Mirrored Perspective.

Chapter 1

When I was younger, I was taught that mirrors were just my reflection.

***

One day I came home to my aunt; I just wanted to talk to her, that's all. But I walked in that door that same day, and she was gone: and the next day, and the next day, and the one after that. Those days turned into weeks, those weeks into months, and here we are at three years later, still counting those days.

The police said maybe she just wanted to be alone, that she ran off with some guy, or a bottle of wine.

My aunt liked to drink, that's for sure. She wasn't an alcoholic, but she definitely enjoyed a decent glass of wine at noon every once in a while; okay maybe every day. But none of that matters, because my aunt didn't just run off, she loved us, me.

I was 14 at the time, but now I'm 17. It's been three years since my aunt disappeared, and I have a theory, many theories, but one stuck out the most. Should I even tell you? What do you care?

***

My aunt wasn't kidnapped, she didn't just run away, and she's certainly not dead. Well, I'm not so sure about that last one, but I don't like to think like that, it could set me off again. To be honest, I'm not really sure what's happened to her.

None of that backstory matters anyway, and I was hesitant to tell it to the police out of fear that they would assume she wasn't a good guardian, and that I would lose her. But I told them anyway, because I had already lost her. And, if she ever did come back, they wouldn't let her keep me anyways.

"Why'd you have to leave me too?"

I think that every day when I talk to her. I sometimes imagine what she's doing, where she's going, the people she's met, or ones she's yet to meet. I imagine her life, and if she even misses the one she once had. I wonder if she misses me, and why she didn't just take me with her.

I like to think she's traveled to a million different places, and met too many people, and that she will have so many stories to tell me when she comes back for me; that's what I hope, that's what I wish for her, but also for me.

But at the same time I can't help to wish that she's been through hard times, has made enemies, and has suffered a pain worse than mine. I wish she's had her heart broken, because she wasn't there for mine, no one really was. I hope she's been through hell.

***

Before she left,she used to make  us homemade caramel corn and we'd watch a new movie every night. She used to listen to me rant about my friends, my stupid thoughts; she listened. But now all that's gone, and I fear I might never get it back.

The events of the last night I ever spent with her replay in my head, over and over, like a broken record that just keeps spinning. It keeps playing, yet serves no purpose, because that beautiful chorus is cut off, and you've replayed it so much to the point of exhaustion. It's just not the same, it's lost all its glory. And you've lost that amazing, warm feeling you got when you first listened to it, unaware of how ungrateful you were being of those great moments, now lost forever, never to be recreated with the same glory.

Oh, how I miss it, how I long for just one more of those moments: Just one.