Mirrors

Who Are You?

Chapter Twenty-One:

Who Are You?

It was silent. My eyes were closed; I had no idea where I was. My whole body flopped on what felt like soft grass. A warm glow made me squint my eyes open, as if I was waking up from a dream in the afternoon. The sun illuminated the surroundings, and my vision started to clear up. I yawned; my knuckles rubbed my eyes awake. There I realized that I was wearing a white, knee-length dress. A golden band wrapped around my waist. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail. My body was completely rejuvenated; not a wrinkle in sight.

I stood up, brushing my dress with my hands. This world was different. It was empty. It was peaceful. It was neither sad nor happy. It was lifeless. This was the very definition of a purgatory—not like the ocean I struggled to stay afloat in. This world was a flat grassland, much like the meadow I met Colton in. From horizon to horizon, it was never-ending. There was no tree in sight, nor a house, nor any living thing. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. It was just me.

A breeze came, lifting my dress a little ways up. When I tried to keep my dress down, something slapped my face, covering my view. It was a newspaper article ripped off from a page. Large, bold letters caught my attention immediately.

Sixteen-Year-Old Crushed By A Car

I continued reading. The article went as follows:

Last Wednesday morning, sixteen-year-old Irene Valerie Serenity was hit by a car while crossing Cedar Boulevard. The man behind the wheel, Franklin Hendrix, was arrested for running a red light during the incident. The Serenity family established charges against the young man. But there was nothing left to do but wait for Irene to get better. She is currently in limbo, hanging on to dear life. Many of her friends and family had gathered around for the memorial of a brilliant girl with such a bright future.

This article was written about a week after my death. I wondered how long time had passed. In this world, there was no way to track time. There was no way to be sure whether time here went parallel with time in the real world. What if a second here was a thousand years in the real world? What would happen then?

I lowered the newspaper away from my face. When I looked straight ahead of me, I soon found out that I wasn’t alone in this world. Three girls stood in front of me. They wore the same white dress I wore. On the left was the youngest and shortest of the three, with innocent joy beaming throughout. In the middle was the saddest—the teenager. On the right was the oldest; glowing with content and hope. Each had a personality. Each were different from the other. But they were all one person: me.

“Hi, Irene,” they all said in unison.

I stood there, too petrified to utter a single word. My lips were infused together, not knowing how to form the words it needed to say. It felt like I was looking in the mirror, only to find three versions of me. Suddenly, I realized that one of them was about twenty years old. How could she exist when I was already dead?

“Hey, Irene,” the youngest one began. “I’m you at eight years old.”

“Hey,” the middle Irene said with a bashful wave. “I’m you at sixteen. The potential you. The one that lived. The one that represents who you are right now.”

“And I’m you at twenty-one years old,” the eldest said, holding out a right hand for a shake. “It’s nice to see you.”

I reached a hand to her; my whole arm started trembling. My lips felt the shake, but I found the strength to say what I wanted to. “Hu—hu—hi!” I raised a brow, still very confused. The eldest Irene immediately read my mind; her high sensitivity causes her to have great empathy.

“You might be wondering about—” she said, raising her arms out.

I nodded yes. I was very confused.

“Well,” the youngest Irene said. “Middle Irene and Elder Irene are you if that car crash hadn’t happen.”

My heart dropped. Little Irene said it so bluntly; I forgot how straightforward she was. My eyes widened, gazing at the two older Irenes. Looking at the eldest one made my chest hurt even more. She was taller. She was well put together. She looked healthy and content, like she led the life she always wanted to have. She was only twenty-one, but she already looked like she accomplished everything.

A bob with bangs carved the shape of her head so perfectly, hiding away the angles I never liked about myself. Her skin was flawless, almost like the goddess I had met a while ago. She wore bold, red lipstick attracting attention to her tempting lips, teasing anyone who looked at her. I stood there, staring at her with my mouth gaped open. This was the woman I was going to be . . . if I’d lived.

“Irene,” the older me broke in, waking me up from my daze.

“Huh? What?” I asked.

“We’re here to tell you something,” she said.

“About what?”

Little Irene answered with a sad sigh. “That you’re not letting yourself heal.”

“Yeah,” the older Irene agreed. “You’re avoiding your problems. You’re preventing yourself from being happy.”

“Irene, you had a good childhood,” young Irene added. “You can’t dwell in everything. Yes, you might have changed. Yes, you might have turned into something you didn’t want to be. But that’s it; you’re not little Irene anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to absorbed what they were saying.

“God!” little Irene exclaimed. “Can you stop being in denial?”

“Calm down little Irene,” the older one said. She turned to me, walking closer. “What she meant is that, you’re holding on to your past too much. Can you tell us what you really feel? Talking about it out loud will help you sort things out.”

Right there, she put me on the spot. I didn’t want to talk about anything. What’s the use? They already knew. I didn’t understand what they wanted me to do. Why was I here in an open field, talking to three versions of myself? Only two were talking anyways. The present me didn’t want to say a word. My body began trembling as I found myself tongue-tied once more. I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t bring myself to talk. Why couldn’t it just be easier than this.

Suddenly, my knees knocked together and I fell to the soft grass. Streams of tears started falling down my cheek. My throat started burning; I began to choke as I sobbed. Stress pulled me apart, but my exhaustion wouldn’t let me do anything about it. A sudden burst of adrenaline gave me enough energy to run for a couple seconds, but my mental state wouldn’t handle the extra exertion.

The two youngest and eldest Irenes fell to the ground with me. They tried their best to give some consolation, though they weren’t the best at it. I wasn’t the best at making a crying person feel better. There was no way I would know what to do. Carefully, little Irene pushed the topic further.

“Irene—Valerie—whatever you want to be called—I’m proud of you,” little Irene encouraged. “Everything you’ve done; you’re so much stronger than I thought you could ever be. You’re talented. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. You can’t let me—your past—hold you down. You’re not a little girl anymore. You’re not me. You’re you.”

“You’re not a monster, Irene,” the older Irene reassured. “You’re not.”

“You’re gonna have to face the ‘monster’ you thought you were sooner or later,” little Irene reminded. “It’s the only way out of here.”

Both my hands covered my face; I hated it when people saw me cry. When I couldn’t stop, little Irene sighed and stood up. She pulled one of my hands away from me, telling me to get up. I hesitantly followed her.

“You’ve been looking at yourself the wrong way, Irene,” she told me. She paused to look at me in the eyes, holding back tears.

“Let me show you something.”