We walked past Ian’s room and Markus’s to mine and I sat down at the end of my unmade bed. She plopped down next to me with a refreshing lack of grace. I turned to look at her but in an effort to avoid eye contact I looked down and spotted the brightest patches of the colors underneath her jeans again. When I looked up at her I saw she was looking around my room, I assumed to gauge how I’ve been doing. I looked around too to see what she was seeing, really taking in the state of my room for the first time in a while.

There were various piles of clothes in and around my laundry baskets, a few empty and one nearly empty bottle of Aristocrat on my chipped wooden desk where a laptop from the last decade sat. Along with a few dirty dishes and cups. There were old packages and wrappers from fast food everywhere that I had been meaning to throw away… eventually. The posters I haven’t actually looked at in years, which were of bands I no longer listened to, were still pinned up. The thing that stood out the most in the room was a large opened shipping box in the corner. I could tell this caught her eye but she didn’t ask about it.

Over the smell of her shampoo I became self-conscious the vomit on my shirt might smell and started apologizing as I stood up to search for a cleaner shirt. I stripped my vomit-covered shirt off and put on an old band shirt from the floor. After I changed and turned to sit back down I saw the smile on her face looked strained.

“What?” I questioned that look.

“You’re just... so thin now,” she worded carefully. “You should eat more!” Not knowing how to respond to my malnutrition I just gave an awkward ‘sorry’ and sat back down.

“So, are you doing any better this morning?” she questioned again with a strain in her voice. The kind of strain that wanted a positive response, but also for an honest one and knew she couldn’t get both.

I first answered by sipping the Gatorade some more. I didn’t realize how badly I needed electrolytes. I decided to not answer her question directly.

“Thanks for coming over. I’m kind of in a rut right now, I guess,” I started. I focused on the label of the bottle. “I still haven’t paid my share of last month’s rent. And Ian is starting to get on my ass about finding another job...“

She nodded understandingly but interrupted by rambling with “Have you considered AA?”

I scoffed. Not at her but the suggestion. “Yeah, my probation officer makes me go to that. And do community service,” I said bitterly. I chased my words with more of the green drink in my hands. My avoiding glance fell onto the bottles on the desk... faderade? ...maybe just a little? ‘Hair of dog’ and all that.

“Probation officer? Are you alright? What happened?” she leaned forward to distract me from thoughts of an impromptu cocktail. The lack of judgement in her voice made me willing to answer.

“I… ran over a traffic sign. And crashed my truck against a dividing wall. I got a DUI, a suspended license and then fined a bunch of money,” I said as I shrugged as if it was no big deal.

“When was this? Was this after you lost your job?” she said, putting this together from the texts.

“A few months ago. I... lost my job a little after that,” I looked over into an empty corner of the room before continuing, not wanting to look at her or myself right now. “A friend at work told me management was going to surprise me with a piss test. I called in sick then stopped going.”

“Okay, well, maybe instead of AA you should go somewhere to rehabilitate?” She made another suggestion I already decided against.

“And get into even more debt and waste all that time and effort when I go right back to drinking,” I explained to her the outcome.

“That’s not necessarily true. Plus your life is more important than money. You need to get better,” she insisted. “There’s programs... and aid you can apply to... and sliding scale payment plans for-”

“I’ve quit before, but…I can’t deal with life when I’m sober; everything is crap,” I vented bitterly like a fifteen year old. “It’s better if I just stay drunk until I kill myself; at least I’ll be functional in the meantime. Like my Dad.” The last sentence came out of my mouth before I could think it and long before I could stop it.

“Brian, you’re nothing like your dad,” she said firmly and put a hand on my shoulder to reassure her point. That beautiful smile beamed at me, making me feel like a flower in the sun’s rays. “You’re a wonderful person to be around. You love everyone you meet. And you’re really cheerful when you’re drunk. You’d never hit Brianna.“

The thought of my twin sister filled me with guilt over my poor life choices. But I thought about Monica’s words. When we were young we argued and yelled but it’s true, I never hit her. I was her older brother, even if only by half a dozen hours (technically it was her birthday now). I tried to act like a big brother for her. She was Mom's favorite, especially after I got caught helping make moonshine with Dad in the shed. I don’t blame Mom though, Brianna was my favorite between the two of us too. Brianna was beautiful and talented and incredibly smart and I was an alcoholic like Dad. She had changed majors a few times in school so she was still going but she was already making money selling crafts online; supplementing Mom’s income.

I couldn’t remember a time when Dad was nice to Mom. Mom defended him when we were young, saying he was just tired and grumpy but as we got older and he became more violent she defended him to us less and less. When he wrapped his truck around a telephone pole it was unfortunately the best thing to happen to us.

“I… I guess I’m not like him,” I admitted. Not yet anyway. If I never went back there I couldn’t ever do anything I would regret. “But this day-to-day stuff… I thought I would find something to do by now. But at the end of the day, it’s just so I can come home and drink. The highlight of my weeks are when I drink with others. Last night I was trying to throw the best party I could, to top all the others in the past. One last party to go out on... doing what I do best. ”

“You were trying to kill yourself?” Monica confirmed with my texts as she moved her hand from my shoulder to my hand. The warmth of which made me realize how cold I was. I involuntarily shivered.

“I figured if I made it look like an accident... everyone would get over it quicker. Plus, it’d mean I could go out the way I lived,” I said as I started picking at the label on the Gatorade. “I’m tired. I’ve been tired for a long time now. I don’t want to live anymore.”

“Brian, you’re my friend. Whether it was an accident or on purpose if you died I would be really sad! All of your friends would be,” she said as that hand of hers slipped around my body. The physical affection was nice but I knew it didn’t mean anything. She was just an affectionate person. “If you’re hurting you’re not supposed to hide, you’re supposed to surround yourself with people you care about so they can help you.” She explained. “And you are! You got a hold of me. You have Connor here!”

"Was this your first attempt?” she asked in a quieter voice. I thought about the rope in my closet I had contemplated for a while. But I was too much of a coward to act on that one. So I nodded.

“So what about Brianna? You just weren’t going to see her again?” she asked. I felt the mountain of guilt and shame inside of me creak and sway under its own weight as a few more scoops were added on top.

“After the job situation I realized I was fucked. I didn’t want to face Mom and Brianna after that,” I said.

“Because you felt ashamed?” she asked. I nodded. “Brian, you know Brianna would still love you. And you know your friends still love you too. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t ask Connor for a ride to go see her today. Or did you?”

I shook my head before I responded. “I didn’t want to trouble him. He’s a busy guy now. Everyone’s busy because they have lives now.”

She smiled at me when she spoke. “And yet Connor and I both still showed up when you invited us. You’re our friend; we’re not going to just turn on you because you’re going through rough stuff right now! Even after you told me what you did, I still showed up. And I’m not leaving because of what you told me when I got here. You still have a will to live, Brian, inside of you somewhere, because you’re still grasping for help.”

Or I’m a coward. Or it’s just a natural reaction to dying. But… if there was one way I could tell I was still human, it was from the sense of shame and guilt I had. I was tired of being a living failure but maybe it wasn’t the right time to die. That left a gap in my agenda though.

“So what the hell am I supposed to do? Have Comet watch me 24/7 so I don’t drink and make you drag me around to job interviews?”

“Yes!” Monica said without hesitation. “If it comes down to it I’d be more than happy! And I know… ‘Comet’ would help you too.” She did the air quotes again around ‘Comet’. “I know how it is to struggle between jobs. I was helped by my fiance then and I would be more than happy to help you,” Monica tried to empathize with me but the sounds of ‘fiance’ distracted me. Last I recalled Claudia was her roommate. It looks like she moved in with someone else. “I work at an antique shop now,” she added.

“That... sounds like a pretty comfy job,” I said. I was happy for her.

“It is! Beats being a waitress. I love seeing the old, well-loved stuff people bring in. Everything has a story to it. I end up buying so much junk so I can fix it up at home. With just a little love you can bring so much value back to something neglected. I always plan to sell it when I’m finished but I usually end up keeping it. I’ve started quite the antique collection myself!” she giggled awkwardly.

“You should come thrifting with me some time. Or do some stuff with Connor! Something other than drinking,” she offered. I nodded quietly but didn’t take her up on the offer. “Alright!” She hit her open palm with her fist. She beamed that award winning smile at me. “So, let’s start figuring all this out. How long until you’re out of money?”

I chuckled nervously. “I’m totally in the red right now. But I can probably withdraw a little bit still until all the transactions go through.”

“So… ” she smiled. “You spent every last bit to give everyone a fun time?” She giggled like an angel. “That sounds like you!”

“I mean, I wanted to ‘go out with a bang,’” I reminded her it was a failed suicide plan.

“Yeah, but if you didn’t care about anyone you would just have had more for yourself! You like making others happy. That’s what you were trying to do, one last time, wasn’t it?”

I reflected on her words. I didn’t have to invite Connor, did I? I didn’t have to buy all that beer for everyone or make that punch. If I was just drinking for myself I’d have stuck to the liquor. It was frightening how well this girl could still read me. Was I really still the same person after all these years? How is she finding the good in a suicide plan?

I started to understand why in the blacked out haze I reached out to Monica. Because she would show up. Of all people I had ever met, the person sitting next to me was the strongest force of positivity in human form. Maybe I needed some of that right now.

Okay, Barry, maybe I see what you were doing.

“You’re a selfless person, Brian. I know all you want is for others to be happy. But everyone else wants you happy too!” She rebegan with a renewed smile. “I know if Connor was feeling this way you would be there for him. So why can’t you give yourself what you give others? Be there for yourself. Let others in,” she pleaded. “And not just to drink up all your money!” She giggled at her own joke and got a smile out of me.

I looked over at the large opened shipping box sitting in the corner. Monica’s gaze followed mine. “There was… also something else I bought with the last of my money.”

I stood up. The initial dizziness started stinging my headache. The gatorade was too little too late to stop the hangover from happening. I walked over to the box and brought it back to where we were sitting.

Monica leaned forward in interest, wondering what I had bought. I began to smile knowing she would appreciate this too. “It’s Brianna’s birthday present. It showed up about a month ago; before I was fired. I had to open it to make sure it was perfect. And, well…”

With that I undid the folded flaps and pulled a large, yellow pegasus with a pink mane and tail out of the box.

“Fluttershy!” Monica's eyes lit up. “She’s beautiful!” Her smile lit up the room. God, I loved that smile. She instinctively reached out to take her. “Can I hold her? Please?” I handed her over and Monica held the stuffed toy like a baby.

“She looks amazing! Brianna is going to love her,” Monica said as she rotated around to examine it more. She gently traced a finger over the subtle stitching around Fluttershy’s muzzle and gently petted her mane. “She’s tall, isn’t she? She must have cost a lot!“

“It did,” I admitted. “Brianna always gave the better present. This year I had to top her. I was going to give it to her for our birthday, but, you know, no car, so I couldn’t make the trip...” ...and I figured it would get to her eventually in the event of my death. “She has a store-bought Fluttershy but this is going to put that one to shame.”

“I’ll say; I’ve never known anyone personally with one this nice before,” Monica admired the detail of the butterflies on Fluttershy’s flank and ran a hand through the tail before gently handing it back to me. “I haven’t watched My Little Pony in years! I still collect the figures when they show up at the shop though. And I have a few bits of clothing I wear from time to time. Like these tights!” The colors poking out underneath the tears in her jeans caught my attention again.

“Did you just... grow out of it?” I remembered my sister and her bonded really well over My Little Pony in high school. I thought it was just a cute thing girls liked at first, like a modern-day Hello Kitty but it had huge nerd appeal apparently. It was hard to go anywhere online without seeing it back in the day. They tried to drag me to a convention one time; a whole convention just for My Little Pony! They kept trying to get me into it but I told them it wasn’t my thing. I watched some with Markus when we got stoned a few times but I didn't remember much.

“Well, no. When the show ended I just kind of stopped rewatching it eventually,” she told me while I carefully set Fluttershy down on my liquor desk.

“Wait. Wait, the show’s over?” I asked as I swerved back to her. I felt a falling sensation in my gut. Did I get Brianna the perfect present too late? I could have sworn she was still drawing ponies. Didn’t she still make My Little Pony stuff and sell it online?

“Yeah, it ended quite a while ago. Really downer ending too; Discord admitted he wasn’t reformed and found the perfect time to turn on them. He threw Celestia down a fiery pit. Then he banished Twilight somewhere with a spell,” Monica didn’t seem to be joking but it sounded made up to me. Not only has it been been over for a while now but it ended with them killed off important characters?

“What the hell? I thought the target audience was like six!” I was surprised at how much I suddenly cared. Maybe it was the fact that my present wouldn’t have as much of an impact as I thought. What if it reminded Brianna of this shitty ending? Why did this never come up with Brianna? ”Why did it end that way??”

“There’s a couple of theories. Either the second part was supposed to be a movie or maybe Twilight was supposed to reappear in a new season in a new place and get back home with the magic of friendship to save it… “ Monica theorized. “...But then it just didn’t get renewed. I remember the writer said that’s just how the series was supposed to end; ‘it was the original vision’ and all that from on high. Some people thought maybe Hasbro was wanting to start a new generation to distance itself from the Bronies and wanted the old ones written off so they canceled the show early. But then nothing else came out,” Monica’s eyes glistened from memories. “Maybe they just never got a solid Generation 5 My Little Pony idea figured out,” she seemed somber thinking about this. I felt bad for reminding her about something she was a diehard fan of ending prematurely.

“Buck,” I grumbled. She looked at me when I said that, a bit of spirit returned to her eyes and an amused curl back on her lips. She never seemed amused by my cursing before. Maybe it was my caring for this show she liked. We met eyes.

At this angle, looking down at her and her looking up at me, reminded me of elementary school when she was still a good bit shorter than me instead of just two inches; she was “Mini”. I could still imagine the braces on her teeth when she gave those big, beautiful smiles.

In junior high I wanted to be close to that smile. I wanted to know what made her so happy and just stand closer to it to feel its warmth. Getting to know her made me find out there was no inside joke or insecurity hiding behind it, just affection and joy for the world. That childlike joy to her outlook on life that somehow survived into adulthood. Her smile was representative of her positivity. It was obvious why I wanted to date her but I never understood why she agreed to it. Maybe I was a project for her and after three years and my dad dying she finally gave up on me. Maybe she was just around me a lot because of how much she hung out with my sister.

“Brianna is still going to love her present,” she reassured me. “I only feel sad about My Little Pony when I think about the ending. I had a lot of fun being in that fandom. I would be blown away if I got a plushie of Twilight that looked as good as her Fluttershy.“

Right, Twilight Twinkle, Monica’s favorite pony. I kept looking at her eyes. They were reminding me of something more recent in my mind but I couldn’t remember what. Was there something different about her? Not her weight, but her face? Were we just getting older?

“So,” Monica broke eye contact. Shit, I was staring. “You and Brianna are practically best friends. But… you guys talk still, right? When was it last?”

"Yesterday. She wished me ‘happy birthday’. She sends pictures of things she's making all the time," I said, thinking of how fussy she is about all the details in her graphic design work that I can't even notice.

"And you talk-talk to her; you call?" Monica said as she encouraged a smile out of me with her own.

"I try to call her at least once a week. I love hearing her enthusiasm when she's talking about art," I thought about the oil pastels she bought recently that she was trying to use for absolutely everything.

"And you talk about your life with her?" Monica asked.

"I do. Just not in as much detail or enthusiasm as she does. She knows what you know, minus the depression and... stuff" I said then finished my Gatorade.

"When was the last time you saw each other?" Monica asked. She had found where I lacked Brianna in my life.

"Months ago. Before I turned my car into scrap," I waved the empty bottle towards 'months ago' as I spoke.

“You need to see her again! Do you want a ride some time to give Fluttershy to Brianna? I would love to take you! It would be fun seeing her again. And her reaction when she sees her favorite pony,” she offered. I had moved away from that little town to the city when a lot of my friends did. Brianna was doing community college closer by. She was about 45 minutes away by car now.

“That would be great actually. You two could catch up,” I agreed.

“When did you want to go? I got nothing going on today,” Monica volunteered then checked her phone to make sure. I glanced over at it and saw it was a little after noon now. Whoops.

“Actually, I can’t today. I gotta go do my community service,” I admitted reluctantly. “It'll be too late after. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow it is,” she agreed. “I could give you a ride to work too! When do you go?” Monica offered more of her services. Despite how giving she was I didn’t feel like a charity case with her. It felt like back then, when she was just giving because we were friends.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll just take the bus. It’s in a few hours but I need to take a shower first and scrub all my graffiti off,” I showed her the marker drawings on my arms. “The old folks at the retirement home probably won’t appreciate all the penises.“ I paused and thought about that some more. The retirees seemed to quite like me actually. “Or maybe they would, the staff definitely wouldn’t though.“

Monica laughed a little at that. “A retirement home, huh? Yeah, your arms are very colorful, but penises are kind of distracting.”

Mentioning colors, I looked at her legs and the tights on them again. They were literally eye catching. That’s one thing that show did well, catching your attention. I studied a few of the pony characters from the slits in her jeans. I could only see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy well but a sliver of a pink one caught my eye. I suddenly had the urge to see it.

“Hey, could you take your pants off?” I asked her.

She laughed a little and crossed her legs. She looked at me, trying to figure out what was going on. “What? Why?”

“No, I want to see the ponies on your tights,” I pointed at the ones exposed. She followed where I was pointing with her eyes.

“Oh. Um… well,” she uncrossed legs, stood up and looked at me to see if I was still serious before pulling her jeans down a little to expose more of her tights. “It’s just the mane six minus Applejack on them. I’ve been having dreams about ponies lately. So I dug my tights out this morning.”

I saw the pink one I spotted was the really outgoing one with blue eyes and fluffy hair, ‘Pinky Pie’, I think. There was also the main character, Twilight Twinkle. And a white unicorn. With Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash that would be five... My eyes scanned the crowd on her legs, suddenly feeling like I was missing someone.

“Wasn't there another pink one?” I looked at the other leg trying to see if she was over there. Nope.

“There’s a lot of pink ones. But not on these. Which one are you thinking of? Princess Cadence? Cheerilee? Pinkie Peach?”

Those names sounded familiar but they didn’t click. “I don’t know. She’s one of the main ones,” I suggested. There was an itch in my brain where my headache was; I needed to find her. I needed to see her.

“You’re probably thinking of Princess Cadence then. She’s not exactly a main character but she had focus in a few episodes. Tall, horns and wings? Multicolored mane and tail?” Monica suggested as she pulled her pants back up and buttoned them.

“No, that’s not it. She was a little unicorn. And she was in a lot of episodes,” I tried to imagine her more but I couldn’t. I was suddenly really caught up in this. It seemed really important I saw her again.

“Well, the only other kind of main one is Cheerilee then. She’s the same size as the main characters but she's not a unicorn and she's more purple really. Three flowers on her flank?”

“No. I don't think she had a symbol. Or maybe she did?”

“If she didn't have a mark in the show she was a filly. The only main unicorn filly was Sweetie Belle. Oh! Sweetie Belle was white but had a pink and purple mane. She got her mark later. Did you mean her? Or maybe it was Pinkie Peach? She was a pegasus but had a unicorn and earth pony sister? They were triplets Pinkie Pie watched once.”

Monica was being extremely helpful but I didn't have a concrete picture of who I was thinking of or why it seemed important. I shook my head and shrugged the whole thing off.

“No idea. Maybe it was just from some pony knock off thing I watched with Markus one time.”

So many of us struggle but we don't need to struggle alone. A reason to live through today isn't us 'making up excuses' to put it off. It doesn't mean we live to suffer again tomorrow. We're looking for hope.

Sometimes we have something we can call "hope" and sometimes hope is a lie like justice or mercy: not a law of the universe but an ideal we try to live up to. We want to believe in it and we act on it because we want to make it real. Because otherwise it'll never be.

If you're still here then you can still believe:

https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
http://www.suicide.org/index.html
http://www.suicidehotlines.com/