directly at my face without looking away.
“You’re beautiful,” she said. You don’t need to change anything.
We got married and spent eight years together. Andrew never made fun of me or forced me to hide from the cameras. But the voices of my childhood were still living inside my head.
Every time my coworkers took a group photograph, I pretended to be sick.
Sometimes I even got out of bed at night, stood in front of the mirror and used my fingers to imagine how I would look with a smaller, straighter nose.
For years, I saved money for surgery.
When I finally scheduled the operation, Andrew didn’t seem happy.
“Natalie, are you sure?” she asked while holding my hand.
I do it myself.
He watched me for a long time and then nodded.
The operation went well.
When I woke up, my face was completely swollen and the
nose covered in bandages. Dr. Lewis warned me not to judge the outcome until several weeks had passed.
Andrew took me home.
He remained silent all the way. He held one hand on the wheel and held mine with the other.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“I’m just tired.
As soon as I walked into the house, I realized something had changed.
The large mirror that was above the fireplace in the room was gone.
The mirror in the hallway was not there either.
I rushed to the bathroom.
The mirror door of the medicine cabinet had been removed. The full-length mirror of our bedroom was also gone.
