Short Stories

3. Messages on the Mirror

Act 1

He was a tall man, dark-haired, handsome. His eyes were confusing, different colours in different lights, sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes grey. He had an alluring face — beautiful, but so still, as if each twitch of his muscles were calculated.

She met him when she was twenty-two. She was drawn to him because he reminded her of an old girlfriend; the stillness that she took for steadiness, the ready familiarity with which he spoke her name, the quick-witted humour, the obvious interest in her. His name was Chris Morder. When he asked if she wanted to get some coffee, she said yes because she had been left raw and alone and desperate by the woman she had loved and lost.

Chris was kind to her. He was attentive. He was gentle and chivalrous and understanding. She fell in love with the strands of his hair that tumbled onto his forehead when he laughed, the sparkle of the sunlight in his eyes, how he'd leave little messages in the shower-mist on the mirror telling her he loved her. She fell in love with his hand around hers, and late nights watching romantic comedies on the sofa together with bottles of wine. She even fell in love with the hangovers the day afterward.

Then she got a job.

She started working in fundraising for a charity, and swiftly climbed the rungs of employment until she was made CEO. Chris would visit her at work just to kiss her, check if she needed anything, praise her successes and console her failures.

She started working late evenings. She started having lunch with her colleagues. Going to lectures on weekends. Driving up to the city to attend events.

Chris's messages on the foggy mirror became ones of I miss you. It seemed to her his whole being was taken up with wishing she were there, rather than loving her when she was.  He wanted to know everything she'd done while she was away, right down to the ingredients of her soup.

A year passed, and arguments became just another item to be ticked off on the checklist of the day. He'd stopped leaving messages on the mirror. His eyes had stopped sparkling in the sunlight. She didn't like the morning hangovers any longer.

He hit her once. She told her colleagues she slipped, and that was how she hit her head on the bannister.

They argued one afternoon about how he didn't like it when she ignored his calls, and she told him she was afraid of him. They slept in separate beds that night. In the morning, after he'd showered, she found a message on the mirror. It said, If you leave, I will find you.

She didn't leave, because he reminded her of the woman she had loved and lost.

But on their third anniversary, she bought them ten therapy sessions. Chris hit her for it, but they attended their first session the following week.

Act 2

John Price, a licensed therapist, was a kind man. A wise man. She thought so, just by the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled at them. Chris's confusing eyes had never done that.

"Hi, I'm John, I'll be asking you about your feelings and charging you for it," he said with a grin.

She laughed, and shook his hand. He shook Chris's and his smile faltered a little when their eyes met. But John turned to the room behind them. "Would you like to come in?" he said.