The Reflection That Loved Me Back

I threw the ball and it bounced back to me, exactly as a heart should. The city had been a mirror that lied to me for months: glass towers showing only my tired face at midnight, screens glowing with messages I never sent. Here, though, the sea is an honest pane of silver. When I press my palm to the wet sand and watch my reflection ripple in the tide, it smiles before I do. It knows the warmth I am still learning to feel. A stranger walks past on the shore and his eyes catch mine across the water; for a heartbeat I cannot tell which of us is real, only that the reflected me reaches out first and lets go of the cold. The volleyball arcs overhead like a sun with stripes, and I laugh because laughter is just warmth finding its way back into a body that had forgotten it. I am not healed by the beach; I am healed by the mirror that finally agrees with me.

Editor: Mirror Logic