Me

"I'm frustrated with you."

She looks up at me, timid, with eyes wide. I answer the question she isn't asking.

"You're nothing like I thought you'd be when we were younger."

Blonde hair ripples over her shoulders as she shrugs, a deflective and defensive manuever in one. Her hazel eyes, my perfect match down to the sparkle of gold, flicker over her body with all its flaws and foibles. Every idiosyncracy and quirk is laid bare to a critical, unrelenting audience of one. She knows this. Self deprecation is evident in her sad smile, and the tone of her voice as she replies. "I'm sorry you're not who you wish you were. But what can I do?"

"Stop being so needy for one," I snap. "Stand on your own two feet without whining to the whole world every time you struggle. Be... be stoic for god's sake!"

"You need people. Is that being needy?"

I glare.

"What else?" she says in a small voice.

"Grow up. Be an adult. Don't hesitate in fear before every action. You're not a child any longer."

At the same moment our eyes drift to the forlorn stuffed pig on the floor. Our hearts beat with simultaneous regret.

Tears drip from her face. "But-but I don't want to."

The words she isn't saying tell me more. We're afraid, we're scared to fail, we aren't ready. I slump to the ground across from my mirror image.

"I know," I sigh, one of defeat and acceptance, "me neither."