What I See by Oleksandra Khelemendyk

The mirror has fogged up from steam, what a relief.

Standing naked on the cold bathroom floor, I dread facing my reflection. Off-putting, ugly, too hideous to look at with my bowed legs, long white scars on my hips and a fat belly, with my wide shoulders – too wide to belong to a girl – and, on top of that, with freckles all over my face, I dream to be someone else. Turning my head away not to look in the mirror even by accident – a lump of disgust clogs my throat at the mere thought – I put on my trousers and a loose-fit hoodie before walking out of the humid warmth. Despite that, I tremble from cold, and it’s a perfect excuse to throw myself onto the bed and wrap up in the blanket. To the tip of my nose, in the middle of June.

I’ve spent three or four days like this: staying at home, avoiding mirrors and refusing to eat not to gain a pound. A growing pile of books on my night stand helps me not to look, saddening Coldplay songs in my earphones prevent me from thinking. My dad is worried; he thinks I’m tired. My mom is troubled; she is sure I’m heartbroken. The doctor is mistaken; he says I have a body dysmorphic disorder. That’s a euphemism for being insane, and taking the pills he prescribes means acknowledging that. No, thank you, I’m comfortable here.

Relaxed after a long warm shower, I’m about to fall asleep when my phone buzzes with an incoming message. No, I can’t ‘snap out of it’. No, I don’t want to ‘talk it through’. No, I won’t go out like this. They can’t tell me anything new, so I ignore the notification. And the next one, and one more. The sound itself is annoying, so I pick up my phone to disable the notifications. A reminder to return a book to the library (a fine for the delay has grown huge); a few ads; tons of spam from social media, which I don’t maintain. The last message stands out, a suggestion in the avalanche of demands. 

‘I have something to show you,’ wrote my best friend Ethan, and added a winking emoji. Intrigued, I open the messenger and find him online, typing. ‘Do you see what I see?’ he asks and sends me a picture – a strand of wavy ginger hair resting on a graceful neck and a sharp collarbone. In a few seconds, another image follows – a yellow sundress draped around the curves of a slender waist. The next one shows a fiery heather branch in a delicate hand with a silver ring on the middle finger – the ring I never take off. Amazed, I suppress a gasp, and my heart starts racing. More photos of me, me and me from the last week’s walk to the lake appear on the screen one by one. A faint smile on my lips; my freckled cheek; thin arched eyebrows above my hazel eyes, sandal laces wrapped around my ankles… In the diffuse evening light, I look anything but ugly – soft and tender, elegant and feminine. Mesmerizing. Attractive.

‘Beautiful,’ I reply before I can think. ‘I like them’.

These pictures, carefully and professionally taken, make me feel as if someone was pulling a thread attached to my chest. It hurts, it tickles, it is unbearable, and it gets worse when Ethan sends:

‘I like you, too’.