The Happy Chemical
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, a chemical that sends impulses between neurons in the brain and the body. Its functions are numerous and complicated, affecting perception, memory, and even the digestive system. It goes by a few names: Serotonin, enteramine, 5-hydroxytryptamine. Indeed, thanks to its popular association with happiness, some people even jokingly refer to it as “the happy chemical”.
Serotonin is also the chemical that is released when you are cut. It helps blood clots to form.
Sunset Shimmer considered this briefly as she looked at the wound on her arm, the knife in her other hand leaving no doubt as to where it came from. A trail of bright red seeped out of the cut slowly, weaving along her skin as it followed gravity.
Of course, maybe it wasn’t serotonin. Maybe it was adrenaline or dopamine or beta-endorphins, any one of the miasma of chemicals swirling around in her mind.
Or maybe you’re just so messed up in the head that you’re trying to scientifically justify taking a knife to yourself.
Or maybe that.
Sunset sat alone in her apartment on a worn couch. The lights were off, leaving the last vestiges of her namesake trickling through the window as her only illumination. The sounds of the outside world always seemed muted at this time, as though the universe itself was slowing down and getting ready to give up for the day.
At least, that was what was happening outside her window. Against her better judgement, Sunset pondered what led her here tonight. Pinkie Pie had arranged a little get-together for that evening – the details eluded her – and of course all the girls were enthusiastically invited. Of course, all the girls immediately said yes. Except, of course, for her.
Instead, Sunset thanked her friend for the invitation, made her excuses, and declined.
And now you’re sitting here, alone, watching yourself bleed.
With gentle but disappointed smiles, the girls asked why. Sunset couldn’t even remember what response she’d picked this time: She was busy doing some nonspecific “thing”, or she needed the evening to study, or she wanted to get ahead with the cleaning. That she was fine, just a little tired after a long week, and that she’d be sure to accept next time. Put on the mask, carve a plastic smile onto your face, and fire away with that endless supply of answers you always keep on you.
It was a lie.
Of course it was a lie.
Of course it was a lie because magical rainbow blast or no, having the gravity of your own failures laid out bare, having seen the years and years of hurt, pain and anguish you’d caused to others, having struck yourself with the overwhelming revelation that the singular goal, the one light at the end of the tunnel that you had obsessed over for so long was misguided, was evil, was undeniably and fundamentally wrong…
That left scars that couldn’t be healed by an outstretched hand and a second chance.
Sunset’s eyes drifted over to her bare arms. Even in the dim light, she could easily make out the crisscrossing lines traced over her skin, reminders of what she’d done before and what she’d do again. History, written out on her body, ranging from months-old lines almost faded to nothing to angry purple scar tissue from just days ago.
Spread out on the glass coffee table in front of her were a selection of first aid supplies, tissues, and an unassuming black notebook. Her diary. But quite unlike her elaborately-bound and decorated journal, this was a diary of failures.
Emotionless, scientific notes were jotted down on the pages, each following a rigid structure: Date, approximate size of wound, time taken to stop bleeding. Sunset told herself that she did it to keep track of her unfortunate habit. To make sure that she stayed safe. To make sure things didn’t get out of control.
But you don’t even know why you do it, do you? It’s just become part of the ritual now, another thing for you to beat yourself up with. When you go too deep, when you don’t go deep enough, when you remember why you did it… Even you understand how pathetic that justification sounds. What would someone else think if you told them? What would the girls-
Stop.
Breathe in.
Draw the knife across the skin.
Breathe out.
Why did she even gasp like that when she cut? It didn’t even hurt, not really. There was some kind of feeling, certainly, but she wouldn’t have described it as pain. Not that it mattered, as it faded soon enough.
Sunset closed her eyes, and eventually even her breathing seemed to fade into the distance. For a single, blissful moment, the only sound in the world was the rhythmic pat pat pat of blood droplets hitting a glass tabletop.
Seconds passed. Aeons passed. Minutes. Years. Who knew. Who cared. Eventually, she opened her eyes again, and the world slowly shifted back into focus. But it was calmer now. Easier. Her breathing was more even, her hands had stopped shaking, and her heart no longer felt like it was trying to hammer its way through her throat. She spared a glance at the cuts on her arm. By now they had stopped bleeding, some of the bright red trails now faded to drying carmine stains. Sunset looked at her phone instinctively.
Fourteen minutes. About average.
Taking a breath to steady herself, Sunset reached for the first aid box and got to work with practised ease. A damp cloth to clean up the worst of the stains on her arm. Sterile dressings for the wounds – two this time – cut to size. Bandages to hold them in place. Tissues for extra padding, and in case they re-opened. Finally, household wipes to clean up the small pool of drying blood on her coffee table, and to clean and disinfect her knife.
She was well-acquainted with the act of patching herself up, and before long she was done. Injuries wrapped up, bloodstains cleaned – if it weren’t for the used first aid supplies scattered about the table, it was almost like it had never happened. There was something perversely calming about it.
The three sharp knocks on Sunset’s front door shattered any semblance of calm in an instant.
Immediately, her eyes snapped to the door and she froze. She became a deer trapped in headlights, and she was waiting for the oncoming car to leave quietly.
Another three knocks, another three skipped heartbeats. No such luck. Then a voice, faint but unmistakable:
“Are you in, Sunset? Your lights are on, I guess…”
“J-Just give me a sec, Twilight!” Sunset’s mouth began moving before her brain could catch up. No backing out now. “I just need to make myself a bit… a bit more presentable!”
Wow, you almost told the truth there.
Sunset shot up from her sofa, staring at the pile of sin she had amassed on the coffee table, and got to work. But gone was the slow, methodical ease from before – this was the ruthless efficiency of panic. Grab a jacket off the coat rack and throw it on, anything to cover up the cuts. First aid supplies – bathroom. Stained tissues – bin. The knife… screw it, her jacket pocket would have to do for now. Clenching her eyes shut, Sunset walked over to the door. Deep down, she knew that she was going to regret this, but she’d put herself in this situation the moment she opened her mouth.
“Hey Twilight!” She said as she opened the door. Fake enthusiasm permeated her voice like a cancer and she wore a plastic smile to try and convince her friend that she wasn’t a complete wreck.
“Hi Sunset!” The bespectacled girl offered in return, a soft smile adorning her face and a small plastic box tucked under one arm. “Just thought I’d drop by and see how you’ve been, if it’s not too much bother. I, uh, I hope I haven’t interrupted anything.”
“No, not at all. Come in, come in!” Ten seconds in, and already she knew she couldn’t keep the façade up much longer. She needed something to deflect with. “How was the get-together?”
Twilight’s face lit up. It worked. “Oh, well, you know what Pinkie’s get-togethers are like! Great fun all round, laughs, food, the works! Shame you couldn’t make it, to be honest.” Bite your tongue. “That’s one of the reasons I dropped by, actually. Pinkie was trying out a new recipe for sriracha cupcakes and just insisted that you tried a few.” Twilight gently shook the container, the baked treats rustling about within. “They’re better than they sound, honest!”
Sunset offered what she hoped was a friendly grin. “Aw, Twilight, you shouldn’t have!” No, you really shouldn’t have. “I swear, you are just too good for me sometimes.” Yeah, she really is.
Surely Twilight could hear the insincerity in Sunset’s voice, but if she did, she ignored it for the sake of politeness. “Oh, it’s not a big deal. I mean, this is Pinkie Pie we’re talking about. Even with everyone there, we still had tons left over.”
Sunset almost smiled at that. “Hah, the phrase ‘portion control’ just doesn’t exist in that girl’s vocabulary, does it?” She instinctively headed towards the kitchen. Whether it was to buy herself time, or space, or something else entirely, she didn’t even know. “Can I get you some tea to go with them? No, wait, you’re a coffee girl, aren’t you?”
“Coffee would be great, thanks. Decaf, if you have it.”
The moment Sunset stepped into her kitchen, her cracked smile shattered like glass, leaving only an exhausted grimace in its place.
It’s amazing just how quickly you put the mask back on, isn’t it. How long ago was it that you were sitting in the dark with your blood all over the table? Five minutes? Ten?
What the hell was Twilight doing here? Perhaps more to the point, why was Sunset letting this go on? She turned the kettle on anyway, and busied herself with preparing the two drinks.
“So anyway Sunset, how are you doing?” Twilight’s voice echoed through from the lounge.
Lie. Deflect.
“Yeah, good thanks, what’s been going on with you?”
There was a short pause before Twilight called back, her voice… slightly uneasy?
“No, I mean… like, are you… you know, doing okay?”
That wasn’t right. No-one goes through that pleasantry more than once unless they have reason to. Sunset opted to grit her teeth as she carried the two cups back towards the sofa before setting them down on the coffee table, next to the container of cupcakes and… an unassuming black notebook.
Sunset froze.
An unassuming black notebook, that was right there, for anyone to see, opened to a page that spelled absolutely everything out in plain English to anyone with half a brain.
Fuck.
Pinned in place by an adrenaline shot of anxiety, Sunset’s eyes met Twilight’s. Concern was etched onto her face. Sadness. Horror. Fear. Disappointment. Shame. Of course Twilight knew what it meant. She wasn’t an idiot.
“You didn’t read that.” It wasn’t a question.
“Sunset, I’m so sorry. It was just lying open and I didn’t mean t-“
“You did not”, Sunset snapped, trembling, “read that.” Gone was the mask, replaced with a stare that could melt steel. But this wasn’t the cocksure look of intimidation that she had wielded in days gone by. This was the panicked glare of a cornered animal.
Twilight opened her mouth, but closed it again. Through warring emotions painted across her face, shock slowly gave way to a begrudging understanding, and she nodded. Neither of them spoke for a minute, the only sound being Sunset’s fitful, panting breaths and the blood rushing through her ears.
“I’m… I’m sorry.”
Sunset winced, but otherwise remained frozen. It was all she could do to not fall apart right there.
“No. No, I’m sorry.” She slowly rose to a standing position and stayed there. The fight-or-flight instinct was screaming in her ears; there was no way she could sit down right now. “For… just for everything.”
“It’s okay.”
No it’s not. What’s happening right now is many things and “okay” is not one of them. You know it, and she definitely knows it. You made her lie to you. What kind of a friend does that?
Twilight piped up again. Her voice was… small, somehow. Searching.
“Do… do you want to talk about it?”
Sunset’s breath hitched in her throat, her eyes rigidly focusing on the floor.
“I… I don’t know. Half of me thinks that I should, that I need to finally say something just to get it out of my own damn head. But the other half is screaming at me that I can’t… I can’t burden you with a conversation like that. I wonder if that’s what it comes down to in the end: Feeling like a burden, like a dead weight, like a pestilence. Because considering everything I’ve done, considering all the ways I’ve hurt people, all the failures, why the hell would I… would I inflict myself upon someone as nice as you? Whenever I hang out with you girls, I have a great time, right? We all have a great time. We all smile and laugh and joke around and it’s great. But without fail, eventually this little voice pipes up in the back of my head telling me that you would’ve been smiling just a little more, laughing just a bit harder, if I hadn’t been there. And I know it’s wrong, right? That’s the weird part. It’s just that sometimes that voice gets a little too loud to ignore. That’s why I haven’t been seeing you girls as much lately, why I’ve been making excuses, telling little lies time and time again as to why I couldn’t hang out. In the isolation, I guess I just fell into… well, this. Somewhere between feeling like I deserve it, wanting to cut through this mess of conflicting emotions, and probably some weird psychological dependency or endorphin rush or whatever, I started… started hurting myself. And I don’t know what it did, but it did something. So I kept doing it. And I know, I know, that it’s messed up, that I shouldn’t, that it’s an addiction and I need to stop and I’m looking at you right now and hating myself that I ever even considered it in the first place, but the messed up truth of it all is that I do it because it works. It really, really works, and I think that’s the most terrifying thing.”
…was what she wanted to say.
But she didn’t.
Of course you didn’t.
“…Not really.”
“That’s okay.”
Silence returned to the room again. Unfortunately for Sunset, that just meant that her brain could start screaming again, drowning out every other thought. Her breathing, Twilight’s gentle sniffles, the barely-audible ruffling of her jacket as she moved, it was all getting too loud to bear. Until a timid voice, like the touch of a feather to her ears, burst through the noise like an axe.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“I don’t mind, really. Whatever you want.” Sunset’s response was instinctual, a reflex. Twilight could’ve asked anything and her answer would’ve been the same.
But Twilight’s firm retort surprised her. “No, Sunset. This isn’t about me. It’s about you, and how best to help. Do you want me to leave?”
The orange girl’s eyes snapped back to her friend, still on the couch. Past her dainty stature, post-party hair and tear-streaked face, Sunset saw a fire in Twilight that had long since burnt out in herself. Twilight would’ve moved heaven and earth if it meant helping her right now. More than the judgement, more than the sympathy, more than the kindness, that was what made Sunset finally crumble. Even she could barely hear the answer she whimpered forth.
“…Yes.”
“Okay.” And Twilight stood up from the couch, slowly, as if any sudden movements would make Sunset do something rash. Maybe they would. She barely made a sound as she made her way to the front door, keeping a soft, unconfrontational posture the entire way. Sunset had to say something, even in this state she knew that she couldn’t end on a note like this. But this time her brain was able to catch up. She knew she’d regret it, and she did it anyway.
“Twilight.”
Twilight paused.
“Thank you. For understanding.”
Twilight turned back around, averting her gaze in part-submission, part-confusion.
“I mean, I… really don’t.” She gave an uncomfortable grimace, as though not understanding the broken shell of what used to be her friend was a bad thing.
“No, you really do.” Sunset continued, and for the first time since she broke down her voice was clear. “If you’re willing to leave me alone and give me the space at a time like this, then you really do understand. Perhaps more than you think. So, thank you.”
Twilight blinked and her expression shifted, but to what Sunset couldn’t tell. Fear? Hope?
“It’s no problem. I’d… I’d like to understand, though. When you’re ready.” She turned the door handle and stepped out into the cool night air. “Take care of yourself, Sunset.”
And with the quiet click of the door lock deafening her like a gunshot, Sunset was alone again. Just like she wanted. Just like she asked for.
Her breathing was ragged. Her hands were shaking. Her heart was pounding against her chest.
Slowly, instinctively, Sunset reached into her jacket pocket and closed her fingers around the handle of her knife.