Passion and Ponies

Chapter 27 – Friendship is Magic

- Ava -

“Alright, time to stop being a vagina. Get your ass out of bed and take a fucking shower,” Charlotte scolds as she barges in my room.

I stare at her in irritation as she goes digging through my dresser, tossing clothes at me.

“Oh, my God. I can’t wear that shirt with these pants!” I complain.

Charlotte turns around to face me with a smile on her face. “There we go, that’s the Ava I know and love.”

I roll my eyes at her and flop back down on my pillows. I’ve done nothing but mope around the house since Christmas and then it just got worse after the fight with my mom. It’s pathetic. I miss Tyler so fucking much and I want so badly to call him, but I’m sure he hates me. I haven’t heard from him since we fought in the yard. I’m a bitch and I’m never going to change.

“I have some news for you. You’re going to want to sit up for this,” Charlotte informs me, jumping onto the foot of my bed and curling her legs up under her.

“If it has anything to do with the fact that I’ve called off of work the last three days, don’t bother. I’ve already gotten an earful from mom about my responsibilities as an adult,” I tell her.

“Jesus, stop feeling sorry for yourself, asshole! You know you brought this on yourself, right? All you had to do was sit mom down and be honest with her. You’re good at telling people off and sticking up for others, why is it so hard to do it for yourself?”

I roll over and face the wall, not wanting to look at her while she tells me how much I suck. I already got that memo.

“Well, lucky for you, there’s no need to worry about mom. Tyler took care of it for you.”

I bolt up in bed and kick the covers off. “What? What are you talking about?”

Charlotte smiles and leans back against the wall casually. “Tyler marched into mom’s office this morning and basically told her off. He told her how smart and amazing you are and how your blog is your dream and she should be more understanding of what makes you happy. He actually made mom cry.”

My mouth drops open in shock.

“Why would he do that?” I whisper.

“Because he gets a sick thrill out of seeing her weep like a baby.”

I shake my head in irritation. “Not the crying, dick face. Why would he talk to her for me?”

Charlotte sits forward and tilts her head. “Um, probably because he’s in love with you, moron. He knew you needed a little push in the right direction, so he fought your battle for you.”

Charlotte grabs my cell phone off of my nightstand and thrusts it towards me. “Now, be a good girl, call him and tell him thank you and that you owe him an unlimited amount of blow jobs.”

I start to reach for the phone but then drop my hand. While I am absolutely grateful that he did something like this for me, that still doesn’t solve our other problem.

“Charlotte, I don’t know. I mean, I can handle a lot of things. I HAVE handled a lot of things, but the My Little Pony thing might be pushing it. He may have saved my ass with mom, but that still doesn’t change the fact that this fetish or whatever you want to call it is just plain weird. There’s a thing called BronyCon, Charlotte. BRONYCON. I might have to dress up as a horse and go to this thing every year for the rest of my life. I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I admit.

Charlotte pushes herself up from my bed and grabs her bag that she dropped by my door. “I figured you would say something like that, so I brought something that might help.”

She digs inside and pulls out a wrapped present, holding it up for me to see.

“You bought me another Christmas present?”

Charlotte rolls her eyes and tosses it to me. “No, that is the present from Tyler you never opened.”

I blink back tears and stare down at the gift, afraid to open it. In all the commotion on Christmas, I totally forgot that he got me something. I shoved it under the tree to open later on and, after our fight, I didn’t want anything to do with it.

“Well, open it!”

With a sniffle, I rip into the paper and stare in confusion at what I’m holding in my hand.

“Bronies: A Documentary,” I read aloud. “Seriously?”

Charlotte pulls a folded piece of paper out of her purse and hands it to me. “This came with it too. Sorry, I already read it.”

Snatching the paper out of her hand, I give her a dirty look before unfolding it and quickly reading through Tyler’s hand-written note.

“Look, I didn’t get this whole thing either, but after I read that note, Gavin sat me down and explained everything to me and then made me watch Tyler’s copy of that DVD. If I have to suffer through this documentary to try and understand a guy I’m NOT in love with, then it’s only fair you do the same since you ARE in love with him.”

Setting the note aside, I stare down at the DVD. “Charlotte, he thinks he can find his real dad at BronyCon. I want to support him, but that’s just too crazy even for me.”

She sighs and perches on the edge of my bed. “Ava, I think deep down he knows he’s not truly going to find his real dad there. You need to understand how important this is to him. You need to realize how much he just wants to know and understand where he came from. It’s a pipe dream that he’ll find his dad out of all of those people, but it gives him hope. No one has ever understood the whole Brony thing he’s got going on, aside from other Bronies. He just wants his real dad to be someone who understands him.”

Sixty minutes after Charlotte left, I’m sitting on the floor in my room crying harder than I’ve ever cried in my life. Friendship IS magic. Tyler is part of a community that believes in friendship and being happy, why is that so bad? People only think it’s weird because they don’t understand it, but these horses are role models! Fluttershy represents people with crippling social anxieties and Twilight Sparkle embodies bookish people without making them look like nerds. It’s genius!

It’s about people trying to belong! Sure, they dress up like ponies and there’s Cloppers and Furries and other things I don’t understand, but that’s not the point. These people don’t want to have sex with ponies or do weird shit with them. Okay, some do, but not the majority. Most of them are simply looking for friendship and a place where they belong, a concept I’m very familiar with. All this time I’ve been looking for a place to belong. My mom tried to make it be Seduction and Snacks and I was miserable. Fashion is where I belong, and talking to other people about fashion. Tyler found his place to belong a long time ago and who am I to discourage that?

I immediately get out of bed and fire up my laptop. Hopefully I’m not too late and I can still do this. I’m going to show Tyler once and for all that I’m not afraid. He fought my battle for me with my mom, but I’m going to fight this one for him. I’m going to make sure everyone understands what I love about him.

As soon as I get what I need printed off of my laptop, I head towards my door just as my mom comes through it.

We stand there staring at each other awkwardly for a few minutes before she finally speaks. “I don’t like apologizing.”

I nod. “Me either.”

Glad we established that.

“I forgive you for not wanting to work at Seduction and Snacks.”

“And I forgive you for not understanding my dream,” I tell her.

She leans in and wraps her arms around me. I slide my arms around her shoulders and hug her back.

“You’re totally my favorite child,” she whispers before pulling back.

“You just said that same thing to Charlotte a few minutes ago, didn’t you?”

She shrugs. “Does it matter?”

“Nope.”

I thrust my arm out and hand her one of the print-outs. “Now that we like each other again and Tyler made you cry, I expect you to be there.”

She looks over the page and then gives me a questioning look. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“I would never kid about something like this.”

Mom looks back down at the paper. “If I go to this, can I make fun of people?”

I start to tell her no and then think better of it. If I tell her no, she definitely won’t come and I need her to be there. “You can only make fun of people if they make fun of you first.”

She thinks about this for a few seconds before nodding. “I can deal with that.”

I walk out of my bedroom with a smile on my face, making plans in my head and hoping that everything works.