The cold I had been feeling was a dead cold. It was the kind of cold that seeps under your windowsill on winter nights, slips into bed with you, and trails its bloodless fingers over your shuddering body. You wake up gasping, swaddled in a silken sheet of sweat and the vague memory of a violation.
You don’t sleep that night.
Instead, you find yourself standing in the bathroom, gazing emptily at the battered cabinet, the dusty counter, and the sink streaked with old toothpaste. The conditions of the bathroom are far from ideal, but what really worries you is the sharp glint of an outline that cuts across the wall.
The mirror.
Its mundane surface calls to you with foggy breath, flashing a colorless smile. Leaning in, you meet its blank, gaping eyes. Eyes that stare and stare and stare until you aren’t sure what’s the reflection and what’s real. The mirror and you, you and the mirror. Once you can no longer tell the difference, you realize that it was never there, and then you know.
The cold is inside.
I had been living with this cold for a long time. It got into my eyes and made my feet heavy. It stood between me and the world like a layer of frosted glass, leaving me in the company of shadows and muffled voices. I wondered if others could see it when they looked at me.
