Twilight sobbed. She couldn’t bring herself to accept what had happened so recently. Everything in her life had taken a turn for the worse, all because of one little mistake.

Her friends were gone, and she knew all to well that they wouldn’t be back. She wished she could ask Princess Celestia for help, but she knew that she couldn’t just turn to her mentor every time something went wrong. As much as she hated to admit it, she’d have to face this alone…if she could face it at all.

Sniffling, Twilight reminisced on her times with her friends…no, her ex-friends. None of them cared about her anymore, and she doubted they ever had. It hurt her to know she had been played for a fool the entire time.

The fourteen-year-old filly remembered what happened with all of her friends. She had been sceptical at first when all three of them, having previously ignored her constantly, suddenly became astonishingly nice to her the instant word got out that she had been taken on as Princess Celestia’s personal student. However, she tried to be trustworthy, and acted as nice to them as she could.

Lyra, Vinyl, and Trixie treated her the way friends normally treated each other, which may have been what caused her to let her guard down. They invited her over to their homes, sat with her during lunch, and stood up for her if she got picked on. Naturally, Twilight wanted to repay them for their kindness, so whenever they asked her for help, she gave it to them.

At first, the things they asked for weren’t too bad. Maybe help with some homework, or giving them advice when they ran into different problems. However, after a couple of months, Twilight noticed something seem to change about them.

Lyra started hanging out with her less and more with another group of ponies. Twilight didn’t know much about the ponies Lyra was getting involved with, but according to Princess Celestia, they weren’t exactly known for their great attitude. When Twilight tried to talk to Lyra about it, Lyra completely ignored her and told her to buzz off.

“You’re not my mother, Sparkle! I’ll do what I want! I don’t need a nerd like you screwing up my life!”

Vinyl used to be a good student, but as time went on she began slacking more, paying less attention in class and asking Twilight after school to help her out. Twilight was always happy to oblige, but as this became a daily occurrence, she began to worry. Even if she was the princess’s personal student, she still worried about what Princess Celestia would do if she found out. When she tried to confront Vinyl about it, she got a response she wasn’t expecting.

“Geez, Twilight! Who cares what Celestia thinks? I just don’t want to fail, okay? I don’t give a buck about her!”

Trixie was possibly the worst of the three. Since she and Twilight were similar in that both of their talents were magic in general, the two of them normally got along rather well. They were great friends, yet rivals at the same time. They often competed in small magic duels, which Twilight usually won. Sometimes, Trixie would ask Twilight for help with learning this one spell she was trying to master.

It didn’t seem like much of a problem to Twilight. Even as she slowly stopped hanging out with Lyra and Vinyl, she and Trixie remained good friends. However, Twilight started to lose trust in Trixie. She didn’t have an exact reason why, other than that she was afraid Trixie was just trying to get stuff from her like Lyra and Vinyl were. As much as Twilight wanted to help Trixie, she also didn’t want to be played for a fool.

One day, Twilight decided to talk to Trixie about her feelings, hoping that would resolve the issue.

“Trixie?”

“Yeah, Twilight?”

“Um…this might sound weird, but…are we real friends?”

Twilight could still remember Trixie’s confused look. “Well, of course we are! Why? Is something wrong?”

“Well, after figuring out what Lyra and Vinyl really thought of me, I thought maybe you…”

Trixie glared. “You thought I was doing the same thing?”

Twilight looked a little sheepish. “Well, yes…”

“I can’t believe you, Twilight! Why can’t you trust me?”

“I don’t know who to trust anymore! That’s why!” Twilight cried.

“Twilight, I would never trick anypony else into becoming my friend just so I could get stuff from them! What kind of pony do you take me for?!”

“I’m sorry! I…” Twilight never finished her sentence, instead choosing that time to run away. She could feel Trixie’s glare in the back of her head as she ran off.

She hadn’t spoken to Trixie since then. It had been over a week, but the two unicorns still never spoke. Twilight felt horrible for everything that had happened. Not only had she lost her three greatest friends, but one of them was all her fault, because she couldn’t trust her.

Twilight felt awful, and it showed in everything she did. Her work was half-hearted, she never made eye contact with anypony, and she barely got any sleep. Princess Celestia tried to talk to her about it, but she just said she wasn’t feeling well. She never told anypony the whole truth.

Even a month after everything happened, Twilight couldn’t stop crying. She was alone. She felt she couldn’t even trust anypony anymore, now that it was plainly clear that ponies who wanted to be her friend were likely only in it for the benefits of being best friends with the princess’s personal student.

She began to question whether or not she even needed friends. She was smart, and really, weren’t brains all you needed to get far in the world? Her room was filled to the brim with books, most of which she never read. She never had time.

But now I have all the time in the world, Twilight realized. She felt as though she had an epiphany. She smiled genuinely for the first time in a long time as she lit her horn, pulling several books down from the shelves. She started reading, caring about nothing other than herself and the books in front of her.

As time passed, her work slowly began to show signs of improvement. Princess Celestia stopped bugging her about her problems. She stopped crying herself to sleep each night. When a pony tried to be nice to her, she just ignored them and went off somewhere alone, usually with a book.

Who needs friends when you’ve got knowledge?

Author's Notes: This was something that came to mind after a series of rather upsetting events for me. A few nights in a row, I've had dreams about people from my past who used to call themselves my friend, but...well, you just read this story, so you probably know the end result. I couldn't get it out of my head, so I tried venting via fanfic writing. Imagine me in Twilight's place, and the story is amazingly accurate to my own life.

This is just a one-shot thing; I won't be adding anything more onto this story. I just wanted to get it out there and off my mind.