I stood there for a full minute, staring at the same old girl,
Her pulse a frantic stammer in her throat. The fluorescent lights overhead didn’t hide the way my fingers shook, or the way my lips parted like I was gasping for something I can’t name. I thought, maybe, if I stared hard enough, I could will the tremors away—but no. I’m still a relic, still a broken thing, and the mirror only confirms it.