Nick Ellis woke up with a headache one morning after rounding the circuit downtown a little too well. He rolled his legs off the side of his bed and sat on the edge, holding his head. The morning sunlight trickled through the slats of his vertical blinds. His red digital clock rudely reminded him it was almost 10 in the morning. Across the room on his computer desk, a tiny hand mirror from his mother reminded him how awful he looked. Off he shoved himself. His double-wide mirror covered both sinks of his apartment’s master bathroom. He turned the hot faucet all the way open and was reaching for his toothbrush when he looked in the mirror and saw a woman in pajamas brushing her teeth at the neighboring sink.

“Christ!” he yelled, stumbling into the wall. She had noticed him and shouted at the same time, flattening herself against the opposite wall.

Nick stayed on his floor for a second. There was no one else in the room with him. Realizing he was probably still too hung over from last night, Nick climbed to his sink. The woman was still watching him from the other wall.

“What are you doing in my apartment?” she said. Nick jumped at the sound of her voice.

“Your apartment?” he said. “It’s my apartment! Why are you in my mirror?”

“Why are you in my mirror?” she demanded, coming up to the mirror to inspect him closely. She glanced around her bathroom. “Where are you?”

“I’m right here!” Nick said. He tried to move so that they were face-to-face, but as he did, he bumped into something invisible and the woman in the mirror turned and shoved the air, pushing him back—again—into the wall. He looked at the reflection, incredulous.

“You’re real,” he said.

“Of course I’m real!” She looked at him, confused. Nick waved a hand through the air and brushed hair with his fingertips. She jolted and stepped back a few paces.

“Weird,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” she said.

Nick saw the woman in his mirror a few more times that weekend. On Monday, he saw her in the reflection of the breakroom window. She sat at the same table by the window, only in the opposite chair. Her name was Mary Ellen. They drove the same route to the same office. She liked Qdoba, but he liked Moe’s. They both liked punk rock. He preferred his coffee with a little creamer, but she liked hers with half-and-half. Nick couldn’t see her in every mirror, but when he did, he could hear her, smell her, and even feel her.
They were perfect roommates. She introduced him to running in the morning—a sport he hated, but picked up since she caught him shirtless one day and laughed. He introduced her to experimental movies. The strangest part was seeing the reflection of himself in his own TV, far in the glass picture frame behind her couch. She didn’t always understand what she watched, but Nick was eager to tell her everything about it.

They were having dinner in the apartment one night, a square mirror in the middle of Nick’s table so he could see her face, when she reached for the bread basket and took a piece. Nothing changed on Nick’s table. Curious, he moved the basket away from the mirror. A few minutes later, Mary reached out of sight and her hand brought back another piece of bread. Nick sighed.

A few months later, Mary came out of her shower just as Nick was going into his. He knew as soon as they saw each other what was going to happen next. It’d been building for several days. Moving around the bedroom without mirrors to see each other ended in smushed toes, bumped noses, and plenty of giggles. Eventually Nick got two spare mirrors and stretched them across his computer desk, and then he could see Mary move in their room. When she climbed on the bed, he could hear the springs squeak even though nothing moved. Her hands were warm and soft on his skin. Every strand of her hair fell on his face and her lips felt as solid as any girl he’d ever had. But if he opened his eyes, all he saw was his ceiling fan turning in a slow circle.

When they were spent, Mary laid in Nick’s arms. His fingers tangled in her hair and her steady breath ghosted along his chest.

“Where are you?” he wondered.

“I’m right here,” she murmured.

Nick started to feel Mary around even when he couldn’t see or hear her. If he was in a room without a mirror, he always kept his phone nearby just to glance around. Seeing her in the corner reading or coming back in from a run was reassuring. Nick finally had to consider that he might be going insane—that his world was not real, that Mary wasn’t real. But if it really was a dream, Nick didn’t want to wake up. Better to sleep forever than to lose his precious gift. Better to dream of the girl in the mirror than live a life without her.

One night, as they lay in bed together, he felt the soft rhythm of her heart fluttering against his arm. Nick reached above his bed for one of his now-omnipresent mirrors and put it by his side. Mary was asleep and her fingers were splayed along his chest. She looked so real. Nick pressed a hand into the mirror. The glass gave way and he felt his hand on his own chest and his fingers threading through her own, and they tightened together, and Mary made a soft sound, and Nick could feel her fingers as warm and gentle as ever wrap around his own and he softly told her that he loved her.

“I’m right here,” she whispered. “I won’t let you go.”

And she didn’t.