Somehow, she still follows me

　　  Dakota stirred their tea, blankly staring out of the foggy, cold window, out at the soft snow falling and breezing by in a blur as the train flew across its tracks. A feeling of dissociation had fallen across them about half an hour ago, leaving them half dead to the world around them. 

    The sound of a door opening and the rolling of a suitcase somehow snapped them out of their stupor, slowly blinking their eyes to examine the world around them. Their tea had gone cold, their blanket had slipped down to their lower torso, and their travel buddy, Clair, had left, probably to go to the bathroom, or, as Dakota suspected, the back of the train to see her boyfriend.

    Feeling a slight chill on their arms, feeling not quite cold, but not quite warm, they grasped the blankets, pulling them up over their shoulders, despite them already having a hoodie on. 

    After huddling into the blankets a little more, shifting to get more comfortable, they glanced around the seats in their area. A man with bushy, red, curly hair, an equally bushy and curly mustache, a red plaid shirt, ripped jeans, and a beanie, was passed out on the first seat in the row of seats on the other side of the train, his head knocked back and mouth wide open, drool and small but noticeable snores coming from his mouth. Next to the man, there was a wide-eyed girl who looked to be about 12 with the same bushy red curls, deep, warm, brown eyes, freckles that basically ruled over her nose and cheeks, and similar clothes to who Dakota assumed was her father, fidgeting in her seat with a pencil in one hand, a large pad of paper in the other. She was mostly hidden behind her father, and  somehow shrunk away even further when she saw Dakota observing her.

    They quickly glanced back at their tea, realizing how the girl must have felt. Somehow, the girl reminded them of how they used to be. How they used to be when they were someone else entirely. Unrecognizable.

    A burning in their chest started, followed by a sudden reminder that they couldn’t breathe too well, reminding them of the binder that they had kept on a bit longer than they should have. They slipped their hands into their shirt, loosening it until the burning stopped. They then looked back at the window, but instead of seeing the outside, they saw the inside, the reflection.  They saw their reflection.

　　  Behind them, they saw the man, still sleeping, and the girl, now viciously scribbling at her paper with a determined look, now with a large black jacket draped over her back. They saw a skinny and tall teenager with an extremely oversized jacket and a turtleneck with a fitting pair of jeans walking down the aisle, a disturbed look on his face. In the back of their mind, they processed that this was Clair’s boyfriend, who they still kept hidden from her parents. They could see about everything. They could see everything but themself.

    Instead of themself, who was an unusually pale person with black hair in a low-fade, round Harry Potter glasses, a clean face, and normal Asian eyes, they saw a pretty teenage Asian girl. The pretty girl had long, straight, raven black hair, bangs that cut clean through her forehead, enough eyeliner and mascara to paint a single line from the moon and back with much more left, some eyeshadow, though not noticeable if the person looking isn’t looking for that exact shade, lots foundation and concealer, and an ulzzang’s glossy pink lips, also having on a black trench coat, a white crop-top with spaghetti straps, dark round sunglasses perched on the tip of her small button nose, and a black beret to top it all off.

    The girl’s expressions matched Dakota’s perfectly, and it took them a second to realize that this was them. This was how they used to be. 

    Shock, fear, and repulsion, these were some of the emotions that both the Old Dakota and Present Dakota felt, the feeling mirroring on both of their faces.

    Quickly facing back towards the seat in front of them, Present Dakota takes off their glasses, putting them down on what they subconsciously hoped to be the tray-table, shoving their palms into their face, pushing in on their eyes. Little rainbows danced in the darkness, phantom pain from the burns that were now long-gone flaring up, and a nagging soreness from their eyes. After a minute or two, they rub their eyes, not quite bringing their hands down, and look up, the rainbows and static distorting everything for a second then clearing up. 

    The burnt orange seats in the train; still the same. The cold black tea; still the same. Their glasses; unfortunately lens down on the retractable tray. Everything else but the window; still the same. 

    After a minute or two, the panic had settled down, and they breathed down into their hands, which they hadn’t realized they had brought down to their mouth. 

    A deep breath, a second one, and they looked into the aisle next to them. The girl was now the one staring at them, a concerned but scared look in her eyes. She shadow stopped drawing, and Dakota realized that, all this time, she had been studying them and trying to duplicate their look on the paper, and so far, it was pretty accurate.

    A third deep breath, a fourth, and they brought their hands down onto their lap, looking away from the girl and staring back down at the tray-table.

    A fifth deep breath, a sixth, and they turned their head towards the window, not quite looking, but not quite looking away.

    A seventh breath, an eighth, and they focused on the window-sill.

    After building up the courage to look back, fearing looking back, the dysphoria starting to creep in, they glanced up. They didn’t see her. Nothing was wrong with the reflection that they could notice in that split second. They then completely shifted their head back up and saw the exact same thing they had seen in the glance, except more detailed. Just an androgynous Asian person. They saw themselves.

    They looked back at the tray, at the depthless black tea, at their glasses. A sense of calm fell back over them, the dysphoria somehow leaving them alone.

    Huh, they thought, she’s back again.