Where I Went When I Looked Too Long

Raven sat in front of the vanity like it was an altar she’d forgotten how to use.

Dim light pooled in the corners of her room, turning familiar objects into silhouettes: a glass of water, a hair tie, a chipped mug holding pens that never wrote when it mattered. The mirror was clean, too clean. so clean it didn’t feel like it belonged to her. It reflected her face with an honesty that had no warmth in it.

She leaned closer.

Her eyes looked back like they were waiting for instructions.

For a long time she only watched herself breathe, as if breathing was proof. Then the thought slid out of her mouth before she could decide whether she meant it.

“Have we met before?”

The reflection didn’t blink with her.

Raven’s throat tightened. She tried again, softer, like the mirror was skittish.

“Who are you?”

The reflection smiled. Not her smile..no. Her smile had edges, a practiced curve, a way of asking to be liked. This was calm. This was certain.

“Finally,” the reflection said, and its voice sounded like Raven’s, but without the tremor. “You looked.”

Raven’s fingers curled around the vanity’s edge. The wood felt solid. The room smelled like lotion and old incense. Nothing moved except her chest rising and falling and the small, disobedient shake in her knees.

“You… talk?” Raven whispered.

“I always have,” the reflection said. “You just stopped listening.”

Raven searched her own face for a trick—some glitch of light, some shadow doing theater. But the mirror wasn’t distorted. The distortion was in the way the world had turned thin, like she could peel it back with one question.

“Am I real?” she asked, and hated how young the words sounded.

The reflection’s smile faded into something gentler. “That’s not the right question.”

The glass behind her eyes shimmered,not like water, but like the surface of a doorway pretending to be a surface. Raven’s reflection lifted a hand. Raven did not.

Her heart kicked hard, a warning. She should’ve stood up. She should’ve turned away. She should’ve called someone. But she couldn’t name a person who would understand the way her own face had just betrayed the rules.

The reflection pressed its palm to the inside of the mirror.

“Come on,” it said. “You’ve been stuck long enough.”

Raven’s body moved before her mind could sign the permission slip. Her hand rose, trembling, until her fingertips met the cold glass,

and then the glass gave.

Not shattered. Not broken. It softened, as if it had been waiting for her to remember that it was never a wall. Her fingers sank into it like slipping into bathwater. The air tightened around her wrist, and then—

Raven stumbled forward.

Her room didn’t disappear. It simply fell away behind her like a curtain. She landed on her feet in a place that looked like a hallway made of mirrors, each one holding a different angle of her life.

The light here didn’t come from lamps. It came from the mirrors themselves, glowing with scenes and faces and versions, and the glow made Raven’s skin look both luminous and haunted.

She turned, searching for the mirror she’d entered through, but every mirror looked like an exit. Every mirror looked like a trap.

“Okay,” she breathed. “Okay. I’m—” She stopped. She didn’t know what she was.

Footsteps clicked behind her, sharp, deliberate.

“Stand up straight.”

Raven spun.

A woman who looked exactly like her walked toward her in heels Raven hadn’t worn in years. Her hair was sleek. Her lips were painted. Her posture had the kind of confidence you could rent for a night if you had the money, and she wore it like it came with her birth certificate.

“You’re slouching,” the woman said, glancing Raven up and down like a mirror in human form. “That’s why they don’t take you seriously.”

“Who—” Raven started.

“Acceptable Raven,” the woman replied, as if that answered everything. “The version you keep trying to become so people won’t leave.”

Raven’s face heated. “That’s not—”

Acceptable Raven cut her off with a polite laugh. “It is. Look at you. You’re always adjusting. Always editing. Always asking, ‘Is this okay? Is this too much? Is this not enough?’”

Raven’s hands balled into fists. “Maybe I just don’t want to be… embarrassing.”

Acceptable Raven’s eyes softened in a way that wasn’t kindness. It was strategy. “Embarrassing is just another word for unapproved.”

Raven swallowed. The hallway around them flickered, mirrors pulsing, showing moments:her laughing too loudly, her crying in a car, her typing a message and deleting it, her staring at her ceiling as if it might answer her back.

“You’re not helping,” Raven said.

“I’m not supposed to help,” Acceptable Raven replied. “I’m supposed to keep you safe.”

Raven took a step back. “Safe from what?”

Acceptable Raven leaned in, voice low. “From being abandoned.”

The word hit like a shove.

Behind Raven, one of the mirrors rippled and darkened. A figure stepped out of it like smoke learning how to hold a shape. This Raven’s hair was tangled, her eyes rimmed red, her expression flat in that way that wasn’t calm, it was shut down.

She didn’t look at Acceptable Raven. She looked straight through Raven like Raven was something she’d stopped expecting.

“Abandoned Raven,” she said, not introducing herself so much as labeling a wound.

Raven’s chest tightened so hard she almost couldn’t breathe. “I— I didn’t mean to—”

Abandoned Raven’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t mean to what? Forget me? Leave me behind? Pretend I wasn’t there?”

Acceptable Raven rolled her eyes. “Here we go.”

Abandoned Raven’s gaze snapped to her. “Don’t.”

Raven stood between them, suddenly feeling like she was trapped inside an argument she’d been having privately for years.

“I’m trying,” Raven whispered. “I’m trying to be better. I’m trying to—”

“To be acceptable,” Abandoned Raven finished, voice soft as ash. “So you can earn love like it’s a paycheck.”

Raven flinched. “That’s not fair.”

Abandoned Raven stepped closer, and the air around her smelled like rain on pavement. Like old tears. Like all the nights Raven told herself she was fine and meant it until she didn’t.

“It’s not fair,” Abandoned Raven agreed. “But it’s true.”

Raven’s throat burned. “So what do you want from me?”

Abandoned Raven stared at her, and for the first time her voice shook.

“I want you to stop acting like I’m the part that ruins you,” she said. “I want you to stop treating me like evidence that you’re too much.”

Raven’s eyes blurred. She blinked hard, refusing the tears like refusing an enemy.

Footsteps sounded again, but these were bare, quiet, like someone walking through a library.

A third Raven emerged from a mirror that showed nothing but a sunrise. This Raven wore no makeup, no armor, no apology. She looked younger and older at the same time..like possibility.

Her gaze was steady.

“Becoming Raven,” she said simply, as if naming herself was the first step in making it true.

Raven stared at her like a thirsty person staring at water.

Becoming Raven stepped forward and placed two fingers under Raven’s chin, tilting her face gently upward.

“You’re not broken,” she said. “You’re paused.”

Acceptable Raven scoffed. “Paused? She’s procrastinating her own life.”

Becoming Raven didn’t glance at her. “She’s waiting.”

Abandoned Raven’s eyes narrowed. “Waiting for what?”

Becoming Raven’s fingers fell away. “For permission.”

The hallway went quiet.

Raven felt something in her ribs crack open..not pain, exactly, but space. The kind of space that comes right before you admit something you’ve been hiding from yourself.

Permission.

Not to succeed. Not to be loved. Not to be chosen.

Just… to exist.

Raven’s eyes darted between them. “I don’t know how to be all of you,” she said, voice breaking. “Every time I try, it feels like I’m choosing one and killing the others.”

Acceptable Raven softened, almost pleading. “Choose me. We’ll survive. We’ll be liked.”

Abandoned Raven’s voice was a whisper. “Choose me. At least it’ll be honest.”

Becoming Raven smiled, warm and terrifying. “Choose me. We’ll finally move.”

Raven’s hands flew to her head like she could hold herself together by force. “Stop!” she cried.

And the mirrors answered.

They flickered wildly, showing her in fragments: confident, terrified, radiant, hollow, tender, ruthless, laughing, screaming, still. The light sharpened until it felt like it might slice her.

Raven dropped to her knees on the glossy floor, palms pressed to the cold surface.

“I don’t know which one is real,” she whispered.

A shadow moved at the edge of the mirrored hallway. Raven lifted her head.

Another Raven stood there, half-hidden, as if she’d been watching the entire time.

This one didn’t wear a costume. She didn’t radiate pain or polish or prophecy. She looked like Raven in the quiet moments—alone, unperformed, simply present.

Her eyes were clear, not because she had answers, but because she was done running from the questions.

“The Observer,” she said.

Acceptable Raven stiffened. Abandoned Raven went still. Becoming Raven’s expression softened into respect.

The Observer stepped forward, and with each step the mirrors dimmed, as if her presence didn’t need the brightness to be real.

Raven stared at her. “What do I do?” she asked, desperate. “Tell me what to pick.”

The Observer crouched in front of Raven, close enough that Raven could see her own face—her real face, without distortion.

“You keep trying to choose which Raven is allowed,” the Observer said quietly. “Like you need to earn your right to be here.”

Raven’s breath hitched. “Don’t I?”

The Observer shook her head once, simple and final.

“No,” she said. “The problem isn’t which one is real. The problem is you’ve been waiting for permission to exist.”

Raven’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Because the truth didn’t arrive like a dramatic twist.

It arrived like relief.

Like finally putting down something heavy and realizing she’d been carrying it for no reason.

Acceptable Raven’s voice trembled. “If she doesn’t stay controlled, she’ll be hurt.”

Abandoned Raven’s eyes glistened. “If she doesn’t stay guarded, she’ll be left.”

Becoming Raven stepped closer. “If she doesn’t move forward, she’ll disappear.”

The Observer looked at each of them, not with judgment, but with recognition.

“All of you are trying to protect her,” she said. “But protection became a prison.”

Raven’s shoulders shook as the tears she’d been refusing finally broke free. She cried silently at first, then with sound, the kind that feels like it’s coming from a place older than language.

The Observer placed a hand over Raven’s heart.

“Say it,” she whispered.

Raven swallowed, tasting salt.

“I—” Her voice cracked. She tried again, louder, steadier, like she was speaking a spell. “I am allowed.”

The mirrors trembled.

“I am allowed,” Raven repeated, and the hallway breathed with her, expanding.

Acceptable Raven’s posture loosened. Abandoned Raven’s eyes softened. Becoming Raven smiled like she’d been waiting for that exact sentence.

Raven wiped her face, breath shuddering. “I’m not stuck between you,” she realized. “I’m…I’m all of you.”

The Observer nodded. “Yes.”

Raven stood slowly. The mirrored hallway no longer felt like a maze. It felt like a house with many rooms she’d been afraid to enter.

She stepped toward Acceptable Raven first and took her hand.

“Thank you,” Raven whispered. “You kept me afloat.”

Acceptable Raven blinked rapidly, and her lipstick-smile faltered into something real. “I just wanted us to be loved,” she admitted.

“We can be loved,” Raven said. “Without begging.”

She turned to Abandoned Raven and opened her arms.

Abandoned Raven hesitated like someone who’d learned not to hope.

Raven didn’t move. She just waited.

Abandoned Raven stepped forward and collapsed into Raven’s embrace like a wave finally crashing.

“I didn’t want to be left behind,” she whispered.

“You won’t be,” Raven promised.

Finally, Raven faced Becoming Raven. The air around her felt like dawn.

Becoming Raven placed a hand on Raven’s shoulder, warm and steady.

“Now,” she said, “we move.”

The Observer stepped back, letting the other Ravens circle Raven—not separate, not competing, but like parts of a single constellation finally remembering they belonged to the same sky.

The mirrors began to fade, one by one, not disappearing with fear but dissolving with peace.

Raven blinked—

…and she was back at her vanity.

The same dim room. The same chipped mug. The same quiet.

But the mirror no longer looked like a judge.

It looked like a witness.

Raven leaned closer to her reflection. Her eyes were red. Her cheeks were damp. Her face was hers, unedited.

She smiled. not the practiced one.

The real one.

“Have we met before?” she whispered to herself.

The reflection blinked with her this time.

“Yes,” Raven said, answering the question that used to swallow her whole. “And I’m real enough to stay.”