SELF-PORTRAIT IN PINK

DIGITAL ART BY M FISCHER

She’s illuminating.

But I also felt like she could read my mind just by staring at me. This was useful when I wouldn’t know what to say, so she would say it for me. This was unfortunate for me when I had secrets that I would hate her to see through the pupils of my eyes. Half of my thoughts never even had to leave my lips; speaking them was useless when she had the ability to see behind my forehead.

I speak of her like she has superpowers, like she is controlled by supernatural forces that make her eyes laser through skulls and analyze every piece of thought she finds.

Like she is powerful.

Maybe to anyone else, she is just normal. But I could never look at her the same way I look at anyone I consider normal.

“Do their opinions hold enough power to break us?” And then I knew she could read my mind, there was no doubt about it. I didn’t care about other people’s attention, I cared about their opinions, and somehow, she figured out what was going on in my mind before I even knew. How she was able to do that, I would never know.

“No,” I said, almost immediately. My face went hot. Nothing could hold that kind of power.

“Good.” She turned back to the mirror and continued her task at hand. She knew that I really meant it, so thank god I didn’t have to keep talking. My blood was already running at super speed through my veins as it was. I looked down, studying the straps of my sandals. “Do you care if they hate us?”

When she said this, I looked back up and saw that she had turned back around to see me again. “No,” I said. And this was true too. Nothing I ever said was as true as this.

“No one else’s opinions will ever matter as much as yours to me. I promise.” Her eyes were glittering from the golden sunlight that streamed in through the blinds. “Swear it.”

My eyebrows furrowed. “Why must I swear on it if it is your promise?”

“Because your opinion is the only one I’ll ever need. Nothing else. Swear it.”

“I swear it.”

“I swear it,” she said.