Rating – PG-13
        Disclaimer – Not mine. Don’t sue.
        Dedication – To Nicole. I swear one of these days I’ll finish one of my long ones. Love you!
        Author's Notes - This is a post "Body" fic. PLEASE send feedback.
 
 
 

    My mirror is broken. Not in the literal sense, pieces strewn about the floor and all that, but I’m sure I’ll still get those seven years of bad luck. I know I will. They’ve already started.
    That woman in the mirror, she isn’t me. She’s too old, too hard, to be me. I’m only twenty. She looks… well I don’t know how old she looks, but it’s certainly older than I am.
    I am Buffy Summers. I am a college student. I have great friends and a loving family. I have great taste in shoes and a weakness for homemade ice cream. That’s who I am.
    That woman in the mirror, she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders. She’ll be lucky if she lives through college. She doesn’t have time for shopping or homemade ice cream. She is, for all practical purposes, an orphan.
    God, I don’t want to be her, not even a little.
    There’s this stranger reflected in my eyes and I don’t even like her. If she walked up to me tomorrow I’d turn around and walk in the other direction. I refuse to believe that she’s me.
    I think I’ll return this mirror tomorrow, though I kind of doubt the warranty covers hating your own reflection. Whatever, they can argue it with me all they want. I’m still returning it.
    The first day of my English class this last semester, back when I still tried to go every day, my professor wrote this line on the board that said “tell me who you love and I will tell you who you are.” I don’t remember what author wrote it or anything, but I’m kind of wondering if he was right. I think that might be what made my reflection change.
    I loved my mom. I love a dead woman.
    I was Buffy Summers. I am the woman in the mirror.
    Sounds simple doesn’t it?
    I’ve always kind of wondered why vampires can’t see their own reflections. It can’t be that whole lack-of-a-soul thing because Angel couldn’t see his reflection either. So what gives, right?
    Maybe, as we get older, as we go through all the shit life throws at us, our image withers away until there’s nothing left. Maybe all the pain and loss and lies and broken dreams eat away at our reflections, at who we are. Maybe, one of these days, I’ll look in another mirror (not this one, I’m returning it) and see nothing. Maybe not.
    Maybe I’m just babbling, searching for meaning in a meaningless world. I don’t know anymore.
    All I do know is that somehow I became that woman in the mirror and I think I hate her.