It was the first day of school, but Cotton Tuft was not excited at all.

She didn’t care about the boring classes or homework awaiting her; the typical school stuff that most students worried about barely crossed her mind today. Instead, she had voices…of previous conversations, recent arguments, running through her mind.

“YOU’RE THE WORST MOM EVER! I HATE YOU!”

“MOM IS GOING TO DIE BECAUSE OF HER!”

It had been just under a month since her mom plummeted down a cliff and went into a coma. Only a few weeks since her fight with Chocolate Bomb. Hay, her dad had only un-grounded her yesterday, it was so bad. Yet the nasty words she’d said rang in her ears as if she were screaming them now. It was too late to take them back, and now she just might have to live with that regret forever.

All around Cotton, students chatted cheerfully with their friends, eating their lunches and hanging out in groups. She looked down at the sloppy hayburger her dad had packed and sighed. Even that was different; she’d never realized how good her mom’s homemade meals were until now. And if she didn’t come out of the coma, this would be all she had from now on.

Figuring there was nopony to sit with, Cotton packed up her lunch and made to eat alone in the bathroom. But as she approached, she heard a hushed chatter.

“Did you hear about Cotton’s mom?”

“No! Tell!”

Cotton pressed her back against the wall, tilting her ear in to listen. She hadn’t talked to her friends since her mom had embarrassed her in front of them, not even to tell them she was in a coma. She could only imagine what they had to say.

“You didn’t hear? That lame clown fell off a cliff! Just last month!”

“Oh my gosh, really? Did she die?”

“Nah, I heard she’s in a coma. But if she comes out of that she’s gonna have some serious brain damage.”

“You mean more than what she already had?”

They shared a laugh.

Tears stung Cotton’s eyes and her stomach turned as she heard this. She knew her friends weren’t fond of her parents, but her mom’s life was hanging by a thread. They didn’t even feel bad for her, instead making a joke out of it. She never imagined they would go so far.

“If she dies, Cotton’ll finally be free from that old kook. That would be a relief. She was always on her flanks and making an idiot of herself.”

“Yeah, I actually feel sorry for Cotton. I’m glad my parents are actually cool. I’d die if they were like hers.”

“How dare you?”

The two fillies whipped their heads around to find Cotton Tuft, seething and glaring daggers at them.

“How DARE you insult my mom?”

They just laughed in her face.

“C’mon C, you know we were joking.”

“Yeah! Besides, it’s not like we’re saying anything you don’t already know, right? How could you not be relieved? That mare was not helping you at all, Cotton Tuft.”

WHACK!

Cotton didn’t even realize what she had done until she saw the filly before her nursing a bloody nose. But she was too blinded by fury to care.

“My name…is Cotton CANDY! Talk about my mom like that again and I’ll-“

“You’ll do what? Cry like a baby?”

WHACK!

Through her tears of rage, Cotton could see the other filly clutching her eye as she screamed. She suddenly felt a hoof grip her shoulder.

“Cotton, to my office. NOW. You two, go to the nurse.”

As she found herself being firmly guided to the principal’s office, Cotton fought more tears as the full weight of what had happened came to her. Those ponies were not her friends. They were bullies. She’d let them control her thoughts, control her life for so long. Control her relationship with her own family. Whether it was too late or not to fix things with her mom, she wouldn’t let it happen again.

She would be better.