Stuck

Bri had to piss twenty minutes into class. Now what? God, she did not want to go to that hellhole of a bathroom. She had her legs crossed, but they were shaking, and she watched the second hand of the clock, each time it moved forward she swore it occasionally bounced backwards. She had no other option—why did she have to drink water today? She grabbed the laminated bathroom-pass and walked out of the portable classroom—the whole building bounced with every step she took.

She quickly walked to the bathroom, knees tilted inwards, as if that was going to stop her from pissing her pants. When she got to the door, she hesitated, preparing herself. As soon as the door cracked, she could smell the linger of weed in their air. The whole room felt heavy, years of neglect weighed down the bathroom. The entire room seemed to sag, a single mirror hung crooked, wads of wetted toilet paper had been stuck to the celling, one of the green stall doors had been broken off and lay against the white brick wall., Bri went to the one stall she knew could function—sitting so that she could hook her foot beneath the bottom of the door to hold it closed while she peed.

Bri then walked to the sink to wash her hands, and she looked up into the mirror which was a bit greasy and blurred her reflection. She saw her curly big-black mass of hair staring back at her. Her mom had always said that her hair was a mess, that she should straighten it more often. But Bri didn’t want to look like her mom, with the long acrylic nails and the straightened black hair—added accessories to hide the woman that was breaking beneath. Bri wanted everything to not be like her mom. She sighed and looked back down at the sink.

But her reflection kept looking up at her. Bri slowly drew her eyes back up to it.

She raised a hand to touch her face, and her reflection smiled at her. What the fuck, what the fuck what—Bri couldn’t move. Her eyes stuck to the girl that looked at her through the clouded mirror. The slightly brown-tinted water from the faucet still running as Bri stood there, motionless.

The reflection put her hand up to the mirror. She motioned for Bri to do the same. Am I really going to do this? Maybe it was the haze of the old weed stench that clouded her judgement, but she put her hand up to that mirror, touching the hand of her reflection.

At once, she felt it. She felt a complete life from birth to seventeen—a life that wasn’t hers. She felt the life of a Bri who was born to a healthy mother who didn’t smoke a pack everyday of her pregnancy. She felt the life of a Bri who had year after year of birthday parties, where she blew out her own candles and her family—her mother, and her father—held her close. Had she been hugged before? Her last birthday Bri had taken her mom to the hospital because her dad had come back in town, asking for money, and suddenly her mom had a bloody lip and a black eye. There were no candles. But now, she lived the life of a Bri who had swim lessons, whose dad taught her how to ride a bike, who could invite friends over to her house. She suddenly knew the feeling of having a full stomach, of being completely satisfied with everything, of shoulders that weren’t tense. She knew the comfort of being at a school she didn’t dread peeing at. Bri suddenly knew a life where she never had to physically defend herself, where she didn’t know the reality of “free-and-reduced lunch,” where she was expected to go to college—not to get pregnant at sixteen and drop out.

Bri lived moments of this new life. They were mundane, but the best instances Bri had ever experienced. Her first day of kindergarten. The school was nice, full of teachers walking around, watching over the kids. Bri sat down at lunch, not knowing anyone, but, in this life, she pulled a brown paper sack of her bag. Inside was a packed lunch, and a note from her mom. A hand drawn dinosaur. Bri had loved dinosaurs when she was little. But her real mom didn’t know that. This life, this Bri, got to experience the world as if it belonged to her.

Bri got to experience a real Quinceañera in this life. She got the big dress, the ballroom, the dancing. She forgot about the slice of cake by the lighting of the fridge she had actually gotten on her 15th birthday. Parties were a waste of celebration her mom had said. But this mom told her that, if you can, every moment was one to celebrate.

Bri, in a single moment had all the feelings of living a life that she enjoyed, a life that she deserved. But it was over. It was slipping away.

She closed her eyes tighter, hand still on the mirror, Bri wanted to do everything to stay in that life. She began pushing harder and harder into the mirror, desperately craving to escape the fact that she was still in the bathroom, desperately craving to push herself into the life of her reflection.

With the look of pain, her reflection reached out the mirror, and held Bri’s hand for a moment. It felt exactly like her own, soft, but roughed with callouses. This Bri was her, but this Bri had been given the life she deserved. Then she whispered, they’re not going to let you have this Bridget, I’m sorry.

And beneath the weight of Bri’s force, the mirror cracked. A small shard of glass got loose and wedged itself in Bri’s palm. Bri suddenly ripped her hand away, wondering where the other Bri had gone. She looked at the mirror, but only saw her blurred self behind a red smear of blood.

The sink was still running in front of her, and her eyes began to shake, and her vision became watered. The glass in her hand was still stuck there, but she didn’t feel it. She only felt the loss of the life she had felt—gone forever. Now all that remained was her curly-haired-self looking back at her through a blood-smeared and broken mirror. Stuck.