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Amy was 13 years old when she received her first hate mail.
She squealed when she saw the envelope in her mailbox, red as blood, pulsing with possibility. She tore it open, unable to stop the grin overtaking her face. Her first fan mail! She was hopeful after saving the world from Eggman with Sonic that she would receive something. Her eyes scanned the scratchy handwriting, and her smile died upon her lips.
“All you do is swing that stupid hammer around and scream Sonic’s name like a broken record. Newsflash: he doesn’t love you. He never has. He never will. You get kidnapped, trapped, knocked out, and Sonic has to save you. Every. Single. Time. You’re a distraction, a liability. You’re not a hero. Not even a sidekick. Just a joke.”
Fingers crumbled the delicate paper from how hard she grasped the letter. She wished she could stop herself from reading, but the letter had her in a chokehold. She hardly dared to breathe, hot tears prickling in her eyes. They scalded her cheeks as they fell. The black ink bled, the harsh words blurring.
It was the first of many letters of its kind. Cursing her for her feeble heart. Belittling her because she was in love.
Amy swore she would get stronger and prove to them love was a strength. That she was an asset to Sonic, not collateral.
She was 15 when she convinced Shadow to let go of his quest for revenge and instead save humanity.
She shed countless tears that day. Over the thought of losing Sonic to an explosion, all because he came after her. Unable to even say goodbye, the words snagged in her throat. Shadow’s sacrifice to save them all. She was proud, but also a well of sadness.
Her bed became her shelter, swallowed by nightmares of the Ark. When she finally emerged from her cocoon, her mailbox was full of homemade letters. Her heart jumped in her chest in hopeful trepidation as she thumbed through the colorful envelopes. She spread them over her table, eyeing them warily. Some of them were thankful, but certain lines jumped out at her. Each a knife to her heart.
“You think you're helping? You only make things worse. You charge in with that oversized toy and act like you matter. You don’t matter to anyone, let alone Sonic.”
“You talk like you’re part of the team. You act like you’ve earned your place. You haven’t. Sonic just tolerates you.”
“Watching you throw yourself at Sonic over and over like some desperate teenager? Watching you botch mission after mission just to be noticed? You’re pathetic. Not a hero. Not an idol.”
“How long are you going to keep embarrassing yourself, Amy? Sonic doesn’t want you. He never has. Everyone sees it. You’re just too delusional to accept it. All that ‘girl power’ talk means nothing when you spend every waking moment chasing some guy who treats you like a distant cousin. You’re not inspiring. You’re pathetic. Stop calling yourself a hero. You’re a joke.”
“You’re not 12 anymore. Maybe the reason Sonic doesn’t love you is because you never became your own person. You just exist to orbit around him like a needy little moon. Every time the world needs saving, it’s Sonic. Not you. You don’t stop disasters, you trip over your own feet trying to get his attention. You want to be respected? Then stop being Amy Rose, Sonic’s fangirl, and start being someone worth remembering. Or better yet, just disappear.”
A shaky laugh fell from her mouth. She helped save the world, and yet it still amounted to nothing in their eyes. All because she was close to Sonic. Because she loved him. The only girl on their team.
Was it jealousy? Was it because she was too over-the-top with her declarations of love that they couldn’t see what she brought to the team? She could dial it back. Show them how she could hold her own without Sonic. Take that one letter's advice and be her own person. Be someone who demanded respect.
She nodded, gathering all the letters into her arms before throwing them into the fireplace. Lighting a match, she threw it onto the crumbled papers. Warmth flooded her body as the letters combusted, engulfed in her fire.
Amy was 16 when she led her own team, determined to prove herself. Amy was 18 when she was caught in cyberspace, deciding to go off and discover who she was without Sonic. Amy was 19 when she returned, embraced by her friends and a mailbox stuffed to the brim.
Still, the hate mail never ended.
A new routine started. She would hide them in a box in her closet until the box threatened to explode. Then, carefully, she would rip them open before feeding them to the raging fire. Once a month, a ritual. Ice cream, tears, and smoldering embers that never seemed to cool.
She never told her friends about the hidden box in her closet. She never told them how their words branded her brain, whispering lies to her whenever she went on missions.
“You’re worthless. You’re running Sonic’s legacy. Every time the camera pans to you, every time you cry those fake tears for attention or scream his name like a clingy child, it drags him down. You drag everyone down. I bet all your friends secretly hate you. You don’t deserve screen time. You don’t deserve to be near him. If you really loved him, you’d leave again. It was better when you were gone, and I bet your so-called friends would agree.”
If she were stronger, she would just throw them away without tearing them open. Maybe I’m just a masochist, she thought with a wistful sigh.
Amy was 20 when her secret spilled out, letters spread across her plush carpet.
“What are these?”
His gruff voice stilled her beating heart as dread pooled over her like ice cold water.
“Amy? What the fuck are these?”
She winced at the venom in his voice, closing her eyes. Maybe if she opened them, this would all be a dream, and she could go back to pretending the letters didn’t exist. At least, until the fire burned for hours, words blazing behind her eyelids.
She feigned innocence, “What’s what, Knuckles? You should know from Rouge that you shouldn’t go snooping through a woman’s closet.”
“You asked me to get you a cardigan,” he muttered, cheeks darkening against his already red fur. “And it fell when I was getting it off the hanger. Onto these.” He gestured to the hundreds of envelopes.
“So you decided to open my mail.” Amy leaned against her doorframe, eyebrow raised. “Last I heard that was illegal. Careful, Sonic might boot you off the team.”
Her snide remarks did nothing to deter him. “Why are these all hidden?” His voice was uncharacteristically soft.
She hated the way he looked at her. Hated the flash of understanding in his eyes. Hated the whoosh of air that sounded a lot like pity. “Oh, Amy.”
Shrugging, she slipped into the room and carefully tucked the discarded envelopes into her arms. “It’s nothing.”
“How long have you been getting death threats?”
“They’re not all death threats,” she muttered, wishing she could keep the flush off her cheeks. “Some are just hate mail.”
The sound of his knuckles cracking snapped her head up. “I could put an end to it.”
A snort of disbelief escaped before she could stop it. “I’ve been trying for seven years, but go ahead and try.”
His brows furrowed as he mentally did the math. “You were thirteen? Does Sonic know?”
“No,” she snapped, throwing the letters back into the box. “No one knows, and no one else will ever know, got it?”
His voice was uncharacteristically soft as he said, “Why wouldn’t you tell us?”
“Because of this!” She gestured between them. “I don't want you to feel sorry for me, Knuckles. I don’t need another reason for you guys to think I’m weak.”
“Who says that we think you’re weak?”
She continued like he didn’t speak, pacing around her room. “I’ve worked my ass off for years to get stronger. To prove my worth. I’ve tucked my feelings for Sonic away. I’m trying not to be a burden. I’m–”
His arms wrapped around her body in a rough embrace. She hadn’t even realized she was crying until she dug her head into the crook of his neck, a sob wracking her body.
“None of us think that, Amy.”
“ They do.”
“Fuck them.”
She laughed at his bluntness. “Yeah,” she murmured, sniffling. “Fuck them.”
He patted her back awkwardly. “Can you try not to get snot on me?”
“Shouldn’t have hugged me, then. Comes with the territory.”
“You hedgehogs,” he said with a shake of his head, “so emotional.”
“Please don’t tell Sonic. I don’t want him to worry.”
He pulled back, eyes pinching. “You’re not alone, Amy.”
“I know that.” She wiped her eyes against the back of her gloves. “I just…,” her voice became small. “It’s all because I love him. Because I’m close to him. I don’t want him to feel guilty on my behalf. I think that would hurt worse than the words in the letters.”
“I don’t understand you.”
A ghost of a smile haunted her lips. “I don’t expect you to.” She startled at the weight of his large hand on her head, ruffling her quills. She whined, swatting his hand away.
“Alright, kid,” he said in his normal gruff voice. “I’ll keep your secret. But secrets always have a way of coming out, and I know Sonic. He’ll be hurt that you kept this from him and didn’t let him help.”
“Can’t have him fighting my battles for me forever.”
He grunted, relenting as voices swelled up from the living room. “Let’s go before your secrets spill out. I hear Sonic and Tails let themselves in.”
She caught the cardigan he tossed her way before he left her alone. She thumbed the soft fabric, eyes lingering on the box tucked away. Gnawing at her lip, she tore her gaze away and left them for another day.
Amy was 21 when Sonic came over with a bottle of wine and a pink envelope in hand, a fire crackling in the background.
She slammed the door in his face, panic spiking her blood. Eyes wide and frantic, she took in the scene in front of her. Hundreds of letters sprawled out, covering the floor in a handwritten rug. Colorful words exhaled from her lips as she raced around, haphazardly grasping for pieces of paper. She didn’t know where to put them. The fire? The trash? Under her actual rug?
The door clicked open. Fuck. Her spare key. She stared at his bewildered expression, her own eyes wide. The paper crinkled in her fingers, heart drumming in her chest as his wild greens left her face to take in the scene around her.
“Um, happy belated birthday? I can come back, if you’re in the middle of something.” His eyebrow raised in question.
“Please,” she breathed.
He blinked at her plea. “You want me to go,” he said slowly, annunciating each word.
She chewed on her lower lip, thoughts racing as fast as the blue blur in front of her. She nodded, unable to trust her voice.
“I’ll…I’ll just leave this with you then?” He stepped around the papers awkwardly, greens never leaving her face as he set his own envelope and the bottle down.
The papers in Amy’s hands crinkled, the sight of that new pink envelope seizing her heart in panic. It was stupid, she realized, because it was Sonic. But her gaze shifted to the hundreds of envelopes and papers scattered around, and she realized she had come to expect those awful things people said about her.
“Amy?”
Her attention snapped back to the hedgehog staring curiously before her. She swallowed. “I’m fine.”
He dragged a hand through his quills. A nervous tell, one Amy had become familiar with throughout the years. “Look at you, Miss. Popular. Drowning in birthday cards from fans, huh?”
She winced before she could stop herself. “Something like tha– Don’t!”
The papers in her hands fluttered to the floor, like feathers plucked from a Flicky. She reached for him, her body swaying with the weight of a thousand unspoken words. Sonic beheld a lone paper, one he had picked up from nearby. She tried to snatch it out of his hand. He merely ducked out of the way with his cursed speed.
He raised an eyebrow. “Why the big reaction, Ames?”
“I said don’t,” she snapped, too sharply.
His eyes flicked from her to the lazy loops of writing. His brows furrowed and his body stilled. It was the first time she'd ever seen him so immobilized. “What is this?”
“Please.” A breath of a whisper.
Sonic didn’t look at her. Didn’t acknowledge her words. His eyes were glued to the letter, scanning its venomous contents with a stillness that chilled her blood. Every time Amy thought he was done, she watched him read it over and over and over again. Like he couldn’t quite believe what cruel words they had written. Like he could change it through sheer will alone.
He read it all. Word after word. Insult after insult. Each one a sharpened blade meant to slice her down. But he had caught that blade for her, and she watched as it lodged deep into his chest, realization crashing over him like a tidal wave. The cruelty meant for her was cutting into him instead and he let it, as if bearing the wound was the only thing he could offer her.
The silence stretched until, at last, the paper crinkled in his tightening grip.
“Amy…,” his voice was low as he spoke. Not soft or gentle. Just…quiet, like he was carefully restraining his actual feelings. “How long has this been happening?”
She pressed her lips together to keep them from wobbling.
His voice hardened. “Amy. How long?”
Amy wasn’t sure whether to snap at him that it was none of his business, or sink into the pool of letters until she let them cover her from sight. She opted for folding her arms across her chest. “Since I was thirteen.”
He blinked, taking a step back as if physically struck. “What?”
She nodded, glancing down at the sea of animosity scattered across the floor.
“You were just a kid.”
“Yeah, and so were you,” she countered, hating the way her voice cracked.
“You should have–”
“I should have what, Sonic?” The anger rose within her like a tsunami. “Should have told you? Should have confronted them? You know what you should have done? Leave when I asked you to! Stopped when I begged you to!”
He recoiled, ears jutting back. “Amy, I didn’t mean–”
“But you did! Just like they did. You walked in, saw the mess, and assumed I was drowning in fan mail .” She laughed, the sound bitter on her tongue. “Fan mail. That’s a good one.”
The silence was deafening, stretching long and thin between them.
“Eight years. Eight years of helping save the world, and this is the thanks I get. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Telling me I’m pathetic. That I’m weak. That you’d be better off without me. That I only hold you and the rest of the team back.” Tears clouded her vision. She refused to blink. To let them sear her cheeks. She turned from Sonic, like she could hide the evidence of her weakness.
“I thought…I thought maybe… if I fought harder, if I screamed your name less. If I stopped loving you so loudly… maybe they’d see me. Really see me.” Her body trembled as she tried to reel in her anger. Reel in their words that screamed in her mind. “But I don’t think they’ll ever see anything but a girl who fell in love with a boy.”
“Amy….”
“Please don’t,” she murmured, the tears finally succumbing to gravity. She knelt, hands sprawled over various pieces of paper. “Please don’t look at me with pity, like I know you are. Please don’t feel sorry for me. Please just…please don’t see me that way.”
A heartbeat. Warm hands covered her own. Sonic appeared in front of her before she could even blink. “I’m not sorry for you. I’m sorry that you felt that you had to carry this alone.”
“You think I didn’t want to tell you?” her voice sharpened, and his hands stilled over hers. “Every time you brushed me off or ran away when I got too emotional, you think that didn’t make everything in those letters feel true?”
Sonic flinched, green eyes pinched with guilt. He kept his mouth closed, waiting for her to continue. To get years of pain out into the open.
“I know I was too much. Too loud. Too sensitive. Too stupid for falling in love with someone who never wanted me.”
“Is that what you really think?”
Amy didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She squeezed her eyes shut, hating the tears that plopped onto the paper like raindrops.
A warm sensation flooded her cheeks at a feather-light touch. His fingers traced the lines of tears cascading down her face, wiping them away with a gentleness Amy didn’t know he possessed. Slowly, she opened her eyes, staring up at him. At the determination blazing in green eyes.
“You think I didn’t notice how much stronger you’ve gotten?” His fingers brushed away another tear, his voice an anchor in the endless sea. “You think I haven’t seen the way you hold this team together when the rest of us fall apart?”
Her body quivered beneath his touch. Under his unrelenting stare.
“You weren’t weak because you loved me. You were strong, in spite of how badly the world punished you for it. And you never asked for anything in return. Not once. That,” he swallowed, “that’s the kind of strength I admire about you.”
She leaned into his touch, his open palm cupping her cheek.
“Amy,” he said like her name was a promise, “you don’t have to prove anything anymore. Not to me. Not to them.”
“But I do.”
He smiled softly, and for once, there was no distance behind it. “Then prove it to yourself. Not to the idiots hiding behind anonymous names. They don’t get to write your story.”
A broken sound fell from her lips, a half cry, half laugh. “That was corny as fuck, Sonic.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, I guess you’ve rubbed off on me.” He hesitated, only a second. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like love was something to be ashamed of.”
Her mouth twisted as she reined in the fresh tears. “Thank you.”
Sonic dropped his hand, scanning the blanket of letters before picking them up methodically.
“What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to help you burn them.”
“You don’t have to,” Amy said, “it’s my burden to bear.”
He shook his head. “You’ve been lighting the fire all these years. The least I can do is hand you the matches.”
She snorted, “So corny and uncool.”
His chest puffed. “Excuse me, I am the epitome of cool. Even your letters say so.”
“So those are the words you choose to believe?” a laugh toppled from her lips. “Only what inflates your already inflated ego?”
“You wound me, Amy Rose.”
“You’re such a dork.”
“Yeah, but I’m your dork.” He angled his head, uncertainty flitting in his eyes. “If you still want me to be.”
Amy’s lips parted as the weight of his words crashed into her chest. For a moment, the letters disappeared. The years, the ache, the doubt. There was only him and her.
“…You mean that?” she asked softly.
“I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t,” he said with a smile that shined just for her. “I know I’ve run from you for a long time. Been running from these feelings.” He placed a hand on his chest. “I thought about it on Starfall. That I should have made up my mind sooner, but then you decided to go off and find yourself…and what was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to hold you back or stop you because you’re amazing, and I knew you were going to show the world just how amazing you were. You came back stronger, and I just froze. I didn’t know how to keep up.”
Amy stared at him, breath caught somewhere between her heart and lungs. “Then stop running.”
He stepped forward, pulling her into a hug that was careful and sure. She melted into him, arms circling his waist. Behind them, the letters crackled in the fire, their words curling into smoke.
Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t polished. But it was real. Warm and steady and full of everything they’d never said aloud. An apology. A promise. A beginning.
When they finally pulled apart, breathless, he rested his forehead against hers.
“For the record,” he murmured, brushing her cheek, “you never had to prove a damn thing to me.
Her smile was small but sure. “I know. But I needed to prove it to myself first.”
And in that moment, for the first time in years, Amy didn’t feel like she had to fight to be seen. She didn’t have to shout to be heard.
Because the boy she had loved her whole life?
He had been listening all along.