She stands in front of me looking ohh so spectacular with ginger braids that flays as she turns this way and that, searching for flaws with a frown on her face. “This dress makes my ass look flat”, she says to me – or maybe to herself; I never learned to tell the difference. With a huff at me, she turns and walk away, unconsciously sashaying all the way out of my view. I stare at the the vacant doorway, as it is the only view I have now and start counting the seconds until she gets back. It is 2734 seconds. She comes back this time wearing a boyfriend jean – that’s what she calls them – and some frilly pink top that bares a little bit of her stomach. Again, she looks spectacular. She turns this way and that, striking poses as she turns. Then she burst out into a song, “I’m sexy and I know it, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m sexy and I know it”. She always sung in a tone that made me itch somehow. I could sometimes feel her voice passing through my body, like now. But I also love when she burst into such random songs of appreciation because I’ve learnt that it indicated that she loves what she sees. It was a love-hate relationship between her singing and I. She suddenly stops her song and starts doing something with her braids, making some stay up and others stay down. This has to be her favourite look, it is mine too. I love how it draws attention to her face and somehow makes it even more striking. Today, she puts some sort of pink bow at the top. It makes her happy. I know because she has paused her preparation to twirl in and out of my sight. She finally comes back, this time with her beauty bag. I love this bag – it makes her more stunning. She pulls out her eye brush. “I’m just going to see Tara. There’s no need to make up”, she says to me as she brushes her eyebrows and eyelashes. When she finishes, she pulls out her mascara, “But I’m gonna look sexy regardless”, she says with a mischievous look as she begins to paint her lashes. She bats her lashes at me and asks, “I look good, yeah??”. I did reply. I say she looks stunning and spectacular. But I could’ve saved my energy. I realized long ago that she couldn’t hear me. She pretends like she can though, because a second later, she says “Of course, I do! I look breathtaking, for Christ’s sake!!”. Then she laughs a laugh that shakes her body and makes her hand pause on her beauty bag. She stops laughing and pulls out her lip liner and lip gloss. She wears them and strikes a pose while staring intimately at me. Then she turns, flips her hair and turns her head at me and says, “I should be on a billboard, mehnnn”. Then she turns around, pretends, like she’s on a runway and sashays away and back, posing and blowing kisses at me. She pulls out her perfume, and I know the show is over for today.
I like days like today, when she looks at me and likes what she sees. They are my favourite days. They remind me of the days when she looked at me and tears fill her eyes. Or when she stood really close and I heard her wonder why she was made this way. I think of those days she stood bare in front of me and asked me if someone would love her the way she was. I think of the one time she stood really close and counted her stretch marks. And the time she told me all the procedures she would make her body go through as soon as she had the means. There was actually a time she was already crying as she walked to me and asked if her body was really that bad. Those times broke my heart the most, because I wished I could tell her that I saw nothing wrong, that she was absolutely stunning, that I only saw beauty and beauty and beauty. I wished I could tell her I was once like her, doubting my beauty and attractiveness, until the evil witch saw I was more beautiful than her and cursed me to be a mirror forever. I was sure she was beautiful because my curse was that I could only see beautiful girls so my heart could ache for how beautiful I was once.
