Zapped by an Apple | An Appledash College AU Fanfic | Human Characters

⓵⓵『 Detach, Depart 』

"You're not gonna visit your friend today?" AJ's little sister, Bloom, tested her innocently. AJ lifted her centred gaze from the half-buried seedlings she was crouching over to meet the tykes pecan-tinted irises. If she weren't so small, so sincere in her diction, the older cowgirl might've been tempered at the question; but the youngling stood so patiently, an imprint of fret drawn across her face--obviously meaning no harm to result from her curiosity. 

     But that question--that very subject--served as the catalyst for an unrelenting, nightmarish sense of dread that tormented AJ since the...

     She didn't want to think about it. 

     She couldn't. 

     For the first few days since...it...happened, AJ would disappear behind her treen door and hide, sopped up beneath her bedsheets in the dampness of her own tears. While she tried to keep up with the bare-minimum farmyard essentials, to just move the hell on as any dedicated farmer ought to, she had already begun to fumble behind deadlines and cascade towards omission. 

     As hard as she tried to perfect a persona of clearheadedness despite the recent events, AJ fooled only a mere sprinkling of people. And of those few people, her family was not. 

     Bloom, Mac and Granny were with her since the night it happened--and while the strong-willed lass abhorred it--they had seen, and they had heard AJ's pain. This gave her an odd, distasteful intrinsic complex because--even though she wasn't always fully conscious of it--she struggled to be so open with that pain. 

     That's why, when sweet Bloom asked her innocent question, AJ simply replied with, 

     "No."

     ...and then proceeded with her usual duties.

     Just as any dedicated farmer ought to. 

___

The days that followed did not contrast much against this concept of avoidance for AJ. She hadn't meant to neglect the bed-ridden athlete since their group attended the hospital with breakfast the other day, she had just sort of, held off on it for a time. And then, one day collapsed into two...two, to three...and then four...five...six, until an entire week devoid of Rainbow plagued the cowgirls conscience. 

     On the seventh day, AJ stood at the entrance to Canterlot Hospital, clutching beneath quivering fingers: a small Ziploc baggie filled with Dashie's favourite snack from the Apple Acreage, Granny's homemade apple-baked muffins. 

     Two stone beams painted-teal preceded the automatic glass doors. She stood frozen between them as a vexatious squeaking emanated from the transparent contraption before her. Open, and then closed. Over and over. 

     Released or recently admitted patients, staff clocking in and out, and troubled visitors all brushed past her through those irksome sliding doors. Over and over. 

     Then suddenly, and to AJ's own great astonishment, she dropped the bag to the concrete and retreated back towards the parking lot. 

     The worst part was, AJ couldn't deconstruct the rationale behind her avoidance even if she wanted to. Desperation? Anger? Sadness? What was the underpinning, core sentiment of it all? 

     The farm-girl didn't know. So, she decided that for the good of everyone around her as well as herself, it was best for her to keep this distance until she figured herself out.