Girl In The Mirror (Looking Glass Book 1)

by Elizabeth Reyes

  “Was I a virgin?” I asked, swatting the tears away.

  Mama stared at me, shaking her head. “If you weren’t, you never told me about it. But neither you nor your sister were promiscuous.”

  That seemed odd to me. Mama assured me that I was the more reserved one. At eighteen, I hadn’t even gotten my driver’s license because I’d been gun shy about getting behind the wheel of a car. Yet, up until I decided to hold off on sleeping with Ryan right away, I’d never once felt gun shy about anything. I was also more than sure now that I was not a virgin. In fact, it was clear I enjoyed sex very much. And since I’d woken at the hospital, I’d never once felt compelled to keep anything from Mama. I just assumed that’s what our relationship had always been like. Just like me telling her about consummating my relationship with Ryan now, it felt natural. So, her saying I’d keep things like that from her even back then didn’t make sense to me.

  “I had another visual yesterday,” I said, and Mama stared at me guardedly, “when he went down on me. Like I’d experienced that before.”

  “You were never that kind of girl.”

  “My body.” I shook my head, still trying to wrap my brain around all this. “It felt very familiar with sex, Mama.”

  “You were too young.”

  “I was almost nineteen.”

  “Still too young. You and Madeline weren’t like that, Maggie—”

  “Then why would I not be a virgin? And why would that visual trigger something?”

  “You don’t know what triggers what or that any of that even means anything.” Mama said, raising her voice. “You’ve decided there’s a reason—”

  “Because I know there is!” I yelled, silencing her instantly and surprising myself. “I can feel it, Mama, right here.” I touched my heart, angry that I was so alone in this. “I know there’s something I’m supposed to remember, and it’s not just a minor side effect. So, stop calling it that!”

  I rushed back inside, ignoring her as she called out for me. I headed to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me, not sure why I was so angry. The frustration had just peaked, and I’d lost it. The moment I hit the bed I felt guilty for yelling at Mama, for taking my frustrations out on her. It wasn’t fair, but none of this was fair. I just wished Mama would at least try to be understanding of what I was going through.

  I glanced up at the painting on my wall, wiping my tears away. Could it really be just a side effect? A crazy emotion sparked by my injured brain with no rhyme or reason? That my desperate hope of remembering something was trying to make this more than it really was? Just a random thought or object?

  A knock at the door had me wiping even more tears away and sitting. “Come in,” I said, pulling my legs off the side of the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said as soon as she walked in.

  “Oh, Mama, I’m sorry too,” I said, holding my arms open. She rushed to me and sat down on the bed next to me then hugged me tightly. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just get so frustrated.”

  “I know, darling,” she said, pulling my head against her shoulder. “I know it’s frustrating, and I know I should try to be more understanding. I just want to see you happy again. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I want nothing more than for you to remember everything, but if you don’t, I hate for you to be so sad about it. But I want you to know I get it. Okay, baby? You have every right to feel frustrated, and I promise I’ll be more understanding about it from here on.”

  I pulled away from her shoulder to look in her eyes. “I just hate the feeling that I’m missing something. I thought for sure once I met someone I could finally connect with I’d be happy. But as perfect as Ryan is and even after last night, I still feel like there’s something missing.”

  “Honey, you lost almost nineteen years of your life. Of course it’s going to feel like you’re missing something.” She wiped more tears away from the corners of my eyes. “But don’t let that confuse you. Ryan is a great guy who genuinely cares about you. And just because he’s all that and a bag of chips still doesn’t mean you need to rush into anything you’re not ready for. If his plan really is to be where he said he wants to be at thirty, that’s still three years away. You have plenty of time to decide what you want between now and then.”

  She smiled, caressing my hair and tilting her head sideways. Mama always did that when she was trying to calm me about something.

  “Just take one day at a time and don’t try to rush anything. You’re over thinking things again.” I nodded because it was true. Then she added with a smile. “I know it’s a little early still, but, maybe next week sometime, we can go get the holiday stuff from storage and start getting ready for the Christmas?”

  Instantly, I was smiling. Mama knew nothing could snap me out of my depressed moods like the holidays. It was my favorite time of the year and something that I hadn’t lost from my past. It was evident in all our photos and videos from my past that the holidays were huge for us.

  “Let’s go now!” I said, sitting up straighter.

  Mama’s smile flattened. “Now? It’s too soon.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s November. We don’t have to get the stuff outside up yet, but we can start getting the stuff inside up.” I stood up, pulling her hand. “Let’s go, Mama. This is perfect. I have the weekend off, and Ryan’s working all weekend.”

  For a moment, she seemed to hesitate but as usual gave in to her brat, and we were off to the storage unit.

  Chapter 6

  As usual, I was thoroughly warned not to open any bins without checking with Mama first. But I’d been helping her unpack and repack the holiday stuff for years now. It wasn’t like those first years when everything in there was so brand new to me.

  “These are all the holiday totes over here.” Mama pointed at the corner where we’d stacked them last year.

  “I remember,” I said, feeling ironic because it was a phrase I yearned to be able to use in a more profound way. “I’ll go around this way. Look,” I said with a smirk, raising my hands in the air. “I won’t mess any of your meticulously packed totes.”

  Mama took my teasing in stride as she always did, smirking and shaking her head. I came around and met her where the holiday totes were packed. She had the dolly ready for us to start stacking and we did. After several trips to Mama’s minivan, I went back into the storage unit. I grabbed the last of the holiday decoration totes. Just as I bent down, another tote with an X on the side caught my eye. It was on the other side of the storage unit in the corner. Mama marked all the holiday totes “X-mas,” so I wondered if maybe one of them had gotten shuffled and pushed into a corner. I set down the last of the totes I was getting ready to haul out to the minivan and walked over to the tote with an X on it. As I moved the plastic covering part of it, sure enough, it said X-mas.

  Smiling, I pushed the tote partially in front of it out of the way so I could pull it out. I wondered if this might be one I hadn’t seen since it’d been tucked away and missed. I removed the lid to look inside.

  My heart doubled over, and I nearly fell back on my ass. I was so blown away. The very first little box right on top of everything contained a Precious Moments figurine: a tree ornament of a couple on a scooter. The little girl on the scooter was blond and holding on to the brunet boy driving the scooter. That now familiar ache in my heart was back and even more brutal. The visual of the figurine hanging on a tree flashed over and over so fast it made me dizzy. Almost afraid to, I reached for the box.

  “Maggie!” Mama said as I held onto the wall for support from the sudden dizzy spell.

  I flinched at Mama’s loud voice, my hand recoiling to my chest, then turned to see her standing at the door of the storage unit.

  “Mama?” I said, surprised that I was crying. “Mama, what is this?”

  “What’s what?” She rushed to me, looking both questioning and concerned at the same time.

  She took me in up and down, reaching out for me as if she thought I might fall
. “Do you need to sit?”

  I shook my head, pointing at the figuring anxiously. Mama turned to it, the concern still on her face fading when she smiled. “It’s my sister’s. I have a few of her boxes here from way back.”

  “This,” I said, reaching for the figurine.

  “Be careful with that, Maggie. It’s fragile, and I promised I’d keep her things safe.” She placed the lid over the tote, pushing it back into the corner. “Baby, I told you not to touch anything before—”

  “But that figurine,” I said, wiping the tears away. “I remember it.”

  Mama turned to me with a compassionate smile and shook her head. “You wouldn’t.”

  “But I think I do,” I insisted. “It was on a tree? We hung it on a Christmas tree?”

  Mama stared at me, searching my eyes, still shaking her head. “It is an ornament.”

  “Can I see it?’

  Mama shrugged, opening the tote again. “But you should sit down, Maggie. I don’t want you getting hurt if you get dizzy again.”

  I sat down on one of the big totes marked blankets. Mama handed me the box with the figurine, and I examined it, feeling the butterflies in my stomach.

  “It’s Aunt Terri’s stuff—private stuff from her single days.” She turned to me and smiled whimsically. “Bob,” she explained. “Uncle Bob, her husband, is really jealous, you see, and well . . . she kept some stuff from when she dated her ex-boyfriend. She secretly confided in me that she never got over him, so she couldn’t bring herself to get rid of these things. I promised her I’d keep them safe and not let anyone know they’re here.”

  Something happened that never had before in all the times I’d had these episodes. The visual of the figurine flashed in my head again, but not in the box inside the tote. It was hanging on a tree. It flashed again and again almost violently so. I brought my hands to my head, closing my eyes, feeling dizzy again.

  Next thing I knew Mama took the box out of my hands and put it back in the tote.

  “This is proof, Maggie, that these visuals of yours are completely random. You’ve never even seen that ornament. There is no way it would trigger any kind of memory.”

  “But, Mama—”

  “We’re gonna see the doctor first chance we get.”

  I shook my head, feeling the deep ache in my heart suffocate me. The tears wouldn’t stop. This was worse than all the other episodes, and Mama was saying it was a completely random object that caused it? Was my mind really this screwed up? Was this really something I’d have to just learn to live with?

  “Oh honey,” she said, hugging me tightly, and I buried my face in her neck. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this, but we’re gonna get you help. I promise you, baby. You’re gonna get better. Get past this. If anything, it’ll get easier to deal with.”

  She wiped my tears and smiled. I nodded, taking a deep breath. “I just don’t understand why something in my head could make my heart hurt? Why would some random object I’d never seen before make me so emotional?”

  “The brain is a very complex thing, darling.” She shrugged, shaking her head. “I’ve been studying this PTBIS online. There are so many symptoms and side effects of brain trauma. If something gets rattled in your injured brain,” she said, pointing at my head, “and it pulls on the wrong wire, who knows what part of your body will end up getting jolted. In your case, it’s your heart, I guess.”

  We got up and walked to the car. Mama fussed over me for a bit as she helped me with my seatbelt before going back and locking up the unit. We stopped to buy a frozen apple pie on the way home. Mama put it in the oven as soon as we got home so the smell would fill the house as we unpacked the Christmas stuff and began putting it up. It was all the same stuff from the previous years: holiday decorations from before the accident and some new ones we’d added over the years since. I only knew the stories about the old decorations because Mama had told me about them in the past few years.

  The smell of the pie did help warm my heart. Mama said we’d always put a pie in the oven the first day we brought out the Christmas decorations each year. We’d been doing the same thing each year since the accident as well.

  That evening when Ryan came over and had some pie with me, I didn’t tell him about the trigger. I’d never had such significant ones so close together. I worried maybe something was wrong. Maybe the side effects or lingering issues the doctors had warned me about were getting worse now. I didn’t want Ryan to know until I knew more. Plus, I was so over thinking about it. I’d gone over it in my head a million times, even while Mama and I decorated the house and she blasted holiday songs.

  Why in the world would something so random from Aunt Terri’s past trigger such a reaction? It made no sense at all. The visual could’ve been as random as certain songs made me feel, certain foods and candies, the smell of cigarettes and even cannabis when treating some emergency room patients who reeked of it. Even hearing loud motorcycle engines did something to me.

  So, I was back to giving into the idea that my brain was just fried and there really was no rhyme or reason to any of this. I decided to spare Ryan the details of my freak out.

  The visit to the doctors that following week garnered nothing new. They ran a few tests that later came back negative for any new maladies or changes in my brain. The doctor said my latest triggers could be attributed to many things: fatigue, stress, diet. He asked if anything had changed in my lifestyle. I regretted mentioning Ryan—my first real relationship since the accident—because he quickly attributed the random incident to that. The big change in my life. So basically, he had no idea either but had to give me some kind of educated bullshit answer.

  At Mama’s urging, I asked for something that might make the episodes less traumatizing for me. So, the doctor prescribed me something like Xanax to help calm me. He said if I ever thought I’d be doing something or going somewhere that might cause a trigger I should take one ahead of time.

  Of course, I never even bothered to take the prescription. Not once had I known ahead of time that I might experiencing anything upsetting. These triggers were as random as the things that set them off. I knew all too well from my experience as a nurse how easily those types of medicines could be habit-forming.

  The holidays came and went without further incidents or triggers. Ryan never once referred to me as his again, and for whatever reason, that relieved me, even when, by the end of winter, he and I were talking about me moving in with him. I was at his place half the time anyway. Many times, when I had several days off in a row, I’d stay at his place or we’d take off on road trips. I discovered something about myself. I knew now why Madeline apparently begged for a convertible back when I was eighteen. Mama said both Madeline and I loved the feel of the open road, and while neither Ryan nor I owned a convertible, we both had sunroofs in our cars, and unless it was raining or freezing, they were always open.

  I’d since promised to focus on my future and stop obsessing about my lost past. I’d had one trigger since the one at the storage unit before Christmas. Again, it’d been over something completely random. But it happened in the presence of both Mama and Ryan.

  It was in early spring. We’d been at a flea market on a Sunday afternoon. Mama was searching for unique garden pots and planters. I was on the hunt for a special-looking canvas I could paint my next masterpiece on. Ryan was just along for the ride. Mama was negotiating a good price on a planter she’d found when I saw it: an old motorcycle. The familiar ache in my heart was instant. The irrepressible knot at my throat nearly suffocated me, and I squeezed my eyes shut as the visual of the bike flashed in my head.

  I grabbed Ryan’s arm when the lightheadedness hit. Mama did a double take as she walked back toward us and noticed my pained expression.

  “Are you okay?” Ryan asked, holding my other arm.

  Mama was at my side instantly. “What’s wrong, Maggie?”

  I whimpered, trying my damnedest not to cry over something that clearly had n
othing to do with me. My brain really was broken, and I was determined to win this infuriating battle. Both Mama and Ryan turned to the orange and white motorcycle leaning against a truck. A man on the other side of the table with all the old auto parts walked over to us, obviously not noticing my tears.

  “She’s a beaut, ain’t she?” he asked, and I wiped at my tears, glancing away. “Nineteen sixty Harley. A classic. Needs a little work, but she’s got all original parts.”

  Ryan addressed the man, saying we weren’t in the market for one, and we all walked away.

  “I already know the answer, Mama, but I still have to ask.”

  Mama had that same alarmed expression as she had the day I had the episode at the storage unit. I hated how much this affected her too, but as much as this felt random, I couldn’t just ignore it.

  “Is there any reason why seeing that motorcycle would hurt so much?”

  “No,” she said, walking me over to a bench so I could sit. “None that I know of anyway.”

  I turned back to the motorcycle. The man was talking it up to someone else now. I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling Mama clutch my arm as the visuals flashed away again—violently so—just as the visual of that figurine on the tree had.

  I turned to Ryan, who was glancing back at the motorcycle as Mama started nudging me away and toward where we’d parked. “I’m sorry this keeps happening to you, Maggie. I really wish I could be more helpful.”

  Mama went on and on about how there had to be a way to help me deal with the episodes: some kind of therapy or mental exercise I could do to calm down faster and for my episodes to be less traumatic. I barely listened because my mind was still trying to make sense of the latest trigger, only of course, I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I promised her I wouldn’t obsess about it.