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Mirror mirror, you’re a liar, so why do you own me

Hello hello greetings from the inside

Hello hello framed in all your lies

Hello hello how you love to see me cry

Hello hello always so unkind

Mirror mirror, why the tears, you made me

Mirror mirror, who do you think you are

I made you!

Hello hello greetings from the inside

Hello hello framed in all your lies

Hello hello how you love to see me cry

Hello hello it’s time to say goodbye”

She had to have been where Luke is to write this, but she’s clearly not there anymore. She fought the mirror and won, which means there’s hope. It also means she speaks his language in a way I never could.

This is why art is so important. It speaks in emotion. In connection. It reveals pieces of ourselves to each other in ways conversation can’t.

“What else do you have?” I ask as I review the next page. And the next. There’s a sense of desperation leaking in. If she’s been there, then maybe…

“What? Nothing,” she says.

No, that can’t be true. I turn to another page.

“What else? I want to see the rest.”

I’m crushed when she plucks the notebook from my hands.

“There is no more,” she says definitively. “I mean, not here, not finished.”

I shake my head and lean toward her, almost pleading. “It doesn’t have to be finished. Please, Callie?”

I need to see it. I have to know more about that side of her.The distorted mirror. I have to know if there’s a roadmap to drag Luke back to the light.

“What’s the last thing you wrote?” I ask.

A shadow passes over her face. She averts her gaze. “I don’t really write much anymore.”

“Why not?”

She shrugs, still not looking at me. “I don’t know. I guess… Maybe there’s no point? Like I said, I’m not really a writer. Well, not a real one.”

No! I’m so sick of this.

“Will you stop with that?” I snap. “That’s bull.”

I feel Luke’s surprised warning look. But he doesn’t get it. Of course he doesn’t because he has the luxury of not caring about anything anymore. I do. And so does Callie.

“It’s not!” she fires back. Her defensive reaction fades back into the insecurity that’s becoming a theme with her. “I just… I don’t know.”