Mirrors Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the lock engaged.
    “Wait!”
    As if responding to her voice, the overhead lights blinked out. Darkness engulfed her. Pitch. A thin line of light peeked out from under the bathroom door but it wasn’t enough to give the room any shape.
    “Wait!”
    If Lawson could hear her, he was paying her no mind.
    She stood still, trying to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, mind spinning with the realization that she had no control of the lights.
    The bed was straight ahead, next to the bathroom door.
    She crossed the room, stepping carefully even though she knew there was nothing to trip on. Reached the bathroom door and pulled it open, half expecting to see Lawson leaning against the sink, waiting for her.
    White light spilled past her. The bathroom was as she’d left it. Pristine. Clinical. Not even a water spot on the sink. Perfectly quiet.
    Anxious and once again alone with only her thoughts, Christy walked back to the bed and sat for a while, staring into the dim, bathroom-lit room. She finally settled to her side and curled up.
    It was there, staring at the outline of the desk across the room, that she began to consider Lawson’s jumble of words. Any sane person could see through them. This was his progressive ther-I-py, a clever play on the word which set the focus on the self. She being the ther-I-pist.
    Words, nothing but.
    Unnerving words, but only that.
    Unless…
    And it was that unless that began to get to Christy. Unless there was some truth to what he had said. There was. It was true, for example, that she had a rather low self-image. But she didn’t hate herself.
    Unless he was right and she secretly did.
    She blinked in the darkness and thought about that.
    The what ifs started to cycle through her mind. What if she did hate herself and had only convinced herself that she was okay as a coping mechanism? What if Lawson knew more about her than she did? What if her file contained details about her past that she’d forgotten?
    What if she didn’t know Christy’s past because Christy was only a fabrication of her mind?
    Fear washed down her back and she sat up, heart pounding.
    It was true. She really did secretly hate many things about herself. Why else did she persistently withdraw from others? Why else did she keep a locket with a fake picture around her neck? Why else did she secretly want to be anyone other than who she really was?
    Beautiful, put together, attracting men as she walked confidently across the floor to a stage that waited her appearance—who wouldn’t want that?
    But that wasn’t her. She was the girl who’d been born plain. Ugly, even.
    She rose unsteadily to her feet, Lawson’s words ringing in her head.
    Look at yourself in the mirror long and hard, and let’s see if you can see through the illusion.
    Christy rounded her bed and walked to the bathroom. She walked in and tentatively stepped in front of the mirror.
    The plain face, so familiar to her, stared back. Christy.
    Slowly, she began to relax. Christy, not Alice. There was no illusion here, only a very plain image of a girl who’d been born into obscurity. More than once, Austin had told her that he thought she was pretty. What did Austin know? But at least it was something, right?
    She lifted her hand and pinched the flesh around her neck. Pulled it back to see what a thinner neck would look like.
    The difference produced a stunning result. At least as far as her neck went, the slight shift in body mass transformed her into something far more appealing.
    She squeezed her nose, which she’d always considered too fat, particularly around her nostrils. Much better. She let go and looked at herself again. Truth was, she did hate the way she looked. A few thousand dollars might fix it when she got up the nerve. But they couldn’t lengthen fingers.
    He’s talking about your insides, Alice.
    The room suddenly felt ominously quiet. She’d called herself Alice?
    You hate who you are. And for the record, what can Austin know if