Pretty didn't expect such a cold "we need to talk" from Mr. Cat - someone who was supposed to, as far as she knew, love her unconditionally. It came as a violent shock. After all, she didn't even hear him use that tone of voice before he drinked the love potion.

"Y-yes, what is it, sweetie?" She asked nervously.

"Nothing, it's just that Froggy here told me something very interesting."

"Oh, she did?" Pretty angrily asked and looked at Kaeloo, who put on a nervous grin. She knew exactly what Mr. Cat was talking about.

"Yes, she said that you used a love potion on me."

Yep, there it was. Pretty's eyes started to shift around the room.

"Is that true?" Mr. Cat asked.

"N-no…" Pretty lied in the most unconvincing tone of voice. "The frog is just trying to make me look bad because she is jealous!"

"Pretty! Stop lying!" Kaeloo yelled. "I saw the receipt! Eugly gave it to me!"

Pretty looked at Eugly with a threatening expression, which sent a shiver down the big rabbit's spine.

"I know you did it! Mr. Cat isn't usually like this! He is usually really cool, not all lovey-dovey." Stumpy said, offending Mr. Cat slightly. "And he was never like this around you! I may be nuts, but even I know when something is wrong with my friend!"

Pretty hid most of her body under the hospital blanket. Mr. Cat came up to her and squeezed her hand. Pretty turned around they ended up looking at each other. Looking into Mr. Cat's eyes like this made Pretty strangely uncomfortable. Maybe it was just caused by the stressful situation they were in. Or maybe it was something else…

"Pretty, tell me the truth, I need to know, did you use a love potion on me?"

There was no way around it - Kaeloo found a proof that she used it and all three of Mr. Cat's friends knew him much better than her, as much as she hated to admit it. They would just keep torturing with these questions forever. It was the same reason why Mr. Cat drank the love potion-affected soda in the first place.

"Yes. Yes I did. But Mr. Cat, I-"

Mr. Cat's fears were confirmed. And once again, the two parts of him - the original, rational part of him and the love potion affected one - were having a conversation.

The former was scolding him for letting the latter take over, for being stupid enough to not trust Kaeloo, one of his best friends, and trust Pretty, the mean, manipulative rabbit, instead. How unfair was that to the poor frog? Was he seriously that big of a jackass?

And the latter's concerns were much more simple - he felt betrayed by the girl that he loved. If you could even call it "love". The love potion was still in his body physically, but his brain was now actively fighting against it.

"Mr. Cat, I am sorry, please, I really do lo-" Pretty said, but before she could say the "L-word", she realized that she didn't even know what it meant. She wanted to explain herself to Mr. Cat, but that would mean being honest to him and she didn't want to do that. But isn't that one of the important parts of love? Being honest to the person you love?

Then something hit her - Mr. Cat never complimented her personality while under the influence. He just said things like "You are beautiful" and did some things that, if they were said by, say, Stumpy, she would find creepy - "I wouldn't mind watching you undress"? And how about that time when he tried to make love to her and no matter how many times she said "no", he kept coming onto her?

Maybe she was under the influence of a love potion herself - metaphorically, at least. She was in love with this guy, this mean, sadistic guy who didn't like her back, not out of any deeper reason other than that she liked his eyes, his smile, his voice and his body. He kept rejecting her, but she just kept trying to win him over in all sorts of crazy ways, like knocking him out and kissing him while he was unconscious, lying to him about being suicidal and now, using love potion on him and for what?

Seems like she had to lose the thing she was named after in order to start using what was on the inside - her brain and her heart.

"Mr. Cat, I am sorry, can you ever forgive me?" Pretty asked with tears in her eyes.

Nothing.

He just stood there, with his back facing towards her.

Pretty recognized it as "silent treatment", which is always emotionally exhausting - either you don't know what you did and you are not going to get your answer, which means that you don't know what mistake to fix and you don't know how to improve yourself…

Or, in Pretty's case, you know what you did and every second that the person is giving you the silent treatment, it's another second of guilt eating you up inside, reminding you of how you hurt someone you, at the very least, like and how they may never forgive you.

The tears in Pretty's eyes started going down her face. There was no going back, was there?

"Pretty, Mr. Cat may not want to talk to you, but I do." Kaeloo said and put her hand on Pretty's shoulder. "Why did you do this to him? Is there any particular reason?"

"I… I…" Pretty started stuttering. She never expected to say this, but there it was: "I am jealous of you."

Kaeloo's eyes widened in surprise. Pretty, the rich, popular girl was jealous of her?

"Really? Why?"

"Well, you are always annoying everyone with your stupid games, you are always talking to flowers, you are poor and your best friends are these two weirdos." Pretty said and motioned towards Stumpy and Quack Quack, resulting in a loud "HEY!" from Stumpy and a confused quack from Quack Quack. "But… you are happy. You don't care that you don't have money, because you enjoy the simpler things in life - you are happy when it's beautiful day outside, you are happy when you can talk to everyone, especially your friends and your friends. Even if they aren't the most good-looking, the smartest, the most talented… well, except for Mr. Cat… you still love them. And they love you. And why shouldn't they, you are a good person who just wants to bring joy to everyone around her. All of my "friends" are just followers on social media who probably wouldn't care about me at all if I wasn't beautiful…" Pretty sighed. "Well, I am not even that anymore. Look at me. What do I have left? Kaeloo, I am sorry for insulting you yesterday, but I guess at least something good came out of it - it made me realize how stupid I was. Anyway, this was also the reason why I decided to use the love potion on Mr. Cat - he loves you too. Even if he doesn't care about your games and acts like he is annoyed by you, the way he looks at you, how he sometimes tries to comfort you when you are sad… it's undeniable. And the idea of someone like him looking at me like that always gave this warm and fuzzy feeling. I wanted to have that. I wanted to have at least one thing you have. I thought that that would make me happy…"

Pretty picked up a pillow, put it on her knees and buried her face in it. Kaeloo smiled.

"Pretty, come on, I don't think you are stupid. I shouldn't have lost my temper, I could have seriously hurt you." Kaeloo sighed. "Well, I did, but it could have been even worse. Pretty, you are charismatic, and smart, and I am sure that if you put your mind to it, you would be capable of doing great things. So don't be jealous of me. There is no point in that."

Pretty couldn't believe it - despite what she did to Mr. Cat, despite how she always treated Kaeloo, despite what she did to her yesterday, Kaeloo was still willing to forgive her and encourage her. Was it stupidity? It couldn't be. After all, she just gave her some good wisdom. Maybe the answer was just plain and simple kindness.

"Pretty, is there an antidote for the love potion?"

"There is, but it's really expensive and Smileyland is in the middle of economic crisis and… you know…"

Pretty started looking around the room. She looked at Kaeloo, Stumpy, Quack Quack, Mr. Cat and finally, Eugly.

Eugly!

Her sister! She was just as rich as her, she could afford to buy something like that.

"Eugly, I have a request." Pretty said and looked at her sister with a warm smile. Eugly looked at her back. "Eugly, I need you to make a right decision. Forget about me for a while, forget about my feelings, if you think that you are doing a right thing, do it, don't even second guess yourself, don't think about me, just do what you know is the right thing to do. I know that you understand what I am talking about and I know that you will do it. I am counting on you."

Eugly smiled. Despite the fact that this was another command by her sister, it definitely had a different feel - it wasn't like Pretty wanted something and was using Eugly's kindness, generosity and inabillity to say "no" to get it. She wanted Eugly to stay true to herself. Eugly nodded her head.

"Kaeloo, I will finally go home tomorrow. Until then, take care of yourself and Mr. Cat." Pretty said. Kaeloo responded by giving Pretty a hug and a flower she found. The frog then walked out of the door. Stumpy, Quack Quack and Eugly followed, but not before waving at Pretty. Then finally, Mr. Cat walked out of the door, without doing anything. He really wanted to say something to Pretty, but he still "loved" her too much to call her out.

...

As everyone else started making their way home, Eugly kept standing in front of the door. She took out her phone and went to the website where Pretty ordered the love potion in the first place. The rabbit tapped a few times and after a while, she got a received a message told in a female, robotic voice:

"Your order is estimated to arrive tomorrow to Smileyland.

The order: A cure-all antidote to all magical potions."

Chapter dix!

So, um, I am not sure about some parts of this one (again, no surprises there). I understand if you think that Pretty's redemption came too quickly, but I always wanted that to be a plot point, because, as I said in the last chapter, I don't think that Pretty is irredeemable.

Anyway, I still hope you liked it...