The Evening Your Reflection Looked Back At Me

The mirror over the sink held your face after your body had already stepped away and when I turned there was only the quiet drip of the faucet and the sound of my heart learning something it could not undo. The bathroom smelled of soap and damp tile and my hand was still raised as if to steady you. Your name sat on my tongue and refused to leave. I understood before understanding that whatever love had been growing between us had crossed into a place where endings came first.

I stayed there longer than was reasonable watching my own reflection tremble slightly in the glass. The light flickered once and settled. Your absence felt deliberate as if the room itself had made a choice. When I finally moved my knees felt weak and my chest hollow. Outside a car passed and the sound faded quickly leaving me alone with the truth that something precious had already slipped out of reach.

That night the apartment seemed to rearrange itself around the loss. Shadows gathered in corners where they had never lingered before. I left the window open and the cold air carried the distant sounds of the city breathing. When I lay down I kept expecting to feel the weight of you beside me and instead felt the mattress cool and smooth. Sleep came in fragments and each dream ended with glass.

The next time I saw you was in the reflection of a shop window. The street was wet from rain and the lights smeared gold across the pavement. I stopped short because there you were standing just behind me your expression soft and familiar. When I turned there was no one. When I looked back the reflection remained watching me with a patience that hurt. I raised my hand and the reflected you raised yours a fraction slower.

I followed the reflection as it moved from window to window never fully leaving my sight. The air felt charged and thin. People passed through the space where you should have been without noticing. At the corner the reflection paused in a darkened storefront and I stopped with it. Your mouth moved and I heard your voice inside my head as clearly as if you were beside me. You asked if I could still see you. I nodded though no one was there to see it.

We learned quickly how this new distance worked. You appeared only in glass polished metal still water. Never directly. When I spoke aloud my voice sounded too loud and too real. When you answered it came like a memory rather than a sound. We spoke carefully measuring each word. You told me that when you left the bathroom something had pulled you sideways into the mirror and that the world on the other side was thin and endless. You said you had tried to come back the same way and failed.

I wanted to reach through the glass and pull you free. The first time I tried my fingers met cold resistance and a sharp ache that traveled up my arm. You flinched in the reflection as if you had felt it too. We both pulled back. The shop window reflected the street behind me and I could see my own face pale and frightened. Your reflection reached out and stopped just short of touching the glass. The restraint felt heavier than any barrier.

Days passed and we found patterns. You appeared most clearly at dusk when the light softened. We met in places full of reflective surfaces the old train station the river walk after rain the abandoned greenhouse with its cracked panes. Each place carried its own sounds and temperatures and smells and each time you were there without being there. I learned how to angle myself so that I could see your eyes. You learned how to smile with only half your mouth as if conserving effort.

The city reacted in small ways. Glass sometimes fogged when you grew tired. Reflections lingered a moment after I moved. Once a mirror cracked softly without impact and I felt a pain behind my eyes that lasted all day. You apologized every time something like that happened. I told you it was fine and hated myself for the lie.

Our conversations deepened and slowed. You told me about the place you were in how it felt like walking through rooms made of memory. How sometimes you could see me from angles that did not exist. You said time behaved strangely there stretching and folding. I listened and tried to imagine it without letting fear take over. At night I sat on the bathroom floor with the light on and spoke to the mirror until my voice went hoarse.

The longing grew sharper because it could not be satisfied. I missed the weight of your hand the warmth of your breath the way you leaned into me without thinking. Now every moment together required glass and careful positioning. Sometimes I caught myself reaching for you in the open air and had to stop. The habit hurt more than the absence.

The cost revealed itself slowly like a crack spreading through ice. You began to fade in reflections that were imperfect. Scratched metal showed you thinner. Water ripples distorted your face until you looked like a stranger. You told me that the longer you stayed tethered to me the harder it was to hold your shape. That the pull of the other side was constant and patient. You did not ask me to let you go. You trusted me to understand.

I argued anyway quietly and uselessly. I told you that love should count for something. You told me it did and that was the problem. The words settled between us and would not move. I watched your reflection dim slightly as if exhausted by the effort of staying.

The choice gathered itself over weeks. It appeared in the way you lingered less often. In the way the mirror over the sink sometimes showed only me. In the headaches that came after long conversations. I realized that keeping you near was costing you your coherence and costing me my grip on the world. Love had become an act of harm.

The final scene unfolded on a cold evening by the river. The water was still and dark and reflected the sky perfectly. The air smelled of damp stone and distant rain. I stood at the edge and saw you clearly in the surface more solid than you had been in days. You looked almost whole. The city lights trembled around your face like stars.

You told me that water could be a door if I allowed it to be. That if I stopped looking you would drift fully into the place beyond reflections and settle. You would not be trapped anymore. You would also be unreachable. You said it gently without drama. Your eyes never left mine.

I felt the truth move through me slowly and completely. I thought about all the moments we had not touched. About the weight of restraint. About the way grief had arrived before understanding from the very beginning. I knelt by the river and pressed my palm to the surface feeling the cold seep in. Your reflection reached up and mirrored the gesture. Our hands aligned separated by water and worlds.

I wanted to memorize every detail. The curve of your mouth the line of your brow the way your eyes softened when you looked at me. I told you that loving you had changed me forever. You smiled and said that was enough. The city held its breath.

When I stood and stepped back the reflection wavered. I closed my eyes and let the image go. The water rippled and smoothed. When I opened them only the river remained carrying light and shadow without you. The ache was immediate and deep but clean. I stayed until the cold drove me home.

Now I live carefully with glass. I avoid mirrors when I can. Sometimes in the evening I catch a glimpse of movement that is only light. I do not follow it. I have learned that love does not always survive presence. Sometimes it survives only as a choice to look away and let what you love become whole even if it means becoming alone.