“What?” we say, so casual-surprised. Like we don’t know that we’re blowing Tad’s mind right now. His mind, his dick, his eyes, his soul, really.
“Belle,” he says. “Are you… sick? Did you give blood or something? Do you feel faint?”
Blood? Sick? Faint? Is he insane, Mother? Is he blind? Look at you, smiling in your lonely garden where the mist grows thick. Look at me positively dripping with hydrating possibilities. We’re the furthest thing in the world from sick, right? Mother? But Tad turns me away from the mirror so I’m forced to look away from you. Forced to look right into this merman’s eyes, so worried yet still serene. He reaches up and feels my forehead with his cold palm, what the hell? Like I’m a child with a fever. I want to shake him off, but his palm, the way it’s pressed into my skin, reminds me of something. Another time someone put their hand on my forehead. A long time ago. I think it was you, Mother. Can’t remember. I don’t know about you, but my memory hasn’t been the best lately. Making me emotional again, I admit. Look at me, ruining my misting like this.
“Belle, I’m sorry,” Tad says, wiping away my tears tenderly. “I know this is hard. Maybe it’s finally hitting you all at once or something. Maybe that’s why you look so…” And as he’s looking into my eyes, his expression shifts. Moves from concern to something else. He’s so taken with us, Mother.
“My god,” he whispers, his eyes fixed on us now, deep. Surely he wants to kill us. Kiss us. He’s our boyfriend, after all, and that’s what a boyfriend does. Who wouldn’t want to kill a lonely dream?
“You look just like…” But he’s drawing a blank. Looking at my face, words escape him. Which makes sense. I understand all about blanks, about words being slippery.
“I look just like…？” I say, leaning in, waiting.
“Like her,” he says at last, looking afraid.
Her?
“Just before,” he says. “I can’t believe it.” He pulls away—why would he pull away, Mother? But Mother’s gone. Just me and Tad in the glass now. No misty garden of tall red flowers. No Mother smiling there amid the blooms and thorns. Just Tad standing up. Leaving me sitting here alone at my insanity with my open hands empty.
“I don’t know if you should sleep in this room anymore,” Tad is saying. “The energies are off. Or maybe it’s mold.”
Mold?
“I told her a long time ago that it might be. Maybe it’s in the walls. Maybe I should call a doctor,” he offers. “Get you something to drink.”
A doctor. Something to drink. Is he serious? He seems to be. Though maybe playing like I’m sick is his thing, what excites him. Maybe he’d like to save me. “Well, before you do that, you’d better come back and feel my forehead again,” I tell him. “I’m feeling a bit faint.”
He reaches out tentatively and I pull him down and kill him hard on the lips. Surely this is what he wants. But instead of melting beautifully into my kill like a witch in acid, Tad stiffens. His lips stay very pressed together. “I’m sorry,” he says, pulling away, getting up. “It’s just… It’s too weird, right?”
“Weird?” Why weird? You’re my boyfriend. “No. How is it weird?”
“Belle,” he says, and something in his voice makes me look away.
I stare down at my hands gripping his. Many mists drip from my face. I hear the sound of chimes in my head, and underneath, a roar like water. Through the roar, Tad’s voice comes to me very faintly. Something about rest. How it’s all I need right now. Something about juice and how we’re out of fruit. He’ll just go out now and get some, okay? His hands in mine are lax, patient, waiting for me to let go. Please let me go.
So I open my hands. Watch Tad run out of the room. It’s fine, I think. Go ahead. Leave me here, I’m not alone. I’m lovely. I have my mists. Each one a world to wander in. All of them running down my face in rivulets, so very luminous I am. Dripping from my eyes onto my empty hands gripping air. I guess in the end we misted too much, Mother. But Mother’s not in the mirror anymore, must remember. Through the mists, I see a gold bracelet winking on the table. Nested between the red jars. Mother, did you leave me a gift? The bracelet itself is so small, so delicate, the gold thin as thread. It could have belonged to a child. Perhaps it did. What a slim little wrist it must have fit once. It has an eye in its center, I see. Strange, slanted. Staring at me like it can see my heart. Have I looked into this eye before? Why do I feel I have?