Marlene McKinnon hated mirrors.
No. No, that’s a lie.
She hated how she looked in the mirror.
Maybe…
Some days, she hated how she looked in the mirror.
On the days where she woke up and lay in bed until 2 in the afternoon because she felt like shit and kind of just wanted to drop dead or something. That’s when she hated how she looked in the mirror.
Not because she looked bad, actually the opposite. She looked in the mirror and saw herself. Blonde hair and blue eyes and clear, pale skin. She looked fine, normal, great.
Then she would put on eyeliner and mascara and she looked completely awake even though she still felt half asleep.
After that she put dry shampoo in her hair, ran her fingers through it then brushed it and you couldn’t tell that she hadn’t showered in over a week.
Then she put lipstick on and she looked like Marlene.
Why wouldn’t she? She is Marlene.
That’s what everyone sees. They see Marlene and they know just by looking at her that she’s doing great because she always is.
Isn’t she?
Wouldn’t her best friends notice that something wasn’t right? Surely they could tell that she’d only actually been asleep for about 2 of the 16 hours she’d been lying in bed?
But how could they? How could she expect her friends to see that something was wrong if when she looked in the mirror she just saw Marlene?
It’s not their job to see that she’s not okay. It’s her job to tell them. She just needs to ask for help and they’d know what to do.
The only problem was that she didn’t even know what was wrong. She knew something was wrong, it had to be. People who are okay don’t stay in bed until 2pm. People who are okay don’t go over a week without showering. People who are okay don’t wake up and wish they hadn’t. People who are okay don’t daydream about slitting their wrists and watching blood drip down their arm. People who are okay don’t have cuts hidden all over their body. People who are okay don’t look in the mirror and want to throw up because they look good.