Wrong Side of the Mirror

Most people nowadays have always been in favor of being "in". They wanted to go with the flow of the current of trends. Fairly enough, as more changes in different aspects occur—whether it's the change of heart in preferred type of music, food, clothes, and etcetera, it is clearly evident that people have started copying influential or popular group or individual's style: basically from how they look, what they wear, drink, or eat, contents and stuffs—well, I could go on all day pointing them out.

Unfortunately, as people mask themselves with the shadow of the people they look up to—or really just want to be like them—they tend to forget how unique they are. As some songs are better in covers than the original, with a narrow perspective and understanding, people would certainly have the wrong mindset.

Say, for example, in this scenario of one particular class in a senior high school. If you look around that four-cornered classroom, you would see students in groups.

Not for an activity, no, but group of friends or just civilized students with almost the same interests, chatting about almost the same thing.

You could hear most of the girls talk about boys, and vice versa, and boys discussing about their favorite mobile games or the result of the game of their favorite team in basketball.

Some are eating, while some are sleeping.

But most of them have their faces on their phones: scrolling through social media, watching videos, reading published stories that make them kilig, or simply just taking a picture of themselves behind the curtains or just in plain sight.

Though, on the other hand, it still cannot be helped—thankfully—to have students that are serious in their studies, too. As their classmates procrastinate on any school works, they finish theirs firsthand. They prefer to have leisure time without anything to worry about.

Now, if you think everyone is friends here, well, they might be, but not in the case of Maeby.

Maeby has no friend in the class. She is what you could consider as the black sheep, but she is very well-known to be the copycat. She's that person who always desires to be in the spotlight. If a classmate made everyone laugh, it would piss her off and would attempt to make something funnier. If someone has a new thing, she would copy them but better.

She always wants to be the better one in everything.

While some people has their own favorite person, animal, place, or things, Maeby has her own, too. Of course, who doesn't have a one or more, right?

Phoebe, the claimed leader of all, renounced by all, is Maeby's favorite. She is basically the epitome of beauty and brain. Everybody loves her—she always gets everyone's attention even with the simplest thing she does. Everybody admires her.

Especially Maeby.

Coincidentally and unfortunately enough for Phoebe, and fortunately enough for Maeby, the two almost look alike. It's as if they're two peas in a pod: both have the same petite physique, face shape, eye color, and others that can be obviously pointed out. They're basically mistaken as twins, but a huge difference in their attitudes and characters is pretty distinguishable.

However, no matter how much they look alike, Maeby still wants to be better.

She copies whatever Phoebe wears and has: her hairstyle, the things she possesses such as the accessories she puts on, the shoes she walks on, the bag she carries, and etcetera, her manners—technically everything—Maeby copied them. Maeby is essentially becoming her better version of Phoebe, but she still could never get the admiration of the people around her.

The shadowing continued until Phoebe couldn't take it anymore. Maeby has finally gotten to her nerves and she knew she has to slap the truth on her face. So, one day, she approached her and said, "Will you stop? Admit it, you're never gonna be like me nor anybody else. Why don't you just be the best version of yourself instead of being the better of someone else's? Grow up, Maeby, please stop abusing yourself."

Even though Phoebe was extremely irritated and pissed off, she still talked to her sincerely, concernedly, and carefully, but bluntly. She has no intentions of embarrassing her in front of everyone but as Maeby roamed her eyes around their classroom, she could see her classmates' smug faces and smirks, as if saying she deserved what just happened.

She completely thought and convinced herself of the opposite of Phoebe's true intentions.

She couldn't take the shame so she bolted out of the room. Phoebe was genuinely worried if she had offended her, but she thought she deserved to know the truth for her to get her facts straight.

Yet, she couldn't fathom the thought of leaving her like that so she followed her.

Days after, Maeby stopped attending her classes. There was a sigh of relief in everyone, like a torn was removed from their chest, but some were worried as it's been days since she last showed up. No news or anything even.

As the leader of all, Phoebe decided to inform them about the news she got so she stood in front of the class and said, "Maeby was truly and deeply sorry for being such an immature child. She decided to stop going to school to soul-search and meditate on herself. Let's just hope her the best and not worry."

Everyone smiled, nodded, and genuinely hoped Maeby the best.

As Phoebe returned to her seat in the front row, a small, sinister smile formed on her lips for a split second. "Fools," she thought.

No one saw that evil smirk on Phoebe.

No one knows—and would also know—what happened when Phoebe went after Maeby.

And no one would ever know they are all looking at the wrong side of the mirror.

End.