Mirror

She’s looking at me again.

It had become a daily thing. Her getting back from work, immediately approaching me, lifting up her shirt just a smidge, and turning side to side while she stared at me. Stared at herself, really.

She sighs, and I would wince if I had a face. Poke. Pinch. Prod. She frowns and squints and picks at her body in ways that never fail to make me feel uneasy. I stay still as I always do, my reflection doing all the work, but I watch her just as intently as she watches me. Her brow furrows harder the longer she stares. All at once, she halts, tense. Her shirt is pulled down in a huff and she storms out of the room. I catch the slightest reflection of a tear drip from her cheek onto the floor.

I hope she doesn’t come back, but I know she will.

***

I am surprised when the boy comes to me. He was the type that never liked looking at me: anxious, reserved, too afraid of seeing something they might not like. Despite it, the few times he did flicker past he seemed cool-headed and put together.

Now sitting cross-legged and hunched in front of me, tears and snot streaming down his blotchy face while he wails at his reflection, he looks very much the opposite.

“You’re an idiot!”

His yell is forceful, shaking the furniture. I stumble a bit in shock.

“Why can’t you do anything right?” He blubbers, hitting himself repeatedly on the head, then crawling up to me and viciously continuing his abuse on my frame.

I flinch at each punch, feeling my interior grow weaker and weaker with the strikes and hoping he stops before glass shards fly out at him.

I hear a crinkle in his hand, glance down, and spot a crumpled paper.

67%. Please see me after class.

He cries again in frustration and pushes away from me, scrunching his hands into his hair and sobbing some more. I stand there, still unmoving, wishing I could reflect back to him an image that doesn’t wear his grades on his face.

***

It’s tiring.

Breaking down. Loathing. Dressing up. Tearing off. Crying. Everyone comes and sees, but instead of conquering, they fall apart at the picture that faces them back, never realizing it’s one they’ve created.

It’s all very tiring. I think it’s tiring for them, too. I don’t want to inspect and be inspected and watch people hate what they see.

And then she appears.

I wait for her to act, to spot what she chooses to hate. Yet, she doesn’t do anything. Like me, she doesn’t move. We stand there in a deadlock, her eyes boring holes into me, me watching expectantly for her to do something. She stares endlessly, long enough to make even me uncomfortable. And then she huffs a laugh.

I startle.

“I’m beautiful,” she says, smiling. Suddenly, the room lights up with a warm aura. It’s just me and her in the room now, no other furniture, no people, not even any air. We seem to stand in an almost spaceless expanse, and the only thing I can see is her radiant smile so foreign to me. She isn’t smiling at me either; I can tell. She’s smiling at herself. And before I can recover or understand anything, she turns around wordlessly and walks out of the room.

I stand there dazed at what just transpired. Her serene air still lingers in the room after her departure. She was so warm, so content, so happy, looking at her reflection and not seeing a pitiful being to disdain, but someone to love.

“I’m beautiful,” She had said, and it was true.