Familiar Face

This is for Paul Stewart's Unnerve, Unsettle, and Scare Me Challenge.

There's a full length mirror on the closet door in my bedroom. It's been there my whole life and its presence has been kind of comforting to me. When I was little, we didn't have central air conditioning in the house. I spent a lot of time sitting criss-cross-applesauce in front of that door with a book in my lap and my forehead resting against the cool glass. In middle school I put a kitsch inspirational poster on the inside of the door that read: Never let the girl in the mirror become a stranger. Looking at it now, I see it's a vague, silly statement targeting the $5 bill in a tired mother's pocketbook, but at that age I felt like I understood the sentiment.

I've always liked to look at myself in mirrors. It's not a vanity thing, I just like the reassurance that I'm real. It's an opportunity to see myself a little more like the way others see me. Me, in a nice outfit, a new haircut or a rad costume, always with my same chestnut eyes and gentle smile reflected back. And, if you think about it, that mirror has literally "seen" me through so much. I've grown up, changed my whole wardrobe more than once, had furniture come and go, and I've even painted my room. (Pink was great when I was 8 but honestly at 18 I'm all about that off-white.) The only true constants are the carpet and that mirror.

Three months ago I started dating a girl named Jessica. She's sweet but she's very jumpy and she hides in her hoodie over the smallest things. We hang out at my house since her family is... shitty. I want to make it feel like home to her, if I can, and I told her so. She insisted that everything was fine, my room was perfectly comfortable as-is. I wanted to believe her but Jessica never really relaxes. She feels like she's being watched, even in her most private moments. She throws nervous looks at doors, windows, phones, and of course my mirror. I try not to take it personally. She's just going through some stuff, you know?

One evening I left her alone in my room while I rounded up some snacks. I was barely gone a minute before hurried footsteps followed me.

"You need to cover the mirror," Jessica blurted out.

I asked her why.

"There's just something wrong with it. I don't know how you can sleep with that facing your bed all night."

Sure, we could put a curtain or something over the mirror if that would ease Jessica's mind. In the meantime, I suggested we could rearrange the furniture in my room so we couldn't see it as easily from the bed. So we did.

I thought she was just being paranoid until a few days ago. I sat on my bed criss-cross-applesauce going over the weekly planner sitting open in my lap. I'm not sure what made me look, but I cast a glance at the mirror without raising my head. The door was very slightly ajar, just enough that I expected to see myself.

And for a moment, there I was: on all fours with my nose barely an inch from the glass, body angled toward the real-me like a pointer. One hand was raised, frozen mid-crawl, and the other hand dug its nails into the carpet. My nostrils flared and my mouth was a gaping, toothless grin reminiscent of a rotting Jack-o-lantern. Eyes like I've never seen, just slightly too large, barely enough lid and lash, glassy, wide, and somehow crimson, glared at me, not merely piercing, but goring. The sight of me caused my ears to ring as if to recover from an un-uttered shriek.

And then I blinked.

And I saw myself as I expected: barely visible in the mirror's field of view, white as a sheet and on the verge of tears.