The Afternoon I Let Go Of Your Reflection

I saw you standing in the glass before I felt the weight of your absence settle back into my chest.

The window reflected the room behind me and there you were where my body should have been a moment earlier with your hand lifted as if you had just touched my shoulder and thought better of it. The afternoon light was pale and slanted and full of dust that hung motionless in the air. Outside a bus sighed to a stop and moved on. Inside my apartment everything waited. When I turned around you were already fading leaving only the faint pressure of being watched and the ache of recognition that comes too late.

I leaned my forehead against the glass and closed my eyes. Grief had changed shape since you died. It was quieter now but heavier. It moved slowly and filled corners. Seeing you like that did not break me open the way I had imagined it might. Instead it felt like a careful reopening of something that had never healed correctly. I understood without understanding that whatever version of you could still reach me was bound to reflections and light and the thin places between moments.

That afternoon I did not leave the apartment. I moved from window to mirror to darkened screen testing where you might appear again. I left curtains half drawn and lamps unlit. When dusk came the room filled with a soft blue gray and I felt the air shift. Your reflection formed in the hallway mirror behind me steady and patient.

You looked as you had near the end tired and gentle and unfinished. The mirror did not show your feet. I did not turn around this time. I spoke to the glass and said your name. The sound of it felt fragile but intact. You smiled and the glass rippled slightly as if touched by breath.

We learned the rules slowly. You could appear only where I could see myself. Windows mirrors polished metal the dark surface of the television. If I stepped too close you blurred. If I moved away too fast you vanished. We spoke softly as if loud voices might shatter the surface that held you. I learned to keep my body still and my heart slower.

Winter light was best for you. It made you clearer. Snow outside brightened the world and turned every window into a doorway. You stood with your hands in your pockets watching me make coffee watching steam rise and disappear. You told me you could not stay long at any one time. You told me reflections grew tired of holding on. I did not ask where you went when you were gone.

The romance between us did not return. It hovered. It pressed. It waited. Every day I felt the urge to lean into the glass and kiss your mouth where it appeared and every day I stopped myself inches away. Desire felt dangerous now like a hand too heavy on thin ice. You watched me struggle and said nothing.

Spring came and with it longer days. You faded sooner in the light. I found you more easily at night in dark windows that showed my face and yours layered together. Sometimes our reflections lined up just right and for a breath it looked like we were standing where we always had been shoulder to shoulder facing the same direction. The ache of it was almost sweet.

One evening rain streaked the glass and broke your image into pieces. You looked fragmented and wrong. I reached out without thinking and my fingers struck cold glass. Pain flared and grounded me. You recoiled as if the sound hurt you. When your image steadied you shook your head gently. I understood then that wanting you had consequences even now.

Summer made everything harder. Brightness erased you. Heat softened mirrors and warped your shape. I missed you more in those months than I had in winter. The apartment felt empty in a way it had not since the first days after your death. When you did appear you seemed thinner less anchored. You told me reflections were asking you to choose. To move on. To let go.

The afternoon the truth arrived the light was harsh and honest. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror with you behind my eyes instead of behind my body. You said my name and it sounded like a question you already knew the answer to. You said staying bound to me kept you from becoming whatever was next. You said loving me still was a weight.

I watched my own face as I listened. I saw the lines grief had carved and the way hope still lived stubbornly in my eyes. I thought of all the times I had stopped myself from touching the glass. I understood that restraint had been a kind of preparation.

When I spoke my voice was quiet and sure. I said I loved you. I said I would not trap you in a surface meant only to reflect. I lifted my hand not to touch but to wave goodbye. You smiled with relief that looked like sorrow leaving the body.

The mirror brightened. Your image thinned and lifted like fog. For a moment our eyes met and held. Then the glass showed only me.

Autumn returned and softened the world. I covered some mirrors and left others bare. Sometimes I caught my reflection and felt the echo of you standing just out of sight. It no longer hurt the way it had. The ache had become part of the shape of loving.

Now when afternoon light slants across the room I stand in it and let myself be seen alone. I think of you not as something lost but as something that taught me how to let go gently. And in certain windows at certain angles when the light is just right I see myself smiling with a tenderness that did not exist before and I know you are no longer trapped there but carried forward in the way I choose to keep living.