I stared down at the dream pool, my empty reflection waiting. The only place I could summon her.
Her laughter echoed around me. The sound sad clowns make when they’re happy. A choked chortle that vibrated through me. A drowned creature reaching out to me.
“I thought you loved me.”
“I did – I, I do!”
I stared down at the pool, my reflection changed to that of her. The halo of blond curls. The blue eyes that glinted with angry tears.
“You left me behind.”
“You refused to move!”
She laughed bitterly.
I reached down to her, my hands grasping water and loss.
“Do you miss me?” She asked me, ignoring how my fingers skewed through her. I lifted my hand, cupping her face. For a moment she smiled radiantly, the water veil shifting so I saw her true smile. The smile of my childhood heart. I felt nothing with my hands as my heart began to buckle under the sheer volume of her weightlessness. Her absence and presence choked me with fragile fingers.
“I miss you the way children miss their comfort toys.” The emotion burning through my brain leaked out of my eyes, the tears hissing as they hit the water.
She was pleased with my response, those hard eyes softening for just a moment. Long ago she held my hands and promised me the world. A world I never got to see.
It crushed me. My chest feeling as though my rib cage was crossing over itself.
“I love you.” I whispered to my reflection. “You were my first love. No matter how poisoned or broken it was. You were what taught me that I could be picked first.”
She giggled. My hand in the water cramped against her ghostly cheek.
“Do you ever think of me?” I murmured, my heart hammering.
She narrowed her eyes, tilting her head to the side so my wrinkling hand passed through her face. “Why would I think of the one who left me behind? I was drowning in my choices. You left me there.”
“You didn’t want to be reminded of my success! You said my light burned you. You. Left. Me.”
She stared at me with a sad smile. It tugged at her lips in a pained expression. My heart ached as it dripped blood into my body. Slow and sluggish.
“I miss you.” I whispered harshly, “I miss us.”
That cruel, haughty laugh that used to chill my blood echoed through the water. Her hair slowly darkened as she grinned a toothy grin.
She was my childhood coin. One side an angel. The other, the demon she never escaped.
“I know.” She cackled.
A hand shot out of the water, gripping my neck and pulling me forward so I stared inches from the water. I didn’t struggle. Only committed her face to memory.
“May you miss me into the twilight of your life.” She hissed.
I woke up. Soaked in sweat.
“So be it.”
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