Mirror, Mirror

If someone's smile could be poison, she was cyanide. His body would itch when he saw her, her laugh turning him stone cold. Her eyes would glint like the apple in Snow White's hand, and her voice would coil around her prey like a python, just squeezing and squeezing and squeezing the life out of everyone in the room.

She had cursed his dreams and filled his thoughts with toxins. Her hair was as black as a midnight sky. Her icy voice had the cadence of a hiss, her round cheeks as rosy red as Satan's horns. Suddenly, she turned around and stared directly into his eyes. It felt like he was looking into the center of a volcano.

"That's the second time I've seen you glare at her, this lunch alone," his friend whispered to him. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing, man," Joe replied. "I'm gonna go to my locker."

He got up, threw his lunch out in the barrel next to him, and stormed out of the two wideset doors guarding the cafeteria. He made it to his locker, his hand grasping the cold lock. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Just as he started punching in his combination, he heard soft footsteps come up from behind him. He closed his eyes.

"I still don't know why you hate me. You haven't even returned any of my calls or texts." The voice was the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. It made his back stiffen and he didn't bother to look. "I know you can hear me."

He turned around to confront her, but she was gone.

• • •

"Do you have a Stop and Shop rewards card, ma'am?"

The woman nodded and plugged in her pin. He'd been working for what seemed like centuries, and the sun was starting to set. There was a hazy fog over the windows, and it felt like he was inside a globe looking out into the world.

"Alright, have a great day," he responded mindlessly, already starting to ring up the next person. There were a few loaves of bread, a gallon of milk, and some red apples. Without looking up from his register, he started scanning the items.

"I have a rewards card," a voice said, and his head shot up.

"Uh-" he started, his mind blank. She had her arms crossed, looking up at him with dead eyes. Her features were softer in the haziness of the light, and she almost didn't feel real to him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm getting some bread, milk, and apples, what else does it look like?"

He began to shake his head. "No, no, I mean, what are you doing in my line?"

She fell silent, and she glanced down at her fidgeting hands. "I guess I don't know."

He bagged her items, throwing the apples into the bread bag. She paid silently, and left without another word.

• • •

Joe kept kicking himself for not saying anything during that encounter.

She was right there, just getting her groceries, there wasn't any need to be rude to her. Yet he was a complete jerk.

He waved goodbye to Mike at the register next to him and slipped off his nametag. The chatter of the store and the squeaking of the automatic doors filled his mind. He mindlessly started whistling as he walked down the dimly lit, empty hall. Joe fished his keys out of his jeans pocket when his eyes rested on a pair of pale yellow sneakers. He froze.

"What are you still doing here?"

She had her legs crossed, perched on the wooden bench in the hallway, and looked up at him standing before her. "Finally. I've been waiting for you to get out so we could talk."

"But why?" he questioned, his arms dropping to his side. "I mean, is this the best place to do it?"

He gestured to the bustling crowd of late-night Stop and Shop shoppers behind the glass window she sat under.

"You've been ignoring me for a year or two, and I have no clue why. And now, you're being rude about it, too."

He scoffed and began to turn away when he felt cold fingers curling around his forearm, gripping him tightly.

"How can we be friends for eight years, and you drop me just like that? Eight years, Joe. No explanation. I think I deserve one." She released her hand, and began to scoop up her groceries. She started to mumble. "And now the milk is probably bad, and my mom is probably wondering where I've been the past forty-five minutes..."

He took a seat next to her.

"You didn't return any of my calls. You didn't read any of my texts, none of my emails . . .". She stopped gathering her grocery items and put her folded hands in her lap. "You didn't even wish me happy birthday."

He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry. I know it was yesterday, I just didn't get around to it."

"Didn't get around to it? Eight years, Joe."

They fell silent.

"You really don't know?" he asked.

Joe saw her bite her lip out of the corner of his eye while simultaneously shaking her head.
He sighed in return. "You know Junior year, when you dated that kid, James?"

Her cheeks flushed, and she nodded once more.

He picked at his nails, taking a deep breath. "And I told you that you shouldn't, and you asked why, and I didn't really have an explanation for it. I just didn't like seeing you with him, even though you looked so happy."

Her nodding was a broken loop.

"And at first I just assumed it was some sort of brotherly instinct or something, and I just didn't like seeing you with someone like that. Y'know, because he wasn't the most..." Joe muttered, glancing at his feet. "Pure."

"What does that have anything to do with why you hate me? Because I dated James? I'm not even dating him anymore, I still don't underst-"

"And then you dated Bobby, and you, once again, latched onto him like a hook in a fish, sunken so far deep in the relationship, again," he continued, the words just slipping out of his mouth. "And then, when you dated Miles the beginning of this year, and how you, once again, leeched onto him like an infestation, always attached to Miles' hip."

Her face looked sunburnt. "I don't understand, what's that have to do with anything?"

Joe took a deep breath. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't think it's fair of you to say that I was the one to drop you 'just like that'."

She fell silent.

He could faintly make out the quiet hum of the air conditioning and the rumbling of cars. A woman came bustling in through the door and passed by them. The pair just continued to look straight ahead.

"I know you just started dating Eric just a week ago, and I think it made my anger ignite again, which isn't fair to you . . ." It was a few minutes before he spoke, and he had to clear his voice a few times before he could clearly articulate his next words without sounding like a frog. "And I think it made me remember how much I was in love with you."

Silence ensued.

The headlights of the cars glowed through the foggy glass. The faint sound of squealing shopping carts was disappearing as the clock ticked on. His eyesight began to blur, his thoughts disappearing.

"I'm sorry I abandoned you like that, it wasn't fair to you and I wasn't a good friend," she whispered, both of them staring straight ahead into the foggy abyss. "But that doesn't excuse you for being so rude to me the past year."

He nodded.

"And I'm dating Eric now. Nothing can happen between us."

And again, he nodded. His eyes felt glassy. "But we can work on our friendship?"

Joe could feel her eyes on the side of his face, and he couldn't force himself to look. He felt his heart start jumping. She looked away and started rummaging through her grocery bags. Pulling the bag of apples and bread onto her lap, she fished around and grabbed two of the scarlet apples, one in each hand.

She held out one of the apples to him and he silently grabbed it, taking a big bite. They crunched in the dark hall of the Stop and Shop, not saying another word.