Adonis—Blooddrops
The girl I built out of glass is standing there in front of me. She mirrors the best in me—only the best. I made sure of that with every handful of sand I wove her out of, with each memory I poured into the work. The sand crystallized into the perfect girl in front of me. The perfect me, I tell myself. This is who I am becoming. This is who I have to become.
No. This is who I am. The fiery gazes on my back wherever I pass, the whispers around every room I enter, those don’t shape me. No, I am this girl. I have the shining wit—I wove that in, didn’t I, with my own mind? Sitting by my mother as she quizzed me. The capitals of neighboring countries. The famous acts of the heroes of old. The price of wool, the trading route it takes from our lands to the sea, who we give to and take from. I can see how her face shines with pride for the glass girl—for me—with each correct answer. I can feel the warmth of her hands, molding, shaping, making the star on the forehead of the shining glass girl.
I circle the girl. The light hits her just so, sending a sparkle across the floor. The breath catches in my throat. I reach up and trace one trembling finger along the edge of that star. The hard corner doesn’t threaten to cut my finger even as I press—no, everything about the glass girl is smooth, delicate. I can see why my mother admires every inch of her. There is something exquisite in her silence that no word from me can ever capture. Everyone loves the glass girl. They admire her whenever they step into this room—my masterwork, drawing the adoration of everyone in a way I never can. They love the mirror more than they love the one reflected in it.
Tonight, the noise, the party, the stares—the crucible of the day left so little light in me that I couldn’t hold together. The laughter that spilled from my tongue, around my teeth that should have clenched more tightly, had lit such rage around the room! Why couldn’t they see the reflection I saw in the glass girl? The girl who relented under her teacher’s correction? That strand had burned my fingers as I wove it into the cool frame of the girl. Pride had stung the back of my tongue like bile as I swallowed it. As I changed, never raised the question that had earned that bitter look again. The glass girl would never question what she was told. It had been a mistake—I hadn’t meant to laugh!
My finger has left a smudge on the rim of the star. I curse myself and find a cleaning cloth on the nearby table. My footsteps echo off of the smooth stone walls. The room is almost as chill as the slippery, silky cloth I keep on hand to clean the glass girl. There is no risk of it scratching her. There is no risk of any damage to the girl.
No one seems to remember me as this mirror does. She is made of my memories—spinning through a field in a dress, dancing lightly along the path, stepping oh so neatly in the lines my best friend drew in powdery chalk—so why am I not her? I choke back a bitter sob. I have poured so much of myself into forming this glass girl. She is the perfect daughter. Why does no one look at me the way they look at her?
The glass is empty in the cold blue light. I regard it as my eyes blur with tears. The glass is so empty, and I am so full. The only thing in the glass girl is memory—my memory. An idea stirs in my mind. It is a half-formed thing—
No. It is why I made her. I drop the silk cloth to the floor and look at the girl. Her face is serene. Peaceful. Calm. I made her everything I want—need—to be—everything I am. She shimmers in the light, insubstantial. I step forward. I press my hand to her chest and feel her give as I step into the glass girl.
The world around me shatters. Agony burns across my skin. For a moment, I think I have done it—I have done it! I am the perfect girl! the glass statue the world wants me to be!—before the scattering shards sing against the floor, a thin sound that rings out too loudly. The moment snaps through the illusion around me as silence falls.
I stand still in shock. A bitter laugh forces itself up through my throat and I clench my ragged hand into a loose fist. There is blood running down my arm again because the memories cut like knives when I touched them. Shards of glass glitter on the floor around me, jagged fragments of the girl who was supposed to be a mirror.
But she never was a mirror, was she? The illusion is gone with her. The perfect girl is gone, leaving me standing in her place.
I close my eyes and let the silence flood me. It will be broken soon enough—a thousand voices clamoring to ask me why, what I was thinking, how I could destroy such a beautiful work. How could I break their plans for who I was supposed to be? How could I not be the perfect glass girl?
I will let them come, I tell myself. I will come up with a story that explains this, stammer away the destruction of a life’s worth of lies. But until then, there is just me. Me, and the blooddrops spreading flower-like from where they fall from my fingers. Me, standing mirrorless amidst the broken memories of how things should have been.
