*NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED*

All of the mirrors in the house were covered up before I met you because I didn’t recognize the girl I saw looking back at me, her eyes were too glossy, hair too messy, heart too unhappy. This was a girl who couldn’t remember how she’d gotten home the night before or whose bed she’d slept in, not the girl who would look at the world with wonder in her eyes and a laugh on her lips. This girl cared more about pills than hurting the people around her, she was reckless and impulsive and disappointed her mother more often than not and found comfort in cold nights spent with warm bodies, alcohol that flowed more freely than laughter, and cigarette burns that littered her thighs. She was high-strung and empty inside and everything I didn’t want to be but couldn’t stop seeing. I looked in the mirror and saw regret reflected in my eyes, more blood shot than blue. I couldn’t reach my hand out to touch my reflection without tremors that didn’t stop unless I took another pill or did another shot. I saw the days at school where I was running on two hours of sleep, six cups of coffee, and enough oxy to make my vision perpetually blurry. I knew I was better than the choices I was making but I didn’t have anyone to push me away from the life I wanted to live, I had encouragement all around. Derek sold me oxy, Ashley gave me Xanax, Justin let me lay down in the front seat of his car when I felt my head spin too hard and my heart skip too many beats. I was scared all the time and didn’t know what calm was until I met you. Which is really ironic because you’re so full of life that the word calm doesn’t apply to you. I didn’t know what to do with myself when my best friend told me I should talk to you. it took me three weeks to work up the courage, and that was the biggest mistake ive ever made, because you made me smile so much that I don’t know why I delayed it for as long as I did. And it didn’t work out in the end but I still thought about the effect my actions might’ve had on you, and after I was so scared of messing up with everyone in my life that I changed so much about myself. I went through forty oxy in three days earlier that month, and when I found the other sixty pills stashed away at the top of my closet, I poured them down the drain because I hoped so much that you would come back but I didn’t want you to come back to that. I stopped going to Nick’s house and I didn’t talk to Jon at all. And I stopped pretending that I could fix all the broken aspects of my life if I drank enough. It was really hard, and I would lie awake at night sick to my stomach, unable to breathe. But I wanted to be better, for you. and I didn’t even know if you were coming back but it didn’t matter anymore because I was doing so good. But you did, twice, and the first time was rocky because I was still scared, I was terrified. I didn’t want to drive you away or push you too far and I distanced myself more than I meant too. And it’s the third time around but they say that the third times the charm and im hoping its enough, and im hoping im enough. Because your smile reminds me of sunshine and its been raining for so long that a break is well needed. All of the mirrors in the house were covered up before I met you, but now I know I don’t need to hide, from myself, or from you, I just hope that one day I’ll be able to see myself the way you do.