True Reflection

“What if there was a magical mirror? One that can predict your future depending on the path you choose to take, would you use it?” Maggie thought about the question. Would she? Life hadn’t gone in the direction she wanted. She’s working at a warehouse, which she hates. She’s in a loveless relationship. And to top it all off she’s stuck in her childhood home. Enduring the constant criticism from her mother.

Could she believe something like that existed? Maggie searched her best friend’s eyes for any signs of deception, but all she saw was sincerity. Tory knew about the magical mirror because she herself has used it. She knew the power of it and wanted Maggie to believe in it too. So she tried again.

“Come on, think about it, say you maybe, quite possibly, hypothetically speaking…” she hesitated. Tory’s heart pounded. She knew things that Maggie didn’t because of the mirror. She knew about their possible future. Their happy future. A future where they were married and had two kids. But Tory wanted Maggie to see it for herself. So she tried a third time.

“Okay, say you have this mirror which lets you see into the future, and in this future you are truly happy, wouldn’t you like to see it?” Tory wanted to say happily in love but that’s not what was going to get through to Maggie. Maggie didn’t need to be in love, she simply needed to be happy. Which is all Tory wanted for her best friend. For her eyes to sparkle like they used to. Because if Maggie was happy so was Tory.

“Yes” That’s all the confirmation Tory needed to hear before she bolted out of the door, reappearing not a second later with a full body mirror.

“Tadaaaaa” she sang. Maggie chuckled and studied the mirror. There was nothing about it that screamed magic. In fact, Maggie had the same mirror hanging behind her bedroom door. Tory leaned the ‘magical mirror’ against Maggie’s closet door and embraced Maggie, lingering a little longer than she intended to.

“Remember you have the choice to make that into a reality” Tory whispered into Maggie’s ear before leaving her alone with the mirror.

__________

“Mija!!” Her mother yelled. Maggie groaned, all she wanted was to be in bed after her long shift at work. But resting wasn’t a privilege she had so she reluctantly got up and dragged herself to her mother’s room.

“Yeah?” Maggie sluggishly said.

“Necesito usar el baño” Maggie helped her mother out of her bed and took her to the bathroom. Caretaking wasn’t easy. Maggie has been advised to get someone to help her but she’s stubborn. Maggie didn’t trust anyone’s ability to take care of her mother the way she did. So she’d ignored the advice and continued to do everything on her own, running herself thin.

The bags under Maggie’s eyes were getting darker, the pain in her back increasing with every movement. Her muscles were fatigued from trying to pick her mother up off the floor last night and work wasn’t helping. At least this time wasn’t that bad, the last time her mother fell, Maggie pulled a muscle on her back, which prevented her from doing absolutely anything.

It wasn’t always like this, her mother’s health started to diminish when she fell down the stairs and broke her hip. A few surgeries later and she still hasn’t been able to regain her strength. After her mother’s fall, Maggie put her life on pause and stood by her mother’s side not realizing that she was entrapping herself in the process. A year had gone by and Maggie felt like her mother was weaker than before she fell.

Maggie helped her mother back into bed and before she was going to leave the room, her mother stopped her, “¿Para dónde vas?”

“To my room”

“¿Porque?” Maggie resisted a groan. Wasn’t it obvious how drained she was?

“Estoy cansada”

“Nunca quieres pasar tiempo con migo. Me voy a morir de soledad y va a ser tu culpa” Maggie couldn’t believe her mother was manipulating her at 11PM, but then again, that’s all her mother ever did. Maggie did everything her mother asked for, she grew out her hair after she cut it ear length, she dressed very feminine, she was even dating a man! But nothing Maggie ever did was enough, there was always something to be criticized.

But Maggie doesn’t say anything. Of course not, if she did it would be disrespectful. Her mother would whine and say her kids didn’t love her. Yes, kids. Maggie wasn’t an only child. She was the youngest of five, but they didn’t do a third of what Maggie did for her mother. So Maggie stood with her mother for the next hour watching TV.

This couldn’t be it. Could it? This couldn’t be her life for the next five, ten years right? Maggie couldn’t bear to think about it. She needed to know. She needed to uncover the mirror and finally look. So she waited until her mother began to snore, turned off the TV, and tiptoed her way towards her room.

She stood in front of the covered mirror, hand lingering on the sheet. After Tory left, Maggie placed a sheet on the mirror, she wasn’t ready to face it. Scared to see something she didn’t want to see. Terrified that no matter what she did, this was her reality. So she put the sheet and ignored it for the past week.

Until now.

Maggie’s hands were sweating, her knuckles turned white as she gripped the sheet. What if… she began to think but shook her head. No, now’s not the time to overthink this. So she yanked the sheet before changing her mind.

“What the…”

The mirror was blank. It showed absolutely nothing. Not a glimpse of her future. Not even a current reflection of herself. Was it broken? Was this a sick joke? A prank? Tory wouldn’t play with her emotions like this, maybe she needed to turn it on. She looked for a button but found nothing. She waved, swiped, she even tried speaking to it, but nothing she did worked.

Defeated, she lifted the sheet again. Maggie didn’t need the mirror taunting her. Her mother did enough of that already. But before she could fully cover the mirror, Maggie’s phone rang. She reached for her back pocket, wondering who would be calling her at midnight.

“Hey babe,” Maggie froze at the unmistakable sound of her voice. She looked at her phone and saw it lit up to her screen saver. No missed call and definitely no current call. Just a photo of her and Tory at the beach.

“Just getting ready to go to the barbershop” Her voice continued to say. Maggie’s heart raced. Was the mirror working or was Maggie loosing her mind? They say one starts to hallucinate from lack of sleep. But she wasn’t hallucinating. The mirror was in fact working. Maggie just needed to lift off the covers to see its magic. So with trembling hands, that’s exactly what she did.

It would be wrong to call what Maggie was seeing a reflection. She didn’t know what she was seeing, but she was transfixed.

Maggie observed herself. She took in every movement, forever engraved in her memory. The way she put her long curls in a very messy bun. The way she fixed her black T-shirt, there was something masculine about the way she stood, legs in a wide stance. Even with the way Maggie’s shirt hugged on her biceps. She had always feared to show those off, thinking it was never lady enough, but she was wrong. It was badass and it was sexy.

Maggie watched herself smile in satisfaction and walk away confidently. She stood there dumbfounded, minutes after she watched herself disappear.

She always knew she wanted to dress more masculine but she was scared. Scared she wouldn’t fit in her mother’s traditional views. So when her mother yelled at her at the age of eight to dress more girly, after Maggie sprinted towards her room excited to show off the button up shirt her dad bought for her, she told herself that she would suppress those feelings and try.

But now after what she had witnessed her clothes felt heavy. Uncomfortable. Wrong. She ripped her clothes off, as if the fabric was burning her. She frantically searched through her drawers, looking for a black T-shirt her boyfriend left behind a few days ago. She slipped it on and felt ten times lighter.

__________

The next time Maggie saw herself in the magical mirror she gasped when she saw her hair. She had a low fade with a cool line design on her left side. She loved the way it looked. Her face seemed younger. Brighter. Happier. Her curls looked healthy. She couldn’t tear her eyes away.

When her image disappeared, she reached her hand towards the mirror and let it linger. She always thought she hated her curls, so she constantly went to the hair salon and relaxed it. But as she looked at herself through the magical mirror she realized she didn’t hate her curls. No, she hated her longcurls.

Maggie didn’t wait another second, she couldn’t bear feeling the heaviness of her hair any longer. So she walked out her door with only one destination in mind.

The first thing Maggie noticed after stepping out of the barbershop was the breeze on the back of her head. The second was her posture, she stood confident. Taller. No longer having the weight of her hair bringing her down. She snapped a photo and sent it to Tory.

Once Maggie got into her car her happiness started to slip away. Was this a rational decision? Did she think this through? What was her mother going to think when she saw her? Maggie’s phone vibrated, saving her from her thoughts.

Looking hot with a capital H!!! Maggie blushed. On the night after her fight with her now ex-boyfriend, the mirror showed Maggie with Tory. She witnessed them slow dancing in the middle of their living room. She watched as her best friend, the woman who Maggie had been pathetically in love with since they were kids, wrapped her arms around her and kissed her. They were happily in love. When their image disappeared, Maggie balled her eyes out in front of the blank mirror. She couldn’t believe that everything she longed for was truly a possibility.

That night, Maggie made the decision to end her relationship with Ricky. She knew it was the right thing to do, just like deep down she knew that cutting her hair, despite what her mother was going to think, was also the right thing to do.

The mirror had opened Maggie’s eyes. It showed her what her life could be if she chose herself and Maggie was determined to make it happen.

__________

“Te cortaste el pelo!” Her mom gasped. Dropping her phone in the process. She couldn’t believe her little girl cut her beautiful long hair.

“Si” Maggie nodded. Heart going a mile a minute. This was it, no going back now. Not like Maggie wanted to do that anyways.

“Te pareces un mismo mach—“

“I look like myself” she interrupted her mother. Shocking both of them. Maggie has never, ever, in her 25 years of life, has spoken back to her mother. She always shut her mouth and let her mother break her down. Mold her into something she wanted. But not anymore. Maggie stood proudly in front of her mother, revealing her true self for the first time.

“This is me mom. Me. I tried your way for so long but I wasn’t happy. I hated my hair. I hated my clothes. And somewhere along the way, I started to hate myself”

“Y tu novio?”

“Are you hearing yourself? This isn’t about him, this was never about him, this is about me!” Maggie’s voice cracked. She cleared her voice, no matter what happened she had to stay strong.

“Pero que va a decir la gente!”

“Who cares what people are going to think! I’m not doing this for them. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me”

The room went silent. Maggie felt dizzy, she couldn’t believe she said all that. She studied her mother’s gaze, looking for any signs of acceptance. But all she saw were tears of disapproval slowly well up in her mother’s eyes. And for the first time, Maggie didn’t care.

__________

It’s been three years since Tory showed up with the magical mirror. Three years since Maggie decided to choose herself and turn a possibility into a reality. After her confrontation with her mother, Maggie decided it was time to move out. The transition wasn’t easy for Maggie. She felt guilty leaving her mother alone. Scared that something might happen when she wasn’t there, so to alleviate the guilt and the work she hired an in-home caregiver. But despite the massive help she was receiving, Maggie continued to take care of her mother. Moving away helped Maggie recognize the efforts her mother was making to fully accept her, even if sometimes she would say something that would hurt Maggie’s feelings, it was a genuine start and Maggie was happy with that.

Happiness was all that Maggie was feeling lately. Happy that she dressed the way she wanted. Happy that her hair was healthy. Happy that Tory agreed to move in with her after finding a cute apartment. Happy that together they made their apartment into a home. A home full of love and acceptance. But most of all, she was happy to finally see her true reflection looking back.