Published in At What Cost: an anthology (2024), the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing degree’s annual anthology.

I only see her through cold, glimmering windows. I’m always watching, always mirroring, always there. It’s something instinctual for me. Something primal.

When she was younger, I’d only see her on the mornings she spent in the bathroom. She would squint at me as hairspray filled the air and a middle-aged woman pulled a comb through her curls. She would brace her hands on the sink and roll her eyes up to the ceiling, bored. I often wondered how she could be bored in that world, where everything was so colourful, so free.

She spent hours there, her hair slicked and yanked, coiffed and braided. The woman coaxed her dark strands into pigtails, into French braids, into fluffy curls framing her heart-shaped face. It was magic. I reached a hand up to my own hair, marvelling at the neat, thick braids piled atop my head.

I grew to love our bathroom sessions. It gave me time to memorise every furrow and pore on her face, the shape of her pursed lips, the way the skin around her large eyes pinched at a particularly painful tug.

Sometimes, she would pause to admire herself – admire me – and her pretty lips would pull back in a smile. Her smile. Hers. Beautiful.

* * *

She finally opens a window into her room. I’m delighted.

She sits and does her own hair without prompting, no longer fussed over by the woman. Glittering bottles of lotion and trays of coloured powder invade her bedside table and spill onto the carpet.

She paints her face: sponging pigment on her cheeks, dabbing colour over her eyelids.  She frowns at me, drawn-on brows stitched together, then storms to the sink to wash it all off. I wonder what she sees in me that dissatisfies her.

She begins to grow pimples: red, angry bumps that make her angry too. Back at the bathroom sink she leans in close, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and squeezes. Puss splatters all over me.

* * *

I find her in a tiny glass box. This box is a curious window: illuminated from within, barely larger than the palm of her hand.

Through it I see dainty sandwiches on porcelain plates, sweeping open spaces of dew-speckled grass, concrete schoolyards and carpeted classrooms. It’s a decadent non-taste of the world outside – a world larger than I could ever imagine, more abundant and bountiful than the dark, cold space of my existence.

She lifts the box up, angling it towards her. Other people crowd in and she grins. Sometimes she gives me accessories, adding dog ears or cat noses. It’s amusing.

I look different here. The dips and furrows and bumps in my skin are smoothed out. My eyes grow bigger, darker. My cheeks flush a rosy pink even when hers don’t. I’ve never looked so dazzling.

Does she like me better this way?

* * *

She strips down before me and stares.

Her fingers trail over her breasts, probing at the tender flesh; my fingers do the same. A hand lingers at the bulge of fat encircling her hips.

She turns, sliding her other hand up her behind. She fingers the dark spots on her body: a bruise on her arm, a scar on her ankle, the freckles down her chest. She stares at me; I stare back. I don’t mean to come off as judgemental. Her lips draw into a thin line and she glances away.

She no longer looks at me now. Not in the mornings, when she squeezes toothpaste onto her brush and leaves the bathroom, wandering somewhere I cannot follow; not in the evenings, when she barely gives me a glance while changing into pyjamas.

My ribcage grows more pronounced; I can feel my bones and the hollow gaps in between. I lose the bulge around my hips, the flesh hanging from my upper arms, the full curve of my cheeks. Less. And less. And less.

I curl into the darkness when she isn’t around, drifting. I don’t understand what I did to deserve this.

* * *

She cries sometimes, when no one else is looking.

Curling up next to the bathroom sink, she buries her face in between her knees, hiccupping as she tries to keep her sobs silent. Her shoulders tremble, hair falling across her forehead in sweaty, knotted strands.

Am I the only one who hears her? Who sees this?

I yearn to reach out and touch, to wrap my arms around her. But even if I could, even if I wasn’t imprisoned in this space, my touch is cold – it wouldn’t warm her.

I watch as she eventually wipes the tears off her face. She checks me and rubs her reddened eyes. The last thing I see is her back as she pulls the door open.

* * *

She waits for me a few days later, on the other side of the mirror – the one that opens into her bedroom.

When I step forward as always, she looks me in the eye. There’s a knowingness, an acknowledgement, that was never there before. Are those her eyes? Or mine? Whoever they belong to, our eyes are puffy and red, the skin beneath them bruised dark blue.

“I know you’re there,” she says.

I don’t answer. Silence clogs the air like cotton balls.

“You want this, don’t you?” She points at herself. “So, take it.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I whisper. My throat creaks, dusty from disuse.

“I do,” she says softly. “Please, take it.”

Whatever resolve I had crumbles at the desperate shudder in her voice. This is everything I’ve ever wanted presented to me on a silver platter. I’m too weak to refuse.

* * *

The air is cool and crisp today. I pull on warm clothes: cardigan, scarf, gloves. I braid my hair.

I step outside, tilting my face up to catch the sunlight. Beautiful, radiant warmth kisses my skin for the very first time.

I smile. My smile. Mine.