The Stranger In The Mirror

Melancholic eyes stare straight ahead into a gilded mirror, transfixed by the familiar stranger staring back. The stranger looked so calm, so cool, so put together. Sexy, chin length layers the color of melted caramel framed a face that could be described as either sweet or saucy, depending on the mood of the girl it graced. At the moment she looked neither. The melancholy haunted more than just her eyes.

Fingers that trembled ever so slightly play with the ends of the soft hair. Two hours ago the tresses had hung down her back, thick waves of golden brown that she loved to twist around her index finger. He had loved playing with those curls as well. Thinking about him is what had inspired the need for change, the need to rid herself of the things he loved. “It’s just hair,” she out loud, her voice matter of fact. It was just hair. It had been her hair though. Her long, beautiful hair. It was gone now. Gone, just like him. His need for change was what prompted her need to change.

“Change is good though. Change is wonderful. I love change.” Her voice sounded too peppy, as though she was forcing herself to believe the words coming across her candy apple red lips. Perhaps on some level she was. She was forcing herself to embrace the changes life, he, had thrown at her; because change was good, it was wonderful. Even when it felt like neither of those things. She needed the change though. Oh God, how she needed the change.Dark brown eyes close. As much as she needed, longed for, the change still hurt. Change meant moving on. Change meant finally letting go of him.

Moving away from the mirror, she opens her eyes. Her gaze falls on the mass of clothing thrown haphazardly across her bed. Every single garment had been an impulse buy, most she couldn‘t even recall buying or why. A sexy red halter top with sequins along the neck line. A brilliant green turtle neck tunic. Two little black dresses; one little more than a tube, the other a cowl necked number that barely skimmed her thighs. Staring intently at the pile, she chews her lips, mindful of the fact that she would have to check her teeth for lipstick.

She reaches out, snatching the first top her hand comes in contact with. A white baby doll with embellishments along the deep v-neck. She remembered buying this one. It had looked uber cute on the mannequin in the window, paired with skinny dark jeans, pointy toed flats, and several layers of silver chains. She had bought it with the intention of copying that same look only to chicken out when he made fun of the shoes, saying they looked witch-y. She had hung the top in the back of her closet, hidden the shoes she had purchased to go with it, and forgotten all about looking window display cute.

“Screw him,” she muttered, tugging off the red cap sleeved top she had worn to the salon. She tosses the shirt into the corner of her room where the rest of her dirty laundry lay in a small pile. The white top slides over her head, the fabric soft against her skin. She smoothes it down her body, her fingers lingering on the hem. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like her. She ignores the desire to exchange the top for a comfortable t shirt, she ignores the desire to cry over cropped hair and a stupid boy who thought another girl was better than her. She ignores all this because change was good; change was wonderful. Even when it meant becoming someone she didn’t even know….