You stare it down. There is complete silence; only the intense frustration that surrounds you. The feeling is practically palpable, though your face is completely straight. It stares back, just as impatient yet apathetic. It doesn't care.
You don't care either.
It mocks you- everything about you. Every little quirk, every little motion, is thrown back in your face with a disgusted scowl. It peers straight into your soul and there is nothing you can do but stand there and take it, trying to administer the same punishment. It's hideous. You're hideous.
You reach up, your palm now blistering with anger cooled by the reflective surface. Your eyes harden, its gaze recedes slightly. Though as you lean forward to intimidate it, to chase it away so you never have to look at it again, it mirrors your motions perfectly and soon you're forehead to forehead with it, staring down the ugly blood-red eyes. No matter how hard you try, you can't make them stop.
They won't look away. They won't give in. They just won't break.
Then they're gone and you're stalking out of the bathroom. You return with a marker clenched so tightly in your fist that it's a wonder it doesn't splatter everywhere when you popped the cap off. Your reflection is staring down at the object, brows furrowed, lips pursed. It looks serious. You second that.
Slowly, deliberately, you trace the gaze back up until you're again staring yourself down. You lean forward with one hand on the sink, you lip twitching when you lift the marker and another comes to meet it half-way. As you trace the bright red of its iris against the glass, you can only watch as your reflection does the same.
With a few messy swirls of the Sharpie, you are no longer staring into the mutant eyes of the creature in your reflection- the one you stumble across so often, who always looks haggled and beaten down. Instead you're staring into calm, cool black eyes. They don't blink. They don't move. They simply stare emotionlessly at the far wall, and you're completely okay with that. You like it.
In fact, you'd go so far as to say you love it. It shows nothing and disguises everything. It is thurough and apathetic. It is everything you are supposed to be.
This thought lingers as you step back, eyes no longer lined up with the marker yet the black lingers. It glints in the pale light of the bathroom as you push your sunglasses up a bit on the bridge of your nose. You smeer away the marker, glance yourself dead in the eye and earn the slightest nod from your reflection.
You're ready to face the world.
Dave belongs to Andrew Hussie. The rest is mine.