The Other Me

Once I reach my dressing room, I sit down in front of the vanity.

   I start doing my makeup, avoiding my face in the mirror. 

   I paint the blush onto my cheeks. 

   “You know you can't avoid me forever.” The voice says. 

   “I know,” I whisper, taking my eyeshadow palette out of my makeup bag. I got a silver dress today. Maybe a glitter-eye look, then?

   “Yeah, do glitter.” The voice says. 

   “Right,” I take a breath, finally forcing myself to look at my reflection. “You can read my mind.”

   “I can,” My bright green eyes look back at me. A smirk appears on my reflection. Except it's not my reflection. “because I am you.”

   I lean towards the mirror, attempting to do my eyeshadow. But she won't cooperate. “Come on. I need to be out there in ten minutes.”

   She rolls her eyes. “Fine.” Suddenly her body lines up with mine, making it look like my actual reflection. I lean forward, brushing the eyeshadow onto my eyelid. 

   “So, what? You're supposed to give me wishes or something? Like a genie?” Once I’m done with the eyeshadow, I dip my finger in the bright silver glitter and paste it onto the lower part of my eyelids. 

   She smirks. “No. I can always give you advice though. Or. . . if you don't want to do something, we can switch.” 

   I stop, backing a few inches away from the mirror. “You mean. . . I'd be in the mirror? And you'd be out here?”

   “Yes.” She gives me an unsure smile like she might not know if I can handle that information. 

   It'll never happen anyway. “Okay.” I come closer to the mirror, doing my other eye. “But you'd need my permission, right?”

   “Yeah.” Her face looks different than the way mine feels. She looks a little worried. “If you ever need me to go on stage for you, I can do it.”

   “And why should I trust you?” I move away from the mirror, digging through my bag. 

   I pull out a lipstick as she takes a deep breath. “That's for you to decide.”

   I outline my lips with a lip liner. “Okay.”

   “Come on, Georgia! You need to be on stage in two minutes!” My manager's voice echoes through the door. 

   “I'll be right out!” I yell back, keeping my eye on the girl on the other side of the mirror. 

   “Have fun.” She smirks, leaning back in her dressing room chair. 

***

There's something off about her. 

   Maybe it's the way that she's practically an evil version of me, or it's the feeling that she might want to take over my life.

   “What's it like in there?” I ask her, wiping off my makeup. 

   She sighs, looking down at whatever is below her. “It always changes. . . to whatever room the reflection you're looking into is.”

   “Oh.” Not gonna lie, that sounds really sad. “And if we switched, I'd be where you are right now?”

   She smiles. “Yeah.”

   That would be cool. I'd be able to take a break from singing, and she could do it for me. She practically knows my whole life, right? 

   “I kind of do.” She says, shrugging.

   “What do you mean, kind of?”

   “I can only see through reflections when you're looking into a reflection or when you're in the room with a big mirror.” She looks at her nails, which are identical to mine. “You should get these fixed.”

   I look at my nails, which I got done to be a bright pink with little flowers. My left thumb is chipped, leaving one of the flowers almost gone. “I don't like spending money when I don't need to.”

   “Oh, I know.” She shrugs. “But you need to get red nails. Red looks great on you.”

   There's a knock on my room door. “Hey, you in here?”

   “Yeah, come in.” I've been waiting for my brother–Liam–to come home so I can see him in the mirror. How would that work?

   Liam appears in the doorway, his hair wet and a towel around his neck. “How was today's performance? Sorry, I wasn't able to make it.”

   My reflection is back to normal, and Liam is standing behind me. 

   “It was okay. You had to go to that basketball game.” I wipe the rest of my makeup off. 

   “Well, Dad wanted me to tell you that you have a really last-minute show tomorrow.” He gives me a nervous look. “In Oregon.”

   I groan, banging my head against the table. 

   “I know you hate Oregon, but they're paying good money this time.”

   I had a really bad experience the last time I was in Oregon. Everyone there was just toxic, and the owners where I performed treated me like crap. 

   I glance up into my reflection, suddenly getting an idea. The mirror winks at me, and a small smile appears on my face. 

   “Okay,” I whisper. I wave my hand at him. “You can leave now.”

   “Whatever, weirdo.” Liam leaves, leaving me alone with myself. 

   But then Liam's reflection comes back into the mirror, giving mine a high five. My eyebrows pull together. “Huh?”

   “What?” She looks back at me, then her eyes widen. She looks at Liam. “Go away.”

   Then he disappears.

   “Liam has a reflection too?” I ask. 

   She nods, a nervous look on her face. “But he's not allowed to do as much as I am.”

   “Who tells you what you're allowed to do and what you aren’t?” I say.

   “We don't know.” She looks down at her hand. “Anyway. . . Oregon? I remember when you went to Oregon.” She smirks and crosses her arms. 

   I nod. “Do you. . .”

   “Want to switch?” She finishes. I nod. “Sure.”

   This will be interesting. 

***

   Once I'm in Oregon and standing in my dressing room, I stare at my mirror.

   I wave, and my reflection waves. “You there?” I ask, shoving some food in my mouth.

   I have no makeup on, my blonde hair is a complete mess, and I have dark bags under my eyes. 

   Suddenly she moves. “Sorry.” She takes a breath, leaning forward. “I was, uh, talking to someone. So, are you ready to switch?” She asks.

   “Uh, yeah. Let me just put my makeup on.” I could have sworn I saw a frown on her face when I reached into my makeup bag. 

   “Okay.” She says quietly. 

   There's a weird tension in the room as I do my makeup. She seems. . . nervous. Maybe she's just scared to get onto a stage and sing in front of a bunch of people. I was the first time too. 

   “You’ll do fine,” I say, highlighting my cheeks with a soft golden highlighter.

   “What?” She looks confused, but then she nods. “Oh. Right.”

   The rest of the time I'm getting ready, I’m giving her tips and telling her about my life. She doesn't seem to care though. 

   I line my lips with a red lip liner, then put lipstick on. I'll be wearing a red dress today, which will match my lips and the red nails I got earlier. 

   “Are you ready now?” She asks through the mirror, looking me up and down. 

   “Gosh, you're impatient.” That's weird. I've always been a patient person unless I was really nervous about something. Hm. “I just need to put on my dress.” 

   She nods.

***

“Ready?” She asks, that same smirk on her face. 

   I nod, feeling a little uneasy. The past thirty minutes have been weird. She’s been acting all nervous and I don’t get nervous often. She told me that she’s pretty much another version of myself, so she should be like me, right? She should already have all that experience. Why is she so nervous?

   “Just hold your hand out to the mirror like this.” She places her hand flat on the mirror.

    I reach up to do it, but then I hold it back, my hand inches away from the mirror. “I'm not sure–”

    “Oh, just shut up and do it!” She nearly screams, her neck turning an ugly red that does not match the dress at all. When I back up a bit, she realizes what just happened. “Sorry. I'm just nervous.”

    “Yeah I got that”, I whisper. She looks at me, expecting me to say something. I groan. “Fine.”

    I reach my hand up and place it against hers. I close my eyes, and then I feel a spark. Once I open them, nothing looks different. It just feels like everything has been inverted. 

   She smiles at me, taking her hand off the mirror. 

   “Have fun,” I whisper. 

   She nods at me, a smirk on her face as she turns around. It looks like I’m just watching a video of myself.

   As she walks out the door I have this really weird uneasy feeling. 

   And that's when I realize,

   my reflection just took my life.