The Forest For the Trees
She never should have opened the envelope.
All things considered, she never should have even kept it in the first place. All these years—from the third summer break to the Fall Formal to graduation to the college lurch beyond—it lingered like dust in the corner of some forgotten drawer. Unopened. Untouched. The ink on the outer surface remained perfectly preserved: Sunset Shimmer's name etched in fancy cursive.
Now, it was ten minutes to midnight. The outer skin of the missive lay limp and discarded on her bedroom floor, the name slightly crumpled and bent from the unraveling.
It was a card. Store-bought and cheap. Plastic and saccharine.
But the graphics on the outside and inside were “video game” themed. Pixelated robots with laser guns and mushrooms. Generic and contrived, but silly and cute, and it shamed her deeply that she felt the slightest lilt in her heart upon first seeing the cartoonish sprites plastered across the folded and unfolded surfaces.
Sunset Shimmer held the card in her hands, squatting on the side of her bed, ready and not ready for sleep. She took a shower an hour ago, but had taken to an aimless stroll throughout the empty confines of her duplex immediately afterwards, so now she felt like most if not all of the refreshing cleanliness had been wasted by late evening sweat. And heavy thoughts. A typical Friday night.
She had punished herself with many a lonely stroll like that before, and each time she circled close enough to the epicenter of her thoughts to feel the temptation of approaching and unearthing that hidden envelope, she still couldn't bring herself to so much as touch the thing. Much less look at it. Until this evening.
Now it had been opened. And her soft fingers slid over the cartoon graphics like a shroud, exposing the handwritten words to her sad eyes, the first time such a message in a bottle had been graced in years. Words that she could not stop reading over and over and over again. And with each revolution her gaze ran, she felt the years reversing, narrowing, carrying her back from a woman to a teenager to a pony.
“I think I'm starting to fall deeply for you.”
It was so brief. So coy. So confident.
Instead of a period, it was punctuated by a lightning bolt against a heart-shaped shield. There was just enough creative nuance for Sunset Shimmer to instantly taste the adorable uncertainty wafting off the haphazard scribbling. Her heart even thudded a few times. Before sinking.
The woman's dull eyes raised slowly to her bedside table. Behind a veritable monolith of college textbooks stacked on top of one another, a forest of framed pictures resided—both against and on the wall. Bright eyes. Colorful hair. Warm arms-in-arms-in arms. A sea of memories—yesterday and today in patchwork quilt.
The author of that ancient sentence wasn't anywhere to be found in those pictures. But he was elsewhere—everywhere—surrounding her in bits and pieces and scraps... like the envelope lying dead on the floor. He was in the guitar case resting against Sunset's closet doorframe. He was in the stack of old high school clothes lying in a distant corner that Sunset had thus far lazily neglected to drop off at the nearest Goodwill. He was in the faded plastic Nintendo ornament that dangled off her car keys, the petrified duck sauce patches hidden in her refrigerator, the old Pink Floyd CDs gathering dust next to her stereo, and the third party Xbox controller she had bought several summers ago. A controller that someone else ended up using, even if it had been meant for him.
Sunset looked at the pictures again. So many beautiful faces. So many lively expressions. But one outshone them all. And as the images drew brighter—and outward—they formed fonder and fresher memories, like the outermost rings of a tree cut in half. Eventually, the pictures only contained the two of them, perfectly complementary, souls at opposite ends of the spectrum and yet encapsulated by the fall of night.
Photo after photo. Just the two of them. Sunset knew it bordered on obsession. And yet, each time she visited—and even well past graduation and after the two had split off to separate universities, she did visit often—she said nothing of concern about it. She showed no fear or misgivings or anxiety in Sunset's presence. Only smiles. Only laughter. And—when a good hug was Sunset's only measure against them—the occasional tears. They shared so much, even in the shadow of him, to the point that Sunset expected nothing short of a cataclysm could end it.
Whatever it was.
Her fingers curled around the colorful card, folding it shut. She knew that opening it would be a mistake. After all these years. A history built on idiocy. Breaking up with him was stupid. Asking him out in the beginning was even stupider. But opening that envelope? This was torture. Guzzling arsenic made more sense.
But time was stretching thin. These nights were made longer by the vacuum of it all, and as the years went by the gravity of hindsight made brief moments of lucidity like this all the more bitter. Sunset Shimmer couldn't hurt herself more than she despised herself. So what was one more mistake?
She reached a determined hand to her beside table, picking up her cell phone. All it took was a few thumb-swipes, and his face came up. Blue fuzz against golden skin. The goofball had decided to grow a mustache over the past year. Sunset chuckled. She wanted to cry.
This was dumb. It was nearly midnight. Nevertheless, it was the perfect time for banshees to poke old haunts. She plodded through a text message before she had the good sense to stop herself, and the words formed between each pulsing heartbeat: “Have I ever told you how much you mean to me—?”
Sunset Shimmer didn't finish. Something caused her heart to leap—with agony and ecstasy.
And it wasn't him.
So
How do I look
Is it too much
The text alerts floated over the top of her cell phone screen, accompanied by a face. A face found in all of those photos on her wall. A face that sent Sunset's heart soaring, only to fall back down.
She landed with an even breath, backing out of the incomplete text with a crooked zig-zag of the thumb. She brought herself swiftly—breathlessly—to the interceding conversation. What she saw nearly made her faint.
She stood in a silver strapless dress that fitted elegantly at the collar, covering her bust and midsection modestly. Long sleeves flared out in sparkling translucent bands—no doubt an up-and-coming fashionista's work. The skirt slitted down both sides, and opaque violet tights that complemented her skin tone ran seamlessly into a pair of obsidian black high heels. She carried an indigo faux leather quilted clutch purse, dangling with silver constellatory ornaments that matched the star-shaped hairpiece maintaining her delicate violet updo.
Beneath this breathtaking photo—taken casually (and awkwardly) within the confines of a college sorority bathroom—were the three text lines Sunset had seen earlier, and in the space of time it took her to digest the beauty of the selfie, another line materialized:
You know how casually Timber dresses; I don't want to overwhelm him
Sunset Shimmer balanced the sore lump in her throat. It wasn't pain that delayed her response. It wasn't jealousy or rage. It was the glasses—goofy and thick-rimmed—that were being worn in that selfie. Glasses instead of contacts. The woman's real self. Flanked by an uncertain blush. Something that colored so many of those other picture frames that featured just the two of them.
Something only Sunset knew. Something only Sunset cherished.
Something nobody else would ever have.
She replied confidently and deliberately: “I hope it knocks Timber dead on his feet.”
There was a dancing ellipsis. Followed—at last—by a goofy vomit of emoticons. Then the semblance of civilized dialogue:
LoL
So
Do you approve?
“I whole-heartily approve.”
Good! I'm so glad~
I'm
I'm a little nervous about tomorrow
This is the fanciest place he's taken me to yet
I know he's got to be spending an awful lot of money on this date
Makes a girl wonder if this is it
If maybe this is when he pops the question
The words ended. But there was more lingering on the precipice than could be measured.
Sunset found herself gazing once again at the photos on the wall. The outermost layer. The warmth and color of the two of them were real, but thin. She knew that nothing but darkness lay beyond the fringe of nightfall. She always knew this. But it had to be someone's place to light the way, even if both couldn't pass through. And it wasn't as if something could be done about it. The tree had been felled years ago, and the forest didn't look the same for either of them.
What were three years? Or thirty? Sometimes, an entire lifetime of discourse is a letter that's never opened. Only the few—cursed to know and want—feel the ache of that which will never be.
The words wrote themselves out before any of Sunset's tears could: “Whatever happens, I will always be here for you, Twilight. Just know that I have full faith in you tomorrow—and beyond. You couldn't possibly have found a happier person to be with.”
The response consumed a thoughtful space in time:
Thank you so much, Sunset
You're the greatest friend a girl could ever ask for
I gotta dress down and got to bed
“Fill me in on how it goes tomorrow.”
Will do!
Pleasant dreams, Sunset
Much love~
Sunset's fingers stroked, producing: “Back at you.”
But she didn't hit send. A long and cold breath rolled through her. She slapped the tip of her thumb on the “back” button, deleting those three words.
Twilight deserved equal to that which she gave.
Sunset's hands shook a little. She swallowed that lump down her throat, switching to the other face. The azure fuzz and gold skin. The sky blue eyes that matched the cursive words of a sweet little boy who didn't know he was going to be bulldozed, crushed, and thrown to the wolves in mere days after sealing an envelope. So many sighs ago.
He too deserved everything. Even if that meant all of nothing.
Sunset didn't even look at the unfinished text she had prepared minutes ago. She slapped the “delete” button, switched the phone off, and dropped it like an anchor into the fabric of her bed.
She curled up on the edge, hugging her knees to her chest. For an hour or so, Sunset Shimmer stared past the picture frames, beyond the fringes of that imprisoning forest, wondering if just enough mistakes might fell a path between her heart and the death of all loneliness.
She fell asleep before she could find out.