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You look in the mirror and see your own reflection, and then see your own reflection again.
“Hello,” says the second. “Surprised to see me again, after all this time?”
You turn around to look. There’s no one there. You turn back to the mirror and see yourself two times over once again.
“Well, hello,” you say to the you that you see behind yourself. “Where did you come from?”
“You don’t remember?” the ghost in the mirror asks, because it surely could not be anything else but a ghost.
You frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, defensive. “Are you accusing me of something?”
The ghost laughs—incredulous, harsh, almost cruel—and it sounds wrong coming from a voice that sounds so much like your own. “Sure,” she says, and mockery rots in her words. “Accusing. Let’s go with that.” The ghost’s face—your own face—is twisted in a bitter glare. “How is that fair?” she asks, and it seems now that she is speaking to herself more than she is to you. “How is it fair that after everything that happened, after everything that you did, that you’re the one who gets to just walk away? And you don’t even have to live with the weight of it because you’ve forgotten it all.”
She’s angry, you think. Angry with you, maybe, for things you’ve supposedly done. But you know yourself, and you know what it’s like when you’re angry at someone, and this isn’t quite it. When you’re really, truly angry, you go quiet, go still. You wouldn’t be seeking out the person you’re angry with just to throw your emotions in their face, that’s for sure; if anything, you’d avoid them as much as you could.
(Or maybe just kill them, if it was really bad enough, but considering the ghost looks like it’s inches behind you and you haven’t felt a thing, you think that might not be an option.)
“I’m sorry,” you say, because it seems the only right thing to do.
The ghost freezes, her eyes wide and unreadable.
“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for,” she says.
“I don’t,” you reply, “but I can tell that I must have hurt you, and that it was wrong.”
A long moment passes in silence. You almost turn away from the mirror to try and look where the ghost ought to be again, but something in her eyes refuses to allow you to look away. Slowly, the ghost’s expression crumples, cracks open to reveal something raw and aching.
“There was a time I would have given anything to hear you say that,” she says, and her voice is spilling with grief.
Unthinking, unbidden, you reach out and lay a hand on the glass of the mirror. Something in you—maybe the part of you that still remembers whoever this ghost might be—longs to reach out, to reach in, to yank her from the reflection and hold her close.
“Is it too late to say it now?” you ask. Somehow, you’re scared of the answer.
The ghost in the mirror reaches out as well, presses her own hand to what must be the back of your own.
“It’s too late for anything now,” she says. And then, “Close your eyes? Please?”
You do, and suddenly it’s as if she is there.
In the darkness behind your eyes, you see her standing in front of you, her palm pressed to your own. The vision in the darkness steps forward, cradles your face between her hands, and presses her lips to yours.
If you imagine it just right, you think you can feel the faintest brush of cold where she kisses you.
When you open your eyes again, she is gone, and your reflection stands alone.