Bittersweet

The fireworks were spectacular. They always were, and she knew they always would be. But tonight, they were just a little bit duller than usual.

Amy Rose glanced at her watch – ten at night, right on the dot. It was exactly the time that Sonic said he would be here with her, watching colors light up the sky in short bursts. Maybe if she waited just a bit longer…

She knew it was a hopeless cause. He was probably out foiling some evil guy's plan again and in the morning he would send an apology text, just like he did every time. Just like usual; and, she thought, he probably expected her to ask him out again. She took a moment to really assess the situation, right at the top of the hill, the best view of the fireworks sitting before her eyes. He would always be busy, too busy with hero duty to bother with her.

"As if I would ever be a first priority to him."

Her voiced thoughts startled herself. Amy glanced once more at the time, the hand resting comfortably at fourteen after ten. She shook her foot back and forth in the wet grass, feeling the dew of night caress her fur and wondering if Sonic would have liked the spot. A blue firework went off above her head, a quick ascent and explosion disappearing just as it came.

Disappointment settled in her stomach, a familiar but still bitter feeling against her usual happy self. Somehow, with all of the times he's done this to her, she felt fed up. How many more times would she have to do this to him… to herself?

"Maybe it's time for a change. I've been chasing for too long," she said to herself, tone lost in the myriad of noise above her head. A particularly pink firework rose and shown in the sky, powerful and louder than the others. "Yeah. There'll be no more of anyone settling for me. I'm gonna be an obligation, a catch that anyone would be jealous of. I'm gonna make him regret all the times he left me behind."

And still, the bitter feeling didn't go away.

~.~

"You look great, Amy!"

She smiled at Cream and Rouge, who watched her step out of the changing booth with a flowery dress on.

"You guys don't think it's too… I dunno… flashy?" They shook their heads quickly at her question.

"If you really wanna grab attention in all the right ways, turn a few heads, y'know, this is perfect," Rouge said, elbowing Cream so she would input as well.

"Yeah, I agree. Whoever you're out to get will be the talk of the town when he's out with you!"

Rose smirked. "You mean, if he's out with me. This is going to test exactly how much he misses me." The bat and bunny exchanged confused glances.

"You mean, this isn't for Sonic?"

Rose shrugged; "I don't really know who it's for. Maybe it's just for me. I want to do myself a favor and see what it would be like if he got a little taste of his own medicine, to be on my end of the spectrum."

"Wow," Rouge said, blinking, "that's oddly cunning of you, Amy. But you're not out to make him jealous, are you?"

Amy thought for a moment, pursing her lips and taking her phone out. The text that he sent her the next morning sat neglected in her inbox, unread and unopened. "I want him to chase," she said. "I'll ignore him for a while, look cute, get a glance of the world that I've been missing for a while, and see what happens. Maybe I'll find a reason to stop being so hung up on him." It hurt for her to say the words, but in the bottom of her heart, she truly was tired from all of the running and attempting to catch up.

"That's good," Cream commented, snatching Amy from her monologue. "It's about time that you let some boys come your way."

"You really think guys at school will like it?"

Rouge and Cream nodded in a strong up and down motion.

"Alright, I'll get it. Let's look around more."

Yet she still had a bitter taste on her tongue.

~.~

She tried to restrain her smile at the dropped jaws around her. It was Monday morning, a bright and colorful spring morning, perfect for one of the outfits she bought for herself. Of course, high heels were impractical since the ground was still wet from the night's previous rainstorm, so she instead let her feet rest in flats that matched her blossoming, knee-high dress.

Tails waved at her from inside the school, a certain sparkle in his eye that told her he knew what was up. Knuckles nudged his blue hedgehog pal, a bold grin and wandering stare fluttering over her figure, which she rolled her eyes at.

Finally, exactly what she waited for, Sonic looked up and nearly fell from the bench he was sitting on. Several other boys in the school glared with jealousy at him, but she ignored all of them, especially Sonic, and walked straight past them to her first class. Sonic's eyes widened further, thoroughly as confused as everyone else.

She didn't dress up for him, and it was made evident when she didn't even spare him a glance.

Amy waltzed into her classroom, earning many stares at her sudden change of atmosphere. Her usual happy-go-lucky-thinking-about-Sonic attitude was thrown out the window and she had something in her aura that the others could sense. It wasn't a wistful, hopeful smile anymore. It was a challenging smile that said, 'who can catch up to me?'

"Hey, good-lookin'," a voice said from her left as she sat down. It belonged to a brown fox boy, but she couldn't remember his name.

"Good morning," she replied, immediately turning her attention away from him. His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"What, can't take a compliment, babe?" She turned her head to him slowly and sweetly, earning her a bead of nervous sweat from the boy.

"Facts," she said, "don't count as compliments."

A chorus of laughter erupted from her classmates, but she merely shook her head, returning her attention to the front of the classroom where the teacher had begun talking.

A black hedgehog in the back of the classroom stared at her for the rest of class, but she didn't notice, her own mossy eyes bitterly reading the notes placed upon the board.

~.~

The next few days were like a broken record. She would wake up, put on a new outfit that she bought, and revel in the dropped jaws and yearning stares. The girls of the school gossiped here and there on why she suddenly changed, but Rouge made it evident that they weren't allowed to talk about it, or there would be consequences.

Amy, once again, walked right past Sonic and his friends, seeing in her peripheral vision that he was eagerly watching her. Oh, how badly she wanted to turn her head and see the look on his face head on.

But she wouldn't let herself. She adamantly walked away once again, but instead, her arm was caught from behind her.

"Amy, wait up." She shut her eyes tightly and felt herself being turned around by Sonic himself. "What's been going on? You know I've been texting you." With a sigh, she pulled her phone out from her pocket.

Fifteen unread messages.

"So you have," she said in a drone. He almost looked angry for a moment, but he shook it off.

"Nonetheless, I was wondering why you haven't been talking to me for the past few days. I've been… I've been kind of worried."

Her heart clenched. It was just the reaction she wanted, but not for the reason she intended. "Is it because I look good now?"

His eyebrow raised. "Well, you changed your style for me, didn't you?"

The bitter feeling crept into her newly formed glare. "No, Sonic." Amy wrenched her arm from his grip. "I changed for me." The back of her mind nagged that it wasn't true, as well as the confused stare from his eyes.

She walked away, leaving the conversation at that, and letting the surrounding students gawk at the scene that unfolded before them.

"I changed for me," she repeated over and over. The words were lost in the swarming students and found in the ears of a black hedgehog.

~.~

The fireworks were spectacular. She was back at the same spot as the night a week ago, allowing the colors burst as they pleased over her single form once again. It was a familiar feeling, she felt.

She wasn't wearing the new clothes now; they were good for nothing but unwanted attention. A tear threatened to fall at the thought of how her plan backfired – ironic, since it was exactly what she was aiming for. A yearning Sonic, a field of attention that she never had before.

It was all wrong. He wasn't supposed to want the clothes, how it made her look different. She wanted him to want her, the pink fur and green eyes and all, not the change in style.

"What a way to get attention," a deep voice said, snatching her gaze from her shoes to a black figure behind her.

"Shadow?"

As she looked down to her rather plain clothing, the black hedgehog sat next to her, letting the wet grass settle beneath him. "Hope you don't mind."

She glanced at him suspiciously, but let it fall. "It's fine, but how did you know I'd be here?"

"What makes you think I came up here for you?"

She blushed angrily at the question, but also in embarrassment. "Whatever, I didn't mean to jump to conclusions."

"Considering your sudden change in clothing choice, I thought you would."

"What is that supposed to mean?" A dangerous, challenging question for him to answer.

"I mean, you changed to get people's attention, right?" She didn't reply. "People don't get up in the morning and say, 'Hey, I'm gonna make a bunch of people stare at me because I feel like it.' You had motives and expected people to react in a positive way. So now you're here, and when I walk up, you think I'm here because I saw you this week, all different and made-up, when in fact this is a spot I've come to since I was a kid."

She blushed deeply and hid her head in her legs.

"Don't fret, Rose. I understand."

"Oh, do you?" Sarcasm was evident in her words, though they were muffled by her jeans.

"Neglecting parents. You have to rebel to get some attention in a household like mine."

Amy covered her face. "You like making me feel bad, don't you." A pink firework hesitantly sprouted above them, a quieter blast among the others. Shadow closed his eyes.

"I don't try. That's all you."

There were whistles from the crowd at a particularly large firework.

"I just… I thought that if I could stop chasing and let him be the chaser, I would feel better. I thought I would be giving him a taste of his own medicine, but then he turned it around and made it about him again. And, in the end, it was just me chasing after him like usual, with a bunch of unflattering comments on the side from people I don't know."

"Bitter words," he said. "But they're true."

"Really? Really, Shadow?"

He chuckled darkly. "I'm not here to make you feel good about yourself, Rose." She cracked a smile.

"Whatever. Thanks for listening, though."

Red light covered them, followed by a bone-chilling roar. Amy and Shadow both leaned back, enjoying the show in comfortable silence. The night air came in slowly but harshly, and the fireworks died down. Amy glanced at her watch, a small effort to read the hands that told her it was midnight.

"Do you mind if I come back next time, Shadow?" she found herself asking, light of fireworks replaced with twinkling stars that shone like white freckles on the skin of the universe.

She tiredly turned her head, letting a chill from the air – or something else – caress her spine as she looked into his eyes.

"Whatever you want, Rose. Whatever you want."

He stood from the grass, a dent in the ground that made the atmosphere seem a little bit emptier. Despite her drooping eyes, her heart fluttered.

"Whatever I want, hmm?"

He was too far away now to hear, but she didn't mind. She was done chasing after people to be heard, or to be loved. She stood as well, liking how her spot looked next to his, and she felt like she was on air. Her breath caught the air, heavy and warm against the cold night.

"See you next week, then."

The promise was bittersweet, hanging upon the stars and holding on for dear life.