A Road To The Next Universe

Reflections Part 1

My reflection messed up that day. That was how I learned of the world - Eadem Diverso. It is a world I am not supposed to know of.

The day I learned of it, I had been standing in front of my full length mirrored wardrobe, getting ready to go out with a friend to a new restaurant that had just opened in town. I'd dressed in a checkered shirt with classic, black jeans and my new boots. I walked over to my dressing table and retrieved my make-up bag - it was small and didn't contain a lot but it was all I needed. I'd had to use the mirror on the wardrobe because I preferred to stand whilst doing my make-up but for no particular reason.

So there I was; standing in front of my mirror, doing my make-up. That was when it happened. My reflection blinked. I felt my eyes widen and my lips part in shock but all that I saw in the mirror was a startled girl who any other day I would not have questioned her identity. But I felt that she wasn't me. She looked guilty, ashamed, frightened. But I felt shocked, confused and amazed. What was happening? Was I losing my mind? Surely, it is impossible to see your own reflection blink. Yes, I must have imagined it.

And without another thought on the matter, I finished getting ready for dinner with Oliver.

Oliver was my best friend. He was bubbly, shy, girly and gay. I could speak to him about pretty much anything. So, when I was sitting with him at a table in 'Frankie's and Bennie's', I told myself that the reason I hadn't told him about what I had saw in the mirror earlier was because it was no big deal. "Cara!" he half whispered to me, his tanned face turning as bright as his scarlet red top, "Look!" He jerked his head towards the entrance to the restaurant where the 'popular' guys from my school were flooding in. Their loud chatter and cheers were carried across the room as they were seated at a table near ours. I rolled my eyes and let out a bored sigh, "I've already told you. Those guys are jerks." Oliver looked over to their table and considered it for a second. He bit down on his lip and turned back to me, "They're hot jerks." I chuckled and picked up the menu. Oliver was hard to contain in even the easiest situations. Though it was torturing to have to watch him fall for a guy then get his heart crushed to almost beyond repair. This tended to happen a lot seeing as he was the only gay guy in the whole town.

I was interrupted from my thoughts by the waitress approaching us with a notepad in her hand and a pen poised to write. She was young, about 17, and had short, spiky hair that went no further than her ear. She wore a simple, black polo shirt with the restaurant logo on and black jeans that only reached her shins. "Hi, I'm Ava and I'm your waitress tonight. Can I get you two any drinks?" she chirped with a sickly sweet smile on her face.

Oliver set down his menu, "Hi, can we just have two cokes, please? One diet, one ordinary," he answered in a cool tone. The waitress walked away and I turned to Oliver with my eyebrows raised. "Diet?" I asked suspiciously. He glanced over at the table full of boys that were flirting mercilessly with another waitress in tight jeans and top. He laughed and shook his head. "Cara, you know that I'm not sporty and with all the junk food I eat I should be as big as Bruce Bogtrotter out of Matilda. Truth is, I don't wanna look like that. I wanna look like the tanned, hot jocks who have loads of friends and can score a hot date with the click of their fingers." He sighed.

"You don't want to be like them. Trust me. The amount of girls that have cried and nerds whose heads have been shoved down the loo by those guys is ridiculous. They may look attractive to you," I looked over at them and rolled my eyes but I continued, "but once they screw you over, you'll be able to see them for the selfish, spiteful people that they are. Trust me." I put my hand on his arm comfortingly and he smiled at me. Our waitress came over a few minutes later with our drinks and took our food orders before leaving us on our own again. "So," Oliver began, "What have you been up to lately? We haven't met up in a while."