charisstoma

Title: The Relationship
Author: charisstoma
Prompt: Before I met you
Word count: 576

Before I met you, I mean really met you, you’d steal glimpses of me and run away from the strangeness. I frightened you even if we eventually would play hide and seek together.

It wasn’t until later that we became acquaintances, not close but with a fascination between us for a while. It was an on again, off again relationship and still not all that close. We would start out the day together for a brief meeting and end the day in the same way. It was casual.

Years passed and we progressed into mornings of making funny faces and sharing intimate interludes kept hidden from even the closest of family. You would lock the door so there was only us. These were the periods where we entered into a wavering love/hate relationship, filled with deep loathing juxtaposed against careful admiration. It was a difficult time to live through but you never ignored me, never ceased to give me a glance whenever you saw me. I never told upon you about that time at school when you left a lipstick bright kiss behind upon me as a prank.

The morning after you lost your virginity you gazed for a long time into my eyes as if searching for any change in how I saw you. Whatever you saw was for your eyes only and in the end you shrugged as if to say, ‘Life was for living.’ There was still a hint of uncertainty in your attitude though, but you were yet young.

We became comfortable, you and I. You matured and though you didn’t hate me unless you had had a particularly horrible night out or were as you called it ‘sick as a dog’, it wasn’t me you blamed anymore. Our relationship was common place. We were not quite friends unless it was of a date night, then we became partners to a purpose and I would do what I could to make you look good. Often you would blow me a kiss as you walked out the door and other times you would just smile a sweet satisfied smile at me.

The first time you saw him … your face was lit from within. You were in love and it showed. I watched as you tried on clothing for your meetings with him and second guessed your choices. When you left me behind, what remained to view was a bed full of rejected choices.

Of course as always through our relationship there were points where we would catch glimpses of each other, sometimes you would notice of me, sometimes not. You didn’t owe me anything but on occasion you would give me a nod or raise a glass of champagne in my direction. It was a sign of our bonding, I suppose, the importance I held in your life.

Now things have changed, life goes on. There are wrinkles at your eyes and mouth but those can be called attractive laugh lines, indications of a happy life. A finger may try to smooth out the wrinkles between your brows but it won’t do any good, they’ll still be there and I will show them to you. I am not a friend after all, nor I am an enemy that I show you truth. I’m not a magical being to make time reverse. You need a painting for that. What I am and always have been is only the reflective surface of a mirror.