All Marya heard around these hours were the typical words you expected at a place like this: “Goodbye” and “I love you” amidst other tearful farewells spoken by young children resounded clearly through her private room, almost as if mocking its obvious lack of visitors. She let out a long and labored breath, the simple task clearly taking its toll, as she rose from her bed and pulled apart the curtains covering the wide, clear windows to her left. She never had a particular fondness of nature, but anything that pulled her attention away from the loving farewells coming from her surrounding rooms was a pleasant choice.

She observed the sun as it shined intensely over the hospital’s courtyard, leaving each object hot to the touch. It was the start of late afternoon, and not to Marya’s surprise, she had nothing to look forward to. She had no urge nor strength left to take leisurely walks around the center, not with her aches worsening each day, reminding her of her state. Gradually, as the sun’s rays warmed her room, Marya climbed back into her bed and allowed them to lull her into an indolent sleep.

She dreamt, of course. At her age, Marya’s daydreams and nightdreams almost blended seamlessly together, her memories replaying in her mind to provide her with any entertainment. Today, she dreamt that she was a child again, young and healthy and unbridled with the debt of her weary body. As she relived the memory of being a nine-year-old who had long grown accustomed to the burden of providing for herself, Marya felt the flood of abandonment and loneliness return. “I’ll be back soon!” called out a distracted voice from a vague direction, which Marya recognized as her mother. The heavy thud of the door shutting behind her brought back memories of countless hours of Marya patiently waiting for her mother’s return, uncertain of when she’d return to make dinner or tuck her into bed. It wasn’t her mother’s fault. She had to work whatever odd jobs she could find to earn enough money to keep their home. Although Marya knew this, she still secretly felt twinges of resentment each night, knowing that her classmates had lively and loving homes to return to after school. “I promise,” Marya heard herself address to what nine-year-old her hoped was her future child, “I won’t give you the same life. I’ll be a good mom. I promise.” If only she had kept that promise.

Marya awoke, with sleep still clouding her head, to moist cheeks resting upon her dampened pillow. A quick glance to the windows revealed the sun setting each tree, bench, and blade of grass ablaze in a myriad of warm oranges and yellows. I’ve only been asleep for a few hours, she thought to herself. Hurriedly, Marya wiped the tears from her face with her palms, as if they were marks of shame. She laid there listlessly and watched the sun slowly dip below the horizon, leaving vivid streaks of pink and red against the darkening sky. It was beautiful, but nothing more than a distraction. She swore long ago to leave her past alone, to stifle it, suppress it, till it was nothing more than a mere memory. Her thoughts returned once more to it as she drifted back into sleep while dusk settled in.

Again, Marya dreamt. She watched herself as if peering through a blurred window. She was nearing the end of her youth, evident with faint lines framing her eyes and slight gray streaks adorning her hair as she cradled Audrey in her nursery. Anyone would have believed it to be an endearing memory, one that marked the exciting new phase of motherhood. But Marya knew better. All mothers felt an unconditional, overpowering love for their children — or at least they were supposed to. Since giving birth three months ago, Marya had harbored an ever-growing sense of guilt deep in her chest, where she felt it wringing at her heart and mind with each passing day.

The creak and muffled thud of the front door resounded through the house. Ah, Scott’s back, she remembered thinking. Marya watched as her younger self smiled before setting Audrey down in her crib and made her way downstairs to greet her husband. “Hi honey,” Marya beamed, embracing him tightly. “I missed you so much. How was work?” He returned the hug, his squeeze to her back ever so slightly weaker than hers. “Oh, great, great, you know,” he murmured distractedly. “All the same. Always a bore, but—” he paused for a moment and quickly pecked her forehead with a kiss. “—anything for you.” Marya smiled. She put on a facade, a pleasant smile, one that hid the fact that she knew her husband wore a false one of his own. A smile that desperately wanted to erase the truth that their marriage was disintegrating fast, faster than anything she was ready to accept. A smile that she knew fooled neither of them.

She paused, gathering her thoughts before beginning again.

“Dinner’s ready,” she ventured softly, hoping for a different response from the previous days.

“Oh, is it? That’s great Marya.”

A tense air settled in the gaps left from the silence between the pair.

“I’ll enjoy your wonderful cooking upstairs, dear. I’m pretty busy,” he called mindlessly over his shoulder, already striding towards the kitchen, leaving Marya as nothing more than an afterthought.

Day after day, always the same response. For the longest time, all Marya had yearned for was a stable life and a family— she got what she wanted, didn't she? Except the reality was that she knew she was a failure of a mother who could not even feel any true connection to her child and was a woman in a mundane and waning marriage. Unsurprised, Marya watched her younger self listlessly retreat back to the nursery, knowing that the ever-occurring sense of hopelessness had settled back into her chest and was there to stay.

She woke for a third time. She swept away her hair, mused from its hours spread against her pillow, and tried to wipe the grogginess from her eyes. It was well into the night: the pale moon was perched high in the pitch-black dark, gently illuminating the courtyard with the help of a few sparse streetlamps. Marya’s chest was rapidly rising and falling, accompanied with the quiet gasps of an attempt to stifle crying. Too many memories, too much regret, too much of everything all at once. She knew she couldn’t bear this much longer. She needed this mental torture to end.

She needed change. She would change.

This time, instead of retreating back to sleep, like a coward, Marya propped herself up on her shoulders and rested her back against her pillows in an upright position. Overcome with an iron-willed determination, she shut her eyes and conjured up a memory long-suppressed within her mind.

It was a stagnant and tepid moonless night the last time she spoke to Audrey. Marya didn’t know why Audrey had insisted on taking a walk at this hour, especially in this feverish weather. It was probably because she would be leaving tomorrow morning for her first year at university. Marya sighed, annoyed, as Audrey rambled on about something wildy insignificant. Suddenly, she asked a question that Marya didn’t know the answer to. She paused, lost in thought, before giving a simple dismissive “mhm” and continuing onwards.

“What do you mean? I asked you what you thought.”

Marya remembered wanting to groan. The humid air hung low around them, stifling any passing breezes and leaving the two drenched in their own sweat. The hot air was uncomfortable. Irritating. Suffocating.

“Well I don’t know dear,” she replied absentmindedly. She didn’t feel like engaging in conversation with her daughter. She decided to tell the truth. “I wasn’t paying attention because I didn’t feel like it was very important.”

Audrey halted, an expression of hurt bewilderment on her face. “What?”

“You heard me. All you do is complain and complain. I’m tired of listening to you, you spoiled girl.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You do. You complain about moving away, going to some college that no one’s ever heard about or cared about. Is that my fault?” Marya snapped. “No. It was yours. You had one job, and it was securing your future. You couldn’t even do that.”

Audrey still hadn’t moved from where she stopped, her face flushed a deep red.

“That’s not true, mom. I can easily get better grades. No one really cares about prestige anymore, anyways.”

Internally, Marya knew that her daughter was telling the truth. But she didn’t want to abide by reason. She just couldn’t stand being corrected, especially by her own daughter.

“I don’t care. You have been nothing but the source of my disappointment since you were born.” Enraged, Marya found that she couldn’t stop herself. “You’re the most ungrateful, wasteful, brat I’ve met.”

Audrey let out a loud, humorless laugh. “God, no wonder dad left you! You’re just so miserable to be around. You’re never proud of me, you never encourage me, you never do anything. I hate you.” Audrey’s voice was heavy with hurt.

Marya stared hard into her eyes and retaliated bitterly. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I always wished to have a child, but aside from meeting your father and getting stuck in a loveless marriage for years, you were the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

Audrey didn’t say anything. She only looked at Marya for a few moments before wiping the tears from her cheeks and turning around to walk home. Marya trailed her a few paces back in silence, feeling as if she should apologize, but remaining quiet in spite of herself. She remembered watching Audrey leave before dawn from the kitchen window, with the only goodbye between them being a long look of unspoken words. That was the last gaze they shared.

Marya returned to the present. In the dim light of her room, she reached for a pen and paper from the chair beside her and began writing diligently, with great focus and intent. She remained there as the hours passed and night slipped away, her pen filling page after page. Finally, Marya’s work was complete. She folded the sheets of paper together, tucked them into an envelope, and scrawled Audrey’s last known address on the back in hopes for a nurse to discover in a few hours.

Her life was full of regret. But she hoped that this could mend what she had ruined so many years ago. At last, Marya smiled and breathed for a final time as the sky’s inky navy and indigo streaks blended into the hues of the warm golden sunrise.

Somewhere, near a quiet town reminiscent of decades past, under broad, clear skies, and amidst oaks and aspens shedding their leaves once again, a woman named Melanie arrived at the lake. There was nothing particularly striking about her: middle-aged with thinning hair and sallow skin, who had no ambition nor strive in her youth, and now reported to an office as a secretary for a large insurance company that cared neither for its clients nor its employees. Her life was dull: unremarkable, planned out, methodical, predictable.

She had never felt any significant desire to be daring or spontaneous, instead choosing to settle down into a mundane but sufficient life. However, something changed yesterday. Melanie had seen a picture of the lake the day before in a discarded travel catalog on the sidewalk close to her home, now hundreds of miles away from where she stood. On a whim, as if it was almost calling to her, she had booked a flight to Vermont and immediately set out to see the lake.

The drive through the forest to get to an open area of lakefront in her old, rented Ford had Melanie grasping the steering wheel with wet palms, her nerves fringed with anticipation for a reason she could not quite place. Thoughts raced through her mind as she reflected on the past twenty-four hours. Hastily booking a flight and departing with only her purse and a coat, she now realized, was something absurdly out of character for her, something that she would never have imagined herself doing. “Why?” she wondered to herself. Why did her heart pound so rapidly within her chest? Why did she desire so strongly to see this lake? As she drove through the forest with her empty stomach and stale clothes, she found that despite her rash choices, she didn’t seem to care.

Finally, after reaching a secluded part of the shoreline, she abandoned her car and hiked up a short way till she stood on a small, cliff-like ledge. The strong blue currents lapping against the rocky shores of the lake entranced Melanie as she stared at the rhythmic movement, almost unable to take her eyes away from them. “How beautiful!” she gasped aloud to no one. From where she was standing, she could see the expanse of water spread out far and wide under the cloudless sky with the occasional cluster of oak trees scattered along the shore. A thought quickly flitted across Melanie’s mind. She remembered that the travel catalog had depicted many groups of families and friends laughing and traversing the water in boats, but where were they now? No cheers of laughter, no creatures swimming beneath the surface, and not even the songs of birds were present. The water was beautiful yet barren. A heavy, leaden feeling settled in her chest before her mind suddenly cleared and she remembered why she was there. “To see the water, of course,” she exhaled with a grin.

She stood on that small ledge for hours. The sky grew darker and the temperature cooler as night approached, yet Melanie had no urge to leave. Everything in that moment felt completely right- her underlying hatred of herself and her unexceptional life soothed and disappeared as she listened to the waves crashing against the rocks below her.

Suddenly, in the dimming light, a flash of movement in the water caught her eye. “What was that, there, in the distance?” she thought to herself, her pulse quickening with concern. “A hand? A child’s hand? Oh god, was someone stuck here all this time?” Without hesitation, she suddenly began making her way down the steep ledge, tripping and stumbling over rocks in the dark. Loose stones seemed to evade her feet as she sought stable ground, cutting her calves and causing her to wince in pain as her ankles twisted and bent at unnatural angles. She didn’t care. She needed to know what she saw. Finally, she stepped into the lake. One foot at a time, she trudged into the cold, inky water, gasping from the pain in her wounded legs and seeing her blood create red swirls in the water she left behind her. She didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. Further and further she went, as if in a daze, unable to stop as she felt the frigid water rapidly rushing up her body.

Whatever she saw in the water, she could see no longer. There was no hand, no child, no one on the verge of drowning in the dark. There was only Melanie, now struggling to keep her head above the water, coughing and sputtering as the lake water seemed to tug her further out. Her heart felt like it could nearly explode with panic, yet Melanie could feel her fear being placated by a strange, muddled state of mind. Something wanted her to go deeper, yes, deeper into the water below. She could feel her body protesting with all its might. Somewhere deep in her mind, she could hear cries of “No! No! Please, no!”, yet the urge to comply with that inviting feeling overpowered that small voice of consciousness, so far off lost in the sea of her thoughts now.

At last, with an unnatural sense of calmness, Melanie allowed the desire of the water to slowly sink her to the bottom of that frigid, dark lake.

November 8th, 8:43 p.m.

I ripped open the passenger door, breathless. Maya, still warm, laid limp as I pulled her in my arms. Her blood coated everything in sight. The overwhelming scent of rust invaded the car; it clung to the dashboard, the windshield, the linoleum seat covers... it clung to my hands. Deafened my senses. I couldn’t hear anything, although I could feel the sensation of screams rising from my throat between my gasps for air.

I don’t really know how long I stayed there, kneeling on the crumbled asphalt and cradling her broken body. They told me to move away from her. Why? No, you don’t understand. She’s my best friend, I need to stay with her. Please let me stay with her! I watched as they took photographs of her body. For evidence, they told me, as I sat with a blanket over my shoulders. Who gave me this blanket? I couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. “What happened? Can you tell me what you saw?” I heard over and over. I tried to answer, but no words escaped my mouth.

November 9th, 1:56 a.m.

My parents had arrived soon after, and when I was finally allowed to leave, we drove back in silence. When we got home, I silently went into my room. I felt numb. I gingerly sat on the stool that stood in front of my vanity. It had been a gift for one of my birthdays, years ago. Carved details of wood painted over with a cheap white paint delicately framed a large mirror that I used every day to get ready for school.

I stared at my reflection. Oh god, I hadn’t even realized that during those hours, I must’ve gotten her blood smeared on my cheeks. I frantically pulled on my sleeves and tried rubbing it off my face in a panic. No no no no no, I thought, I can’t think about her right now, I need to get this off, oh god, oh god, oh g-

Suddenly, a loud CRACK! brought me back to the reality of my dark bedroom. I gasped and shot up, backing away towards the wall behind me. After a few seconds of silence, I slowly approached my mirror.

Somehow, a few inches of the glass had fractured in an outwards-branching crack, just in its upper-right corner.

November 12th, 2:14 p.m.

“It’s not your fault, dear,” they said. The whole morning I had heard such condolences meant to bring me some kind of comfort. How could I feel better as I watched Maya lowered into the ground? The sun had shone brilliantly, but I felt insulted that the day could be so beautiful with her death clouding my mind. Inside her home, the dull aching in my chest became a throbbing pain as the framed pictures of her childhood seemed to loom above my head and crush me into the ground. Oh, god… this was too much. I had to leave. I had to get out. I hastily bid her parents goodbye, who paused their mourning to give me a hug, and ran down her street for a few minutes until I reached my own house and collapsed in my bedroom.

The sound of my crying overwhelmed me. Gnawing pain swelled in my chest and ate away at me in waves. This was never supposed to happen.We were supposed to see each other graduate. Help each other through the maze-like transition from adolescence to adulthood. Grow up with each other. Fragments of our shared memories rose in my mind—Maya comforting me, explaining how to do our calculus homework, and being on the receiving end of hour-long phone calls about the most trivial things. She was always there for me… but I wasn’t there for her. All of the sudden, another loud CRACK! resonated from my vanity mirror. I could now see my distorted reflection staring up at it from the floor, my image fully consumed by the splintered glass. Then, I saw the blood on my face. Maya’s blood? How? No! No, no, no, not again, please not again.

I cried out and ran to my broken mirror, prepared to scrub off her blood when I halted. My face was already bare. I stared at my fragmented reflection, confusion wrecking my head as my heart began racing with fright. I wanted to run, but I knew that I couldn’t escape this hell. I choked on the last of my sobs and tried to sleep in silence.

November 16th, 12:19 a.m.

I haven’t left my room since her funeral. I ache to hear Maya’s voice sometimes. Often, I’ll wake up thinking that she’s calling my name, when in reality, I’m alone. I spend most of my hours sitting on my stool, gazing at my reflection. Sometimes, I don’t recognize myself anymore. The girl on the other side seems to lag—as if she merely imitates my expressions in a game of copy-cat. I sat there once more and buried my head in my hands as I remembered what happened.

November 8th, 8:32 p.m.

We had just finished eating dinner after a day of hanging out. I was driving with the windows down, the wind tangling our hair while we entertained each other with jokes and laughed. “Let’s stop at a gas station quickly,” I suggested. She frowned. “It’s already dark, can’t we just go home? We have our Calc test tomorrow, you know, and we both need to study for it.” We did, but I didn’t really care. I hated the reminder of school. The thought of spending the next few hours alone in my room and studying integrals with frustration felt like a slow suffocation. If mindless procrastination was the solution, I would gladly oblige, and Maya knew that. “It won’t be that long, I promise. I’ll look around for some snacks and be right back,” I reassured her. I could tell she wanted to protest, but instead, she pursed her lips and looked away. She never objected to me. I resented myself. Why was I so selfish?

We pulled into the parking lot and I jumped out of my car without bothering to lock the doors or to say good-bye. Minutes passed as I roamed the aisles of processed snacks, occasionally passing a tall man doing the same, but glancing at the parking lot every now and then. I thought nothing of it.

He soon left without purchasing anything, but all I was thinking was that there would be no long line in an otherwise empty convenience store. Just as I was about to pay the bored teen waiting behind the checkout counter, a scream resounded throughout the store. Whipping my head towards the source, I saw the man who left without paying in the parking lot, trying to pull open my car door while Maya screamed and desperately pulled on the handle from the inside. He had a gun in his hand. As he was shouting open, he pulled the trigger. For a moment, everything was still. He suddenly looked up at me with a look of horror on his face, then fled. I couldn’t breathe as I saw her body crumple against the car seats. I flung open the car door and could only hold her silently in shock as the police arrived.

November 16th, 12:20 a.m.

The sound of tentative cracking brought me back to the present. I lifted my head back to my reflection, who stared back into my eyes. Oh my god, this is my fault. My fault. It’s my fault that she’s dead. It’s my fault. I began gasping with guilt but stopped as I noticed something peculiar. The cracks on the mirror were slowly spreading, branching out further and further, until the entire surface was covered in jagged fragments. My broken reflection stared at me again, except this time she faced me with an expression of betrayal on her face. “Yes. Your fault,” she hissed.

The mirror finally burst into a million pieces and shattered, leaving behind an empty frame and an empty girl.