There is a mirror in Tia’s room.
It glimmers and shines, but she does not find it useful for much else, as it never shows her reflection. It only reflects back to her everything around her, everything but her.
A lot of times, she speculates kicking the mirror or shattering it. Her mom suggests that they get rid of it. But for some reason, she decides to keep it around. Sometimes, she thinks, it is best that she looks in that mirror.
Most of the time, when she looks in regular mirrors, her reflection displeases her. All she can see is that baby fat that never seems to go away, the frizzy hair that she can never tame, and the sprinkling of freckles across her oversized nose. When she looks in normal mirrors, she can never find anything good to say about her reflection.
Sometimes, she thinks that the broken mirror is accurate. A lot of the time, she feels as if she doesn’t exist. The girls at school are all friends with each other, and she just seems to fade into the background. She’s horribly bashful, and she doesn’t know what to say to the hundreds of girls that are all beautiful and seem to have it all together.
She considers herself to be less than them. They are all perfect while she is not even close. She’s dorky, and what good would she do them, anyway? She doesn’t see any reason why any of them would want to be friends with a girl like her. When they lean together and whisper, she automatically assumes that they are talking about her. They giggle and her frown droops even lower.
Some might call it low self-esteem. She firmly believes that she is only being realistic.
As time goes on, things only get worse. She does not talk to them, and they do not talk to her. One day, she even overhears one of the girls call her snobby. It stings so badly that she rushes home in tears.
Once she gets back to her room, the first thing that her eyes fall upon is the stupid broken mirror. Angrily, she storms up to it, looking into it through wet eyes. But to her surprise, nothing is in the mirror. It is black, as if someone has painted it. But as she runs her fingers down it, still confused, she realizes that it is still made of glass.
Then it glows a bright gold that sends beams of light all over her cold room. Surprised, she jumps back, before it dims back to its original shade of black. However, a letter now sits next to the mirror, as if it had been there the whole time.
Utterly befuddled, she picks up the letter, curious about what the broken mirror would have to say to her.
Dear girl who’s always looking at me,
I believe that you are not seeing what I am seeing. You are always whining about your appearance, about how you are ugly and the girls at school treat you horribly because of that.
Did you ever stop to consider that maybe that is not the case? That maybe you are seeing things from the wrong perspective?
You are actually very beautiful. The problem is, you don’t see it because you’re too blinded by your incessant complaining and constant self-loathing. If you would only take a break and look at your good features, I believe that you would be pleased.
Have you ever noticed your eyes, how they sparkle even in the dark? How your hair is a deep, natural red that most people would die for? How your skin is free of zits?
You haven’t, have you?
The girls at school do not hate you because you are ugly. In fact, they do not hate you at all. They are jealous of you, along with a bit annoyed because they believe you to be snobby because you never so much as speak to them. Rather than shy, they think you snobby.
The only solution to your problem is self-confidence.
At the moment, I have disappeared from the mirror. Once you gain some self-confidence, maybe I’ll return.
Hoping I could help,
Your reflection.
Then the letter dissolves in her hands, and she’s left to think that maybe it wasn’t the mirror that was broken. Maybe it was her.
She returns to a normal mirror and peers at herself. Her hair now looks shiny and curly rather than frizzy; her skin seems clear rather than overly freckled. And for the first time in ages, she considers that maybe she’s pretty.
The next day at school, she walks right up to the leader of the gang of girls and greets her cautiously. “Hello, Chasity.”
“Hi, Tia!” Chasity replies with a smile. “I like your shirt.”
Confused, Tia offers her a smile in return, and returns the compliment. “I like your shirt too.”
She wonders if it had just been that simple all along. Her reflection had been right- she had only needed a smidgeon of confidence to solve all of her problems.
Once she gets home that afternoon, she dumps her bookbag on the couch and dashes upstairs to look in the mirror again. The black blurs and changes before her eyes, brightening and blurring until it is almost unrecognizable. Then, out of the blur of white and black, there is a flash.
In the mirror in front of her, she sees a princess, a beautiful girl with beautiful red hair and sparkling eyes.
Tia smiles at her, and the girl tentatively smiles back.
That is when she realizes that she is the girl in the mirror.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.08.2011

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