chock full of scholarly periodicals—some of them decades old. Oh gosh... I could show you the microfilm readers! I bet ponyworld doesn't have those! Hooves just wouldn't handle them right! I'd show you how to hold the slides delicately in between your fingers and then the stars would align and we'd be hugging each other to a warm toasty dissertation on modern applications of the Pythagorean theorem and—
No... no, Twilight.
Slow down...
We can't go all Pythagoras on a first date.
It just... just wouldn't be proper.
Besides, I have to keep your feelings in check. It's the least you deserve, after all. You've been so nice to me... so kind and gentle and... and understanding. I feel as though you see something in me that the rest of the girls don't. Whenever I show up to hang-out, I swear, they all see me as just an extension of the princess... Alabamacorn or whoever that visits from beyond.
But you?
You treat me as an awkward girl in goofy glasses who stands knobby-kneed and squeals at the sight of unblemished protractors.
In other words, you treat me as... me.
And I think it's because you were... once me... although a considerably less ambitious me. But still, a me all the same. A girl who was out of her element, who needed to find a way to fit in. And you made mistakes... but you learned from them. Just as I'm starting to learn from mine... slowly... one by one each day... with your help... with your hand... oh gods, your hand.
I gave you my hand once. I would gladly do it again... if only you asked... as you did once upon a time... as I whimper and sigh into the shadows of sleep, hoping, dreaming, longing for the day that you will ask me once more... and I shall dwell in the house of your warm protecting arms forever. Amen.
A lovely sigh. One in a thousand, and I've finally reached my locker. And I spin my combination. And I open my door. And I reach around for the lip of my golden-brown backpack—Ohmysweettapdancingbuttbuddhathisisn'tmybackpack!!!
THUD!!! My spine slams into the door of my locker, shutting it.
I hug your bag to my chest, panting... panting... panting... panting...
I look left and look right amidst a deluge of sweat.
Students mill randomly through the hall like blind sharks. Their dorsal fins and jaws disappear behind a thick fog.
Gnashing my teeth, I strip my glasses off and rubrubrub the lenses clean against the edge of my dress blouse. My fingers are trembling as I raise them once more to the bridge of my nose. My eyes moisten. The lenses will fog again. Everything will drown in an endless monsoon of sweat and tear and urine and all the bagged kittens in between.
I take deep breaths... deeper... deeper. My lungs force my bosom tighter against your book bag, creating a sensation that sends neurons rocketing into my synapses so that I'm inspired to use the stupid word “bosom” in the first place. Gawd...
It's okay...
It's okay... …
It's just a perfect misunderstanding... … …
In no way did I purposefully... willfully... maliciously attempt to steal your backpack in place of my own.
Your backpack... the book bag belonging to the woman I adore more than Euler's equation.
The bag...
… ...belonging to you...
… … ...for putting books in.
Sunset Shimmer's big bouncy books.
Goddess...
I clench my eyes shut.
Just calm down...
Just stay calm...
No, don't stand pigeon-toed!
That way, everyone will know!
Maybe... everyone already does know...
But you?
I take a deep breath. I wipe my eyes under my glasses and tilt my head up with what I can only hope is a Hollywoodesque frown.
It's not the end of the world.
I can fix this.
I can totally... totally fix this...
I just...
I just need to find you and...
Give the backback... back... is all.
The problem is...
And I ponder this as I bite and gnaw on my finger...
Just where do you go at this hour?
God in heaven, does anything actually come after Calculus II?
Ah cheese...
Ah cheese and crackers...
I begin the shuffle... counter-clockwise. Always counter-clockwise. I scour the halls of Canterlot High. I scramble... I shuffle... I bound and flail. I know that so many minutes have melted away... minutes that I have wasted, pondering... panicking.
I should have noticed what I was doing.
I should have realized I had shuffled off with something that belonged to you...
Because I was so focused on you.
And yet... you didn't say anything.
Surely you must have seen the mistake I was making.
Why did you hold back?
Were you afraid of embarrassing me? Were you afraid of hurting my feelings?
Am I really... that fragile? That helpless?
Oh god... I only want to be the nicest friend you deserve.
I never wanted to be a burden... a laughable appendix to your amazingly complex, amazingly magical, amazingly cryptic life...
Just how much do I truly know about you? The nights you must have sobbed to sleep, anguishing over mistakes and burdens that once alienated you from the very blue in the sky. The fragile ties you've left frayed between yourself and your homeland... your silly, adorable, precious pony homeland.
I've never even met the pony you. I wonder if she's just as small and nervous and unsure about everything on that side of the mirror as I am on this side. I wonder if she's tiny enough to hold as I am tiny enough to want you to hold me. I wonder if she's ever had anyone stroke her hair... told her that everything's okay... that it's perfectly alright to cry at our mistakes as it is to laugh at our triumphs... that no matter how dark or how crazy or how scary life might get, there will always be that one someone... that soul... that warm embrace that will always be there for you... that can find you... that can hold you and love you forever...
That will always be me...
Oh gods, me...
I slump against the trophy case of the school's front atrium. The hallways are thinning now. That's fine. I don't want anyone to witness such a deflation.
I slide down, hugging your backpack, wishing it was you. Wishing I could find you... apologize to you... drown in you.
There's something terribly... beautifully... wonderfully wrong with me. It consumes my every waking second. There is no ending. There should be an ending. There should be a little me and a little you... holding hands... working it out or shattering it. I don't care. One way or another, the waters need to cascade. The river needs to fork. I'm tired of treading here on my lonesome, wondering if there'll be another breath at the end of each gasp, pondering over what future I'll be facing after the school year's over and how many sunrises I'll have... or twilights to spend mourning the not-have's. It's the knifing precipice of a sob or a sigh, and it's splitting me apart to discover which, like blue lines across notebook paper.
“Twilight...?”
My eyes widen. They blink dry. I stand up like a blossoming flower.
Your gaze... tantalizing turquoise...
And suddenly...
Everything is right again.
“Twilight, there you are!” You rush on over. Boots thudding. My heart. “Wow...” You're panting. Have you been running around in circles too? “I've been looking all over for you.”
You were? “You were?” Something black dangles in your grasp. I look. I stammer. “My backpack!”
“Heh... wouldn't you know it?” You smile wryly. The world tilts as I conform my neck and skull to your grin. “About a minute and a half after you left, I went to pick up my backpack... only it wasn't my backpack! It was yours!”
“Hah!” I blurt. “Hah hah!” I struggle to keep my teeth from shattering. “Isn't that so—”
“Funny?!”
“Exactly!”
“Hahahahah!”
“Heeheehee...” A giggle to your guffaw. I hold your book bag out at arm's length as if it's radioactive. “I... I-I can't believe it happened to the both of us!”
“Hah! I know, right?” You wave a finger around. “I circled the entire school to give it back! But I couldn't find you!”
“Uhm...” I fidget where I stand. “Did you go—”
“—counter-clockwise.”
I roll my eyes. “Always—”
“—counter-clockwise! Haha! See? We geniuses do think alike!”
“Yeah. Heheheheheheh...” Damnable valium woodpecker. “So... uhm... eheh...” I hold the religious offering out even further.
“Right! Right! So right!” You swing my backpack towards me like a pendulum. In a blink, you've wrapped yours over your graceful shoulder. There's something relieving about the gesture, and it deflates your torso from weathering a pent-up sigh. “Heh... I bet you felt pretty silly opening up 'your' backpack, only to find it was full of my things. Heh.”
“Heeheehee... actually... heehee...” I shake my head, smiling warmly. “I didn't open it.”
A thunderous blink. “...you didn't?”
“No. Heehee. After all, that wouldn't be proper, y'know.”
“... … ...oh.” Like a gunshot at the end of the universe. “Huh.”
I recover from the void that trails the end of that utterance. “Huh?” Another blink. “Erm... why? Did... did you open m—?”
“So... uh... see ya!” And you take off in a burning sunstreak, galloping around the hallway corner with rippling mane hair. “HaveagoodafternoonTwilightseeyaMonday!” You wheeze. You live and die. And you're gone.
I stand alone... or do I?
Something lingers with a scent... spicy honey...
I gnaw on my lip. Slowly, with the grace of a brain surgeon, I unzip my backpack and peer inside.
Something is unfolded. Perhaps it's my soul.
I reach in, gingerly cradling the scrap of notebook paper. I feast with four eyes.
And four eyes feast back. Mine—stick figure me. And two more eyes. Yours—stick figure you. They both hold hands, just like I left them. But there's something warmer... something sweeter... tastier, like cherry. Perhaps—just maybe—it's the thick red heart drawn around the two girls in lipstick.
I don't own lipstick. Right now, there's no other quantifiable fact in my life that brings me greater joy.
And so I bring the two of us close to my heart, blue lines and all, and I hold us there. Smiling. Sighing.
And no, the bell's not so loud here at Canterlot High. After all, I can barely hear it over the giggles.