Author's Note: this is for my GCSE (General Certificate in Secondary Education for those outside the U.K) English Language Coursework. Please review with your thoughts, maybe suggestions, since this piece needs one final draft before I write it up finally.

Saints & Strangers

Staring in the mirror has always been the first thing you do in the morning, but not to see your reflection.

There's almost a fear which surrounds you when it comes to looking in that mirror, the one stiff in place, its elegant glass looming over the room; looming over the bedroom like your husband does you.

You just don't want to look in that mirror and see your mother staring back, her emerald orbs glassy at the pure thought that her daughter has become the one thing she willed you to never transform into – no more than your husband's last name and that one prefix.

Mrs.

That mirror compels you to flit back to your past, ignoring the man asleep in the king size monstrosity just over three metres behind you. That elegant headboard is encompassed by cerulean walls, clawing for the chance to pull you into the abyss.

Normally you'd wish for them to do so, as the rocks on your finger plead for gravity to pull them forth, the clattering on the ground would be so calming within the hell you live as his wife. Those rings are the only things keeping you there, trapping you in the place you have to call home. The size of the stone means nothing to you, nor does the pride in your father's face the day we led you down that aisle.

None of that matters now, as your gaze tracks back from the glistening stones, set with a platinum band, up the wall which holds the height markings of your five-year-old daughter; each pencil mark sitting hand in hand with the date. But then you're back to the mirror, and you have to ignore the bags under your eyes as you see him stir beneath the eiderdown in the corner of that mirror, his hand moving through the strands of his carefully sculpted hair.

In that moment, you plaster a smile on your face, swinging around to face him.

"Good morning honey."

Your hands accomplish the procedure of creating your daughter's pigtails out of muscle memory, your eyes still moving to anywhere except the mirror at the forefront of your wardrobe. Her giggles are music to your ears as she runs her own fingers through her Barbie's locks, the small fingers failing to grasp the final strands of synthetic blonde as she attempts to tie it back.

Your eyes meet the mirror again, and this time it causes your fingers to stop their movements.

Peering back at you is a woman you recognise instantaneously as your mother in her early thirties, her appearance uncanny to your own.

It's evident that the small girl in your lap notices the sudden halt in your daily routine, her eyes – an uncanny resemblance in hue to your own – looking at you through the mirror.

But this isn't your main priority.

You can see your degree on the nightstand at your half of the bed you're sitting on, the reflection perfect in the glass. No one ever asks what you studied at university, despite the fact that the first story your husband shares is one which illustrates the first time you met – in a lecture hall.

Perhaps, you ponder, it's because all your, so-called, friends are like him. Their own wives in their finery at dinner parties, where you simply remain in place as a good housewife and mother, nothing like the politics graduate who should be treated as equal. Your degree deserves to be alongside his on the mantle piece, displayed for the world to see.

You pull yourself from your thoughts, sealing your eyes and taking a breath before you look again, before you open yourself up to your reflection.

Your mother is still in that mirror.

But your breath leaves your throat as you realise once again, it's you.

It's your hair manipulated into the impeccable bun your mother taught you as soon as your hair was long enough, it's your cheeks that are drained of any colour they held when you were younger, it's your eyes, not hers, that are underlined by sacks concealer could never hide.

That tear is running down your cheek, not hers, and it puts it all into perspective; puzzle pieces jumbled for years finally falling into the correct place as you gently move your daughter from your lap, her confusion evident as your path is clearly that of the bathroom.

But his hand is quickly around your wrist.

"Stop crying, darling."

Your eyes meet the glass of the bathroom mirror, and for a split second you speculate why the house you are obligated to call home holds too many mirrors for one to count.

The makeup is finally removed from your face, allowing your skin to breathe. But the removal of makeup is accompanied by the reveal of pure exhaustion, the curtain hiding your true self immediately jabbing at your heart to be pulled shut once again, to hide the outcome of your life.

You still see your mother staring back at you, a woman whose life before marriage remains a mystery to so many. Did she have hobbies, was she well-educated? The prefix had ruined your mother's life, a fact that was only beginning to dawn upon you now. Not only had the prefix ruined her life, but the second those two rings were placed on your mother's hand, the girl once inside her had died.

That carefree girl had been replaced by a mechanical woman, weighed down by social duties to the extent her own daughter often returned to school to an empty house, the empty fridge sitting in the grand kitchen, with nothing more than a note telling you she was out with her friends.

You tentatively reach out, hoping that the reflection isn't you.

Your fear of mirrors has always been because you see your mother looking back, her eyes oh so similar to yours, her hair the same shade of auburn which you had spent so long of your life attempting to hide because your husband said his wife couldn't be ginger.

The reflection stares back at you, its own hand raised, palm forward, willing you to meet it.

The reflection is your mother, a woman who stands by her husband's side through thick and thin. A woman who hides her emotions and feelings behind an iron curtain, refusing to effect your father's reputation.

She's the woman who lost everything she ever was in order to raise you, and the feeling within the pit of your stomach is boiling, the possibility that maybe, just by being in the house you're obligated to call home, you're succumbing to that fate too. Perhaps your daughter will be avoiding mirrors in thirty years' time, because every time she meets your eyes they're so full of despair it's sickening.

She herself would be standing in her bathroom, wet hair dangling limply beside her shoulders as she, too, reaches out, the choice of the moment making tears fall from her beautiful eyes as yours are. She'd, too, be curious of where this stranger emerged from, lip trembling and oh so weak when it came to breaking free of the net cast around her life.

If you were to reach out and touch the glass, you would stand by your husband as promised, sickness and health, wealth or poverty. You could be a saint to your family, but a stranger to yourself. But if you were to run away, go and find her, perhaps your life would be worth living again.

Back to Beca, back to the Bellas, back to Chloe.

You still hesitate.