It shimmers. Catches the light and throws it back against the wall. I move it. Back and forth. Let the rainbows catch my eye. It's beautiful. Had she thought of it like that? Did she see the beauty in the object in her hands? Or did she merely see the edge? Release from pain. I run my finger down its length. Life, flowing from my fingertip. Too much reality, too close.
She used to smile a lot. It would take over her face and light up the room. But then she stopped. I didn’t notice. I’m not good at noticing. I didn’t know she was sad. Not until after. She stopped talking, too. But I was too busy with my words to notice. We’d sit in the lunch room, and I would chatter while she sat silently. Did she resent me for that? For not drawing out of her the pain and the fear? For not showing her the--beauty? Even in this. I turned it again. Side to side. Did anger cloud her eyes? What had clouded mine?
They called me when they found the note. Her parents. They couldn’t find her. Mom drove me over. We looked everywhere. Her brother found her. Out back. In her car. I’d never seen a dead body before. And the funny thing was that it looked like her. When she’d sleep, and she’d fall into the strangest positions, with her mouth hanging open. It was her. But it wasn’t. She was . . . different. Gone. And they found this. It’d fallen out of her hand. Her life covered its mirrored surface, absorbing the light. All the beauty was gone.
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