Mirrors Crack Too

Trigger Warning: Mental Health Themes

“Pidge? Those are my private documents.”

“I know.” I respond, cold like Marlow has been towards me these days.

Marlow reaches for the papers in my hand yet I refuse to let her take it. There’s something deeply different with Marlow and I will get to the bottom of it whether they like it or not.

Marlow was always the sweetheart, our friendship extending back to the time we met at a group cosy cafe hangout. Started from talking about our favourite shows and dreams for the future. Though now? The dread sets in, knowing that Marlow was hiding a deep secret from me.

Marlow was unpredictable, and that’s already a generous descriptor. She swung often. Not like a playground swing, those were too simple. But more like an object on string attached to the sky above. Flinging and flying in directions one can only imagine.

Shy and soft one moment, bold and outgoing the next. Claiming she hated turtles yet buying little turtle figurines the next. I knew there was something off with her, maybe not since the beginning, but long enough to begin investigating. Her smiles, her glares. All of it makes my skin crawl in a way I struggle to articulate.

“Pidge, give the papers back.” She’d demand.

I refuse once more. Gripping the papers tight, reading them silently as she continued.

“I mean it! Give it back!”

Shaking my head, I try to piece together those moments. The times she fluctuated from one state to another in a simple conversation, too much to be considered average.

The time she wanted ice cream, struggling to figure out a flavour and hopping between one to the other, only to settle with a compromise. Could be read as indecision or it could be more… And not to mention how much she claims she “changed her mind” and all the times she says “a part of me” as if trying to hint at something.

There must be more to it!

Why was she so against my investigation when this could help us figure out what’s wrong?

“Drop it Pidge.” I could feel the tension build until the inevitable snatch.

She tore the papers. She tore them.

I didn’t mean for this to happen. I realised too late that those documents weren’t documents…

They were letters. Letters to names.

To…

“You lied, they’re not documents.” I spat out, I really shouldn’t have, considering the situation, but I did.

“And you tore them! Doesn’t matter if they’re documents or not, you tore them!—”

“No, you tore them.”

She was shaking, the same rage I had seen from days ago over me joking about her stories sounding the same. The kind of rage that felt unusual coming from her.

“I know now…”

“What!”

“You’re writing to yourself. Aren’t you Marlow?” I reach my hand out to her only for her glare to intensify.

“Are you out of your mind? These are for my family!” Slight droplets at the corners of her eyes, “And your nosey attitude just ruined it all!”

“I’m just trying to know what’s going on with you.” Those words trickled out, yet I felt frozen in place.

She paused, turned away. “There’s nothing going on with me.”

I didn’t believe it. Not when this behaviour persists.

“Tell me, what do you think is going on with me!” Marlow demanded. A demand I was unsure I knew the answer to.

I lowered my head, “I don’t know.”

She groaned in annoyance. “I would state how much these letters mean to me, but knowing you? You’d forget in less than a day!”

“That’s not true—”

“It is.”

Blurting out I said, “Why do you keep me around, if I ruin everything?”

She clenched her fist, this might get bad… “I’m not saying you ruin everything, I’m just tired of your need for a mirror. I’m not like you Pidge. Stop pretending I am.”

Those words? They felt like a weight dropped onto glass. Cracks, then comes the fractured break.

“What?” I murmured.

“I said it, stop projecting.” Marlow leaves the room with one last sentence. “And stop forgetting.”

She closed the door. I was the only one in the room now. Yet I didn’t feel alone, not in a relieving way, in a disorienting way. What did she mean?

I’m not like her, I don’t fluctuate, I’m not unpredictable! She is. She’s the one projecting!

Right?

I look down at the torn piece still in my hands. It was addressed to me. Not just any other family member, but her friend, me. Pidge.

”Dear Pidge,

I don’t know how to be your friend sometimes. I care about you, really I do! But whenever you switch up like that, it feels awkward or uncomfortable to me. I know you feel misunderstood, and I hope you can find a friend like you. But I worry I can’t connect with you the way you hope. So if this doesn’t work? I’m—“

And the letter cuts off.

Gripping it close to me, the sorrow rushed in.

I didn’t know she was uncomfortable.

Did I make her feel not enough?

Does she want to stop this connection between us?

I didn’t mean to make her feel that way.

It was never my intention.

I could hear Marlow speaking outside, speaking to her father likely. Sobbing and gasping, she was crying. We never wanted it to end like this.

“I’m just trying to accommodate!” Marlow would cry out, “But I want to be seen as… not this…”

I peeked out the hallway, her father was patting her on the back. And yet I couldn’t help but feel worse. It really was too far. We broke that trust between us. But we had to know, it’s not possible that we’d be alone! Then why does it hurt so much?

Looking at the room’s mirror, I came face to face with my expression. Exhausted.

But deep inside, I knew that this mind was buzzing with more than one face can contain. And not everyone contains a crowd.