I stayed facing her.
Or rather: facing myself.
Because that form frozen in the wall — that reflection without reflection, that silhouette embedded in a matter too alive to be inert, too mute to be empty — kept mimicking what I was, but with a cruel shift.
A shift that didn't say: "you are late." But: "you are fleeing."
She didn't repeat my gestures. No. She didn't imitate what I was doing. She replayed what I was holding back. Every silenced hesitation, every restrained emotion, every interrupted breath — she embodied them. She carried them in my place. She made them visible.
That… tore me apart. Because she showed what I refused to admit: that my body was lying, but she, she was telling the truth.
So I tried.
Not to speak — I already knew the words would slip without reaching, that they would only brush the surface without ever cracking what needed to be.
I didn't try to move either, nor to flee, nor even to understand.
I tried… to think differently.
