Read Online Eyes in the Mirror by Julia Mayer - Free Book Online

reflections. If enough people were, I wondered if we would be able to just start talking to each other without hiding it anymore.
    â€œI’m afraid the people in our worlds might clash if they met,” I admitted to Samara.
    Samara agreed tentatively, and the two of us wondered together if they’d want to use each other for medical experiments or something. “All the people would get all mixed up,” Samara said, “and you would never know who you were talking to. What if they went to war?”
    â€œThat would be so crazy,” she said, “if all these people who kind of look like each other but not quite started, like, fist-fighting and stuff.”
    â€œAnd then the only way you could tell someone from their reflection would be by whose nose was broken?”
    â€œOr whose arm was in a sling?”
    â€œAnd the worlds got all messed up and crazy?” I asked, laughing. She started to laugh too, and we were both consumed by fits of laughter that were so intense we couldn’t talk for a few minutes.
    When we got our composure back, we agreed that we wouldn’t tell anyone else, and I was glad Jamie already knew. I wanted to be able to talk about it with him, but if he hadn’t already known, I couldn’t have broken my promise to Samara.
    I asked Samara later that night what had happened to her mom. I could tell when she told me that she was blaming herself. I wished she didn’t. But her eyes told me so, and it was an intense and overwhelming experience to see the pain in her eyes. Her mother was still so much alive in her.
    She brought out the shirt she had been wearing the day she found her mom. It was stained, she said, in the exact places there was blood on her mom’s shirt. I believed her. I believed that it was a sign from her mom, but I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know why it was the way it was. And I didn’t know what to say to her when she told me.
    All I could do was try to comfort her. It didn’t feel like nearly enough. She was hurting so badly, and I wanted to do something, something that would help her. I could see the death happening over and over and over in Samara’s mind.
    ***
    Finally I decided to ask. I had been thinking about switching places for days, and I needed to know what Samara would think about it.
    â€œSamara, let’s switch places.” We were sitting in our respective bedrooms. It was funny that Samara looked brighter than me for the first time. My mom had asked me to keep the lights off when I didn’t need them because of the winter electricity bills, and Samara had the light in her closet on. The right half of her face was lit up by the closet light, and her left half was silhouetted against a long red dress.
    She dismissed the idea of switching immediately, but as I pushed her to think about it more seriously, I could see her getting excited. A lot of me wanted to see what Samara’s life was really like. I was curious who she talked to when I wasn’t there and what she did with her time. But at least a small, very selfish part of me wanted to see what she could figure out about Jamie and what he thought of me. Where things were going with him.
    â€œI’m afraid of walking into the mirror. I’m afraid that I’m going to screw up your life.”
    â€œI’ll help you come through,” I promised, “and as far as screwing up my life, there are three people I care about. You, my mother—”
    â€œAnd Jamie,” she finished for me.
    â€œRight, and you’ll know, Jamie will know, and my mother is my mother. There is nothing you could do to make her not like me. She loves me unconditionally.”
    â€œFrom what you’ve told me, Jamie does too.” There was that smile again, but it faded after a moment. “I wish I had two people in my life like that.”
    â€œSamara, I’m sure you do. You just don’t see it. I’m sure