Broken, But Not Shattered

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own.

I mean, it was. But it couldn’t be… Could it? The reflection moved as I did, blinked when I did, breathed when I did, but how? That’s not what I look like…

anymore.

This stupid mirror held the reflection of Bella, the young and impossibly beautiful girl (by the harshest of Western standards). She wore short shorts that were clearly too big around the waist and a tight crop top with no bra. Her makeup was expertly done. Her professionally-highlighted, flowing hair was brushed straight.

I hadn’t seen her in years.

I mean, I’d seen photos, but to see her in the flesh…

I just stared at her blankly for a while until the stillness was overwhelming. That stinging feeling in my eyes made my vision blurred with tears. I reached out to touch her. She really was as gorgeous as ever. For a second, the glass seemed to part and I was able to feel her hand on mine. We just looked at each other in awe. I could see her scar-free arms, but her bleeding nubs of finger nails. I held her poor, chewed-up fingers so they faced me.

“Are those real?” She said with a voice not yet deepened by cigarettes in regards to my now long, well-groomed nails.

I nodded my head still paralyzed by that stinging feeling.

We just took each other in.

I expected that she would eventually show disappointment in me. Maybe she was, but if she was, she didn’t show it. I couldn’t help but feel so guilty as I looked at her. I had taken this dream-filled, dream-like girl who was full of potential and turned her into this. A chubby, fairly isolated, scarred person who isn’t even sure of their own gender. Someone who walks with shoulders slumped and has missed multiple days of work from the pain of physically not being able to let go of the muscles that suck in their gut. Someone who spent their birthday in a mental hospital.

She doesn’t yet know the pain of being cheated on in every single relationship. She doesn’t yet know the pain of the pandemic. She doesn’t yet know the pain of being told that she might lose her scholarship because she gained weight after recovering from an eating disorder and an abusive home life.

She doesn’t yet know the pain of being lost after graduation.

Most of all, she doesn’t know the pain of losing everything she knew- herself.

I was flooded with jealousy and hatred. It’ll be her that soon let’s all this happen to her. Fucking idiot. If only she had found lamotrigine sooner, maybe we would be living our dream in Hollywood.

Poor, stupid, naive thing.

As cathartic as this journey eventually would be, it sure felt like a nightmare at the time. I mean, how would you feel if you were able to stare eye to eye into the person’s life that you ruined?

“Izzie?” My roommate called out to me. “The delivery person wants to know where to put the new mattress. I said to lean it against the wall in the hallway until you figured out which corner it was going in.”

Last time I buy a mirror second-hand. I should’ve known that buying antique items in the most haunted city in America would afford me a good scare.

“Izzie?”

“Izzie!” She said leaning in the doorway. “I called your name like six times.”

She looked at me funny. “What?”

“You don’t see it?” I whimpered.

“I know what you’re gonna say, and no, I don’t notice anything different about you. You’re just really stressed right now. You should go outside or something.” She said leaving the room to go tend to more boxes.

The reflection leaned in and I did too. She pinched my cheeks.

“There.” She said as she faded into a more accurate reflection of mine. “There are those famous, rosy cheeks. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.” She winked.

Well, I had. Hadn’t I?