Where the Mirrors Break

The neighbors’ dogs won’t quiet, so I press the volume button again and again until the walls pulse with the shimmer of lightsabers and a galaxy far, far away.

Vvrrrmmm!

Krsshh!

Whumm-whumm!

There. That should drown them out for a while. Or, you know, at least make me forget they’re there. I absentmindedly stick a foot in my Minion shaped houseshoes, tapping the other foot around it to find the left one. Where did it end up? My body glides to the floor like honey off a spoon, and I start feeling for my shoe. Can’t be anywhere but under the couch, can it?

“Ohhhh! Banana!” I mutter to myself when my fingers graze it. As if any of this mattered, I slide it on.

In the hallway, I pass an old candy wrapper. A Milky Way. When did I eat that? Was it last Friday? Or the Friday before? Time has a way of melting into a vat of warm wax when life forgets to mean anything.

Tuesday blends into Wednesday, Thursday collapses into Sunday, and just like that, a month is gone.

I’ve had moments like this before—when everything starts to dissolve, when days stretch thin and brittle. Life slows to a still, and all that’s left is the horrendous clock on the wall, dragging me forward with its inexorable tic-tac.

As I pass the mirror I got at an art sale what feels like a million years ago, I catch a glimpse of what should be me—but it’s more akin to the ghost of my zombie.

A woman in her mid-thirties stares back, all soft angles and faded beauty, the kind people used to compliment with a quiet kind of envy. Her cheekbones still hold their shape, but her eyes have the look of someone who hasn’t slept properly in years—eyes that have watched too many midnight films and stared too long into nothing. Her hair is unbrushed in that almost-stylish way, hanging like a half-finished thought. There’s a smudge of something on her Stitch pajama sweater. Jam? Lipstick? A tear? It hardly matters.

She looks like someone who once had plans. Now she’s mostly made of sighs. I don’t recognize myself anymore.

I decide to take a shower, I might feel dead due to my perennial insomnia, but truth is I am stil alive. Might as well look it, albeit only marginally. The bathroom light flickers when I flip the switch. It always has, like it’s deciding whether I’m worth the energy. I peel off my clothes with the same urgency as opening a letter I already know the contents of.

Inside the shower, time stretches.

For a moment, I forget about the tv that’s showing Episode III for the umpteenth time, the dogs who won’t give me a break, the feeling of doom and solitude I’ve unwillingly been basking in for the last 3 weeks. My skin is wholly focused on the tingling sensation brought on by the hot water—that grey area between almost-too-hot and just-right. My nostrils quietly take in the coconut sweetness of the body wash, and my ears sink into the white noise produced by the running water.

Oh, if only life could be a shower.

My momentary bliss is brutally interrupted by a sound that I was not expecting to hear at all, one I haven’t heard for weeks now.

“Bzzzt! Bzzzt!”

Hmm, it’s probably just my imagination, must be the tv.

“Bzzzt! Bzzzt!”

Resigned, I yank the faucet off and step out, dripping and irritated, the coconut scent already a faded memory to my nose. A towel slumps around my shoulders like it, too, is tired of all this. I quickly wrap myself up in my purple bathrobe and give my wet hair a pathetic pat with a towel.

“Bzzzt! Bzzzt!”

“I am coming!” I screech, my voice unused for days.

When I open the door, I have to do a double take. For a second, it looks like Hayden is standing there—Hayden Christensen, with that enigmatic smile and that too-perfect face, the one I’ve seen in a hundred movies and a thousand dreams. But that can’t be. Of course it can’t be.

There, I finally went completely crazy. It was bound to happen, really.

I blink again, convinced that Hayden’s dreamy silhouette would soon vanish, replaced by whoever is standing in front of me. Nope, still Hayden, looking visibly inquisitory.

“Ehm, hi?” He offers, smiling.

“Sorry, hi! Uh, can I help you?”

“My name is Hayden, I was hoping to come in real quick, but maybe I caught you at a bad time?”

What do you mean your name is Hayden? It can’t be.

“Is this a joke?”

“No, but if I am a bother, I will be on my way…” he motions to turn around and leave, but I instinctively take a step forward and touch him on the shoulder, just to make sure he’s real.

No, no, of course not! Please, come in. Sorry—I was… I was taking a shower. And, oh, I was watching a movie before that...”

I step aside and let the Hayden lookalike enter my apartment, kicking the Milky Way wrapper under the shoe rack as subtly as allowed by my Minions houseshoes.

This feels impossible. Absolutely, cosmically impossible.

Why, on God’s green earth, is Hayden Christensen standing in my hallway?

And more pressingly—why, God, why—am I wearing nothing but a bathrobe?

As soon as I turn around to face him, his piercing blue eyes are on me.

My voice is stuck somewhere between my stomach and my heart. I gesture vaguely toward the couch and lead the way. I sit, trying to cover as much of myself as possible with my bathrobe, which only makes everything more awkward. A single drop of water escapes from my forehead and lands in my eye. Before I can react, Hayden—or well, this man—leans in and gently brushes it away with his thumb.

He does it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Without missing a beat, and acting as though nothing strange has happened at all, he clears his throat and starts speaking, his eyes still locked on mine.

“So, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing here…?”

“Yeah, I mean—just a little… are you really… I mean… is it really… you?”

He laughs. His laughter sounds like sunshine on a Greek beach, warm and somehow ancient.

“Yes. I am me. I’m Hayden Christensen.”

He reaches out smoothly to shake my hand, but I’m too stunned to move.

“Uhm, I’m Vera. Nice to meet you.”

In horror, I realize the TV is still playing the end credits of Episode III. Thankfully, I had turned the volume down before hopping in the shower. I fumble for the remote and, without looking, find the off button and press it hard, my nail digging into the plastic like it might tell that this is real.

“Well, Vera,” he says calmly, “I have a feeling you have no idea why I’m here, so let me explain.”

He shifts slightly, still perfectly composed.

“About a month ago,” he continues, “someone contacted my publicist asking for a business meeting. Her name was April.”

I jolt at the sound of her name

“April?” I whisper. “I had a friend named April. She… she’s not with us anymore.”

His face darkens.

“I’m so terribly sorry to hear that, Vera.”

I nod, unsure how to hold the moment without breaking it.

“Well,” he continues, “April was smart. And cunning. After some back and forth with my agent, we agreed on a time and place to meet—for what I thought was a business proposal. Turns out, it wasn’t a business proposal at all. It was… well, kind of a trap.”

He laughs. For a moment I thought he was about to tell me something truly terrible.

“You see, April explained to me that she was a matchmaker. Said a quick Google search told her I was single. And according to her, she had the perfect match for me…”

“Oh, really?” I breathe, still stunned by the fact that his legs are actually touching my coffee table.

“Indeed… But I’ll cut to the chase. She told me you’d be my perfect match. At first, I thought she was a little unhinged and then she showed me this website, full of success stories. I figured, hey, why not hear her out.”

I must look like I have seen a ghost because Hayden motions towards me, as if to check if I heard what he said.

“She said… I am your… She what?” I blurt out, unable to compose myself.

This must be a joke.

“I know,it’s probably a lot to process… Do you maybe want to take a few minutes to get dressed?”

Right. The bathrobe. The wet hair. I’m basically naked, figuratively and, well, literally.

“Yeah—yes. I’ll be… just a minute”

I rush into the bedroom, closing the door with a soft thud. I lose the bathrobe and grab the first things I can find—a pink hoodie with a hole in the cuff, a pair of jeans that still sort of fit, and the soft socks with stars on them that April once gave me as a joke for “emergency stargazing.” My fingers tremble as I brush out my hair. I don’t bother drying it completely. My reflection in the mirror is confused, quizzical. There is a question that’s dying to be answered, but I don't have time for it.

When I return to the living room, Hayden is still sitting, legs crossed, hands folded politely in his lap. Like he belongs there. Like this is completely normal.

“Better?” he asks, forging that heart melting smile of his.

“Slightly more clothed, at least,” I reply.

He nods.

“So, Vera,” he says, his voice a little softer now, “I know this is strange.I know none of this makes sense.”

He pauses, looks down at his hands for a second, then back up at me.

“But hey… it sounds like April knew a thing or two about matchmaking. So I was wondering…”

He leans in ever so slightly, and I find myself staring at his blue eyes once again.

“Would you want to go on a date with me?”

************************************************

The car ride is a whirlwind of nonsensical situations. As it turns out, Hayden had hired a limo for the day, and its driver, Melvin, was patiently waiting for us (or him) to come out of my apartment and give him the next destination. My head is spinning so fast I barely hear Hayden give the driver an address after consulting something on his phone.

I’m sure we talk a bit during the drive, but I am so taken aback by the absurdity of this whole thing that I can barely focus my thoughts on this new reality that envelops me like a warm hug.

When the driver halts, I see that we are in front of what looks like a museum. A bright pink neon size reads “The Memory Maze.” How could I live in this town and not know this place exists?! Of course, I had barely left the house in the last month or so, but still…

“I hope you like it!” Hayden interrupts my thoughts, “I googled it on the plane, seems like a whimsical place to visit… and today is closure day, which means we have it all for ourselves?”

I offer him the widest, most sincere smile and I say “Of course, it sounds great! Especially for someone whose memory is shotty at best.” I smirk and follow him to the entrance, where an anonymous looking young man is apparently waiting for us.

“Will it just be you two , Mr Christensen?”

He nods, and the man opens the door for us.

The doorway to the Memory Maze is shaped like an open mouth—velvet red and lined with mirrored teeth that shimmer as we pass through. The moment we step inside, the air changes. It’s cooler here, softer somehow, as if we’d stepped into a different reality, possibly someone else’s recollection.

The hallways branch and curl like ribbons, walls are made of fogged glass and fabric that ripple, as if moved by an invisible fan. Colors bleed from one surface to another—lavender into gold into a kind of light blue that reminds me of Hayden’s eyes.

Along the walls, framed photographs flicker and shift as we pass. One moment, a birthday party. The next, a woman brushing her hair in front of a mirror. I think I see my childhood bedroom—then it’s gone, replaced by someone else’s first kiss.

“This is…” I trail off, because there are too many words and none that fit.

Hayden steps beside me, close but not too close, his eyes scanning the space with the calm of someone who’s been here before—maybe in a dream. But then again, this man exudes calmness. How does he do that?

“They say it pulls memories out of you,” he murmurs. “Even the ones you think you forgot.”

We stand there for a moment, silent, both watching the shifting, flickering frames on the walls. Then, without a word, he takes my hand and gently leads me into the next room.

What waits for us is something I’ve only ever seen in movies—or dreams. The walls are mirrors. The floor is a mirror. The ceiling—of course—is another mirror, stretching upward into what feels like forever. There’s some kind of lighting, but I can’t find the source. It’s everywhere and nowhere, casting soft glows and long shadows that don’t seem to follow the normal earthly rules. But then again, today nothing is.

Dazed, confused, untethered—I feel like I’ve stumbled into a parallel universe where all the others converge. My body is here, but my mind is rippling outward in a thousand quiet waves.

Hayden smiles, wide and warm, and something in me clicks.

It’s not something I can explain. Not even if I knew all the words in all the languages of the world.

But something shifted. Quietly. Undeniably.

We talk.

Not the kind of talk that fills silence, but the kind that changes who you are in an instant.

We talk for two hours—maybe more. About life. Death. Loneliness. Memory. Identity. Those quiet existential crises that wake you at 3 a.m. and remind you that you’re still alive. He asks questions like no one ever has—not to pry, but to understand. And in return, he gives me pieces of his own life I never imagined I’d hear. Not in this lifetime. Not from him.

The man who, just this morning, had been waving a lightsaber across my TV screen…

That same man now stood beside me, in a room of infinite selves, looking at me.no, not looking. Seeing.

After what feels like both an eternity and a single second, Hayden takes my hand.

My heart stutters, then begins to thump harder in my chest. I feel the warmth rise to my cheeks, turning them a deeper shade of pink. I give his hand a gentle squeeze—just enough to say yes, I feel this too, or maybe yes, I know this is real.

But do I?

There’s a divide inside me, a silent trench warfare. One part, the one aching for connection, believes this is absolutely right. It doesn’t question a thing. It trusts, blindly.

The other part, the careful, tired one, remains unconvinced. It watches from a distance, positive this is a frail, ephemeral dream. Something so delicate that it could vanish the moment I blink too hard or breathe the wrong way.

I don’t know which part is right.

But even without an answer, I keep holding onto his hand.

“Vera,” he says, “this doesn’t feel new. It feels… remembered.”

The words are there, but won’t come out. I want to tell him that I feel the same, I want to tell him that I have known him my whole life. But the careful part is too scared of shattering this moment and losing it forever. I stutter. My mouth opens, then closes again. Instead, I move closer to him, quietly offering what my voice cannot say. In perfect silence, Hayden closes the distance between us. He places his hand gently on the small of my back and pulls me toward him. His lips find mine—soft, certain—and what begins as a gentle, almost cautious kiss quickly deepens into something else entirely.

A movie kiss. A heart-racing, time-pausing, everything-else-vanishing kind of kiss. The kind I’d only ever seen in movies and in my dreams. With my lips pressed to his and his tongue intertwined with mine, I tentatively opened my eyes, careful not to damage that reality I was living in. When I did, his bright blue eyes were staring back at me, gleaming in the beauty of that shimmering room of mirrors.

And just like that, I knew.