Disclaimer: Characters property of Marvel Comics. Words belong to the English language.

Author’s Note: First ever posted story ( gulp. ) Short little character peice. /.../ are thoughts. HTML version upon request...Criticism/praise/ice cream welcome. Please.

She store at her reflection. Reflected Paige. /A mirror is honest/, said her mother, /It shows you everything, even what you don’t want to see/. This said when she had discovered her teenage acne. It had erupted across her face one morning. It had waited underneath, the troops had to be rallied, she lost the war and the battle. She had been thirteen. Pimples and red and white heads and huge sores store back at her. /Don’t pick them/, said Sam, /It will leave scars/. He showed his own cheek to her, hollowed points on it where there had once been acne. Smiled at her. Home, for a visit. Watching his little sister getting all growed up.

Reflected Paige had empty eyes. She said, " I do not need perfection. " But that was rather easy for a reflection to say, because the words didn’t taste right in her mouth. Her real mouth. They danced off of the tongue in the mirror, they were at home clicking against those white teeth. But you couldn’t feel flavor in a reflection, bitter, rotten, sorrow.

Wet hair dripped down her back, smooth and white and soft. She had a towel around her waist. In the mirror, Reflected Paige slowly looked down at her chest. From mosquito bites to apples to...breasts. The evolution was slow and tiresome. /We must, we must, we must increase our bust/! That had been their cheer, she and the girl down the street, Cheri, and her younger sister Sarah. Rubbing on their flat chests with fists, or putting their hands over their heads and flexing together. Desperately trying to make something evolve. /What’cha training them to do/? Sam asked her, /Lie down?/

Obscenely large nipples. /We Guthrie have been cursed with big nipples, Paige/, her mother had told her. Solemnly nodding her head. Like she was going to develop dementia at the age of thirty-five. Or have to get married to someone from the trailer park down the street.

He handed minded. Reflected Paige winced at this. No, he hadn’t. Fingers gently grazed them, softly touched them. Light butterfly kisses. Then further southward, the expedition could not stop at this minor plateau. He wished to climb the mountain. To put up his flag and stake his claim, make his way down. And then another challenge, for he needed challenge. High altitudes, change, precipices, cliffs, rock bridges...he would climb them all, scale them all, he would stand at their peaks and he would look down upon the world...

What is better? she wondered, getting a wound, an infection, some pus, some gangrene, the doctor comes in, he says, " Paige, I am sorry, but we are going to have to amputate that limb? " Or just a vicious, brutal hack, " Paige, you won’t be needing that arm anymore! "

" Paige, " were his exact words, " I just don’t think we have all that much in common. " Hands slowly holding the passenger door open. Smile crossing his lips. Close. Goodbye, farewell, goodnight, adios. Cold autumn wind licking around her. One in the morning, moon high and heavy in the sky, weighted down by its girth. Right orbs slowly floating farther and farther away from here until there were gone, fog enveloping the path they had taken.

/It is important,/Sam had said,/When you are upset, you should find something to concentrate on to take your mind off of it./ Pumice in the shower stall, for the dead skin on her feet. Slowly, slowly, working her way all around her body. Red from the layer of skin removed, methodically, and oh, she could have just ripped it off, where was the challenge in that, though? Red from the hot water pummeling down on her from the shower head. And then, Paige, the lobster, one hundred and some odd pounds, a big specimen, sweet and tender with a little tinge of bitter underlying it all. Crouched in the corner of the shower, waiting for the water to run cold on her.

Reflected Paige, still pink in the mirror. Some places she still bled, others were hard and scabbing over. But not too bad. Not where you could see. That was where it had been hardest, anyway. Where it had caked and stuck and would not go away, no matter how hard she tried to get it off of her. Kids she baby-sat: out dirty all day, and underneath that there was just grime, and it wouldn’t go away unless you really scrubbed, for a dollar fifty an hour it just really wasn’t worth that kind of effort...

Sore and tired and heavy and hard and jelly all inside. Some nugget, too, it was like a box of chocolates, etc. No more cherry! she thought. Reflected Paige winced, then. Tears welled up in huge eyes, supposed to be dry. instinctively, her lower lip came inward, tears streaked down. Teeth gnawed, blood filled her mouth. She sucked until no more would come out, she licked the seal the wound, to keep the worry.

Reflected Paige tried again. " I do not have to be perfect. " It seemed television movie perfect, tears streaming down her face. If only there was mascara to run down the cheeks too. But that was all left on her pillow.

She looked down at the razor on the side of the sink. Slash up and down, not side to side, she remembered reading once. Hugged her arms tightly around a shivering body. Rain dripped down from the sky. It passed outside the window on its way down to the ground.

Reflected Paige was wet. Her hair was knotty, her eyes huge and blood shot. Her face dropped. Her body tight. Slowly, hands pulled at elbows, pulling at the skin. Stretching, taut, pulling it away. Underneath, glass, clear and fragile. Slowly, fingers searching, grabbing, tugging. Removing not in one clear motion, just slowly tearing pieces away, letting them lie on the floor. Pile underneath her, like cutting hair away.

Reflected Paige reflected the bathroom and mirror in herself. Paige after Paige after Paige, made of glass and fragile. Clear and sharp, the image smooth and unbroken. See-through Paige, organs and blood vessels, muscle and bone. Each constructed, beautifully rendered. Slowly, slowly poking, touching finger to the worry on her lips. Still there, but made of glass.

/I love you because you’re you/, her mother had said, /Not what you do or don’t do. Perfection is something none of us can achieve!/ She cried because she had gotten a B on a math test. Study. Numbers, equations, she crammed hem in her head. Her pencil moved smooth and true. Over and over she reworked her figures, her head whirled and spun. She had done so well. The star for the one hundred! The most stars on the board in her class. The gift certificate hers. Tears spilt and covered plain cotton sheets, hiccups and the taste of her last meal in the back of her throat. Mother’s warm arms, pulling her into the soft body, gently stroking her hair.

Break and shatter, pieces littering the floor. Skin beneath her, glass too. Sucked up in a vacuum. Sign posted on the doorway. No Bare Feet Please!

Paige and Sam, she with long black yarn on head. Watching television re-runs, black and white. The spindly antenna covered in aluminum foil. <i>Babe, I’ve Got You Babe!</i>. Had there been the means to procure a video recorder, it would have been on video tape. Shown to the kids on Christmas and other assorted holidays. Mama Guthrie sniffling because her kids were all grown up, now.

Glass arms extended towards the mirror. Flesh on flesh. Soft caress. Abandon. Disbelief. It had started with a kiss. Hands, slowly touching the mirror. Paige and Reflected Paige. She turned her head. Soft glass tendrils of hair framed a delicately etched face.

" Hey, Hayseed? " was the question with the abrupt knock on the door. Connections severed, lost. Like she’d figured out something and now it was gone. Or was going to say something, augment the conversation...totally forgotten when a new strand was brought up. " You gonna be in there all day or what?! "

" No, " she said, voice crystal and clear. " Just give me a second, OK? "