I met a girl who’d taken residence inside my mind.
One morning, when my eyes were still heavy from sleep, she revealed herself to me. She took the form of my own reflection as I brushed my teeth. Though she was only made of shadows, she grinned like the Cheshire Cat from my nightmares.
“Who are you?” I asked her. “Where do you come from?”
She grabbed my face and pulled me into the mirror before I could scream, and showed me the answers to my questions from her own eyes.
I saw how she’d creeped in at night, when my gentle snores masked the brush of her footsteps on the carpeted floor. When she peeked into my ears and saw it was empty, she turned to smoke and slithered inside my brain like an eel.
There she found the vaulted doors I kept locked for good reason and tore through my memories like they were made of parchment. She ravaged my mind, taking my happy moments for herself and replacing them with her own anguish and horror and torment; dancing under the ashes of my raging fears as if it were rain.
She stood before the flames she’d started, grinning again with her disfigured mouth. The edges of her razor-sharp teeth gleamed in the dark.
There was a wildness in her eyes for which I had no name nor desire to know, but something made me look deeper. I realized what I'd thought were pointed teeth were actually crude stitches that sealed her lips closed, and the wildness was actually a desolation that could have driven anyone insane.
“Can you not speak?” I asked her. She shook her head no. The fumes from the fire blurred both our eyes when she reached for me again.
We resurfaced together. Me, on the floor, the toothbrush still dangling from my lips. Her in the mirror up above.
I waited weeks to get inside, she said. You always cover your ears when you sleep.
Her words were hardly a whisper in my mind—more wind than voice. I thought of the way she’d pocketed my good memories, only leaving behind the bits neither of us wanted. She wasn’t welcome in my brain.
“I do that to keep things like you out.”
She cocked her head. Am I really so bad? Sorrow coated her words like molasses. It weighed her down until she sank to the floor too. She was out of the mirror now, her face inches away from my own.
Do you not want me around?
I'm not sure what answer I would have given her if I'd known that'd be the last time I'd see her.
Her eyes formed into gaping holes that collapsed deeper into her skull. I glided my hand through her, marveling at the colorless smoke that was her being. The last thing she told me was Don't worry; I won't make myself seen before she turned back into that eel and slithered back into my ear.
I grabbed at my face, yelling at her to come back, but she shrank further into my mind. She sighed contently when she found a warm place to rest. I tried to coax her out in my dreams with sweet words and even sweeter promises, but she sank her toes farther until they grew roots, and pulling her out would have meant pulling out a larger part of myself I was not willing to let go of. So I let her stay.
Over the years, I fed her with laughter and lightened her with joy. When the stitches dissolved from her lips, I taught her how beautiful it was to smile. Her roots grew deeper but I didn’t mind. She’d become a sprawling forest, spirited and full of life.
During one of my lonely nights, when tears stained my cheeks and put salt in my mouth, she came out one last time to lie next to me and hold my hand. Though she was still made of smoke, she felt warm now.
She revealed those memories she’d stolen from me so long ago, flipping through them like a picture book until the water in my eyes came from joy instead of despair.
“Thank you,” she whispered, before climbing back into my ear. It was the first time I’d heard her speak, and the sound was beautiful enough it made me cry all over again. When the sobs finally settled, and all I was left with was the noise of my own breath, I called out to the girl and made sure she was listening.
You won’t ever leave, will you?
She bristled in my head. The leaves we’d grown together shook, unnerved. Do you not want me around?
I smiled, knowing she would do the same.
I’d have you forever, if you’d like to stay.
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