Cindy hadn't looked in a mirror in years. With no glass on the island, there was no way to construct one.
The only mirror she had anymore was Jimmy. With a real mirror, you could reach out and touch the glass. It wouldn't shy away.
The more she reached out to Jimmy, the farther away he seemed. The distance between them grew infinite. Like he was scared to show her her own reflection.
The early days had been difficult. They had just been children, stumbling over the weight of their volatile friendship, not quite sure what to make of their attraction. The memory of their friends reluctantly leaving was a very blurry one. In Cindy's mind, it was almost as if they had never been there at all when the crucial moment of decision came. All she remembered was biting her lip and saying the words that had changed her life, her possibilities forever.
We don't have to go. We can conquer the spider like we did everything else, rebuild the tree-houses, just the two of us. Jimmy, we don't have to go.
She had wanted him to say yes, crazy as it sounded. So when he did say yes, nothing else mattered. Their three friends, the spider, her piano lesson...it all faded away.
There were still arguments back then. Name-calling. Taunts. Cindy tried to control herself as much as she could.
Nothing could threaten this new reality. She would not ruin this for herself. He was a genius. He could find a way to leave if he really wanted to, he could suggest to her that it had been fun for a week or even a month, but that they needed to go home now. To their real home and their real lives back in Retroville.
Cindy lived under the imagined threat of their departure until she didn't. A day came when she finally released the fear of a shortened forever, when she realized that they were never leaving, that he was never going to suggest that they should.
A part of her wished he had suggested it. During the day, she smiled and flirted and helped with whatever tasks needed doing. When night came, the guilt set in.
She had stolen his genius away, kept it all for herself. Hoarded it, so it couldn't be celebrated by the world.
She had taken his lab, his dog, the universe all away from him.
All for what?
Just so she could feel loved or truly wanted for once in her sad life?
She was selfish.
If she had been selfish before, it was nothing compared to now. When she had tried to sabotage his chances with Betty, when she had dragged him away from April, that was child's play. Her selfishness had hit an apex when she had marooned him on an island far from the thing he really loved more than anything: science.
She tried to compensate for being a thief in every way she could. She mellowed with age. She spoke as little as possible of their old adventures or of anything that might remind him of what he had lost.
What she feared even more was him realizing that he'd made the wrong choice: who, in his position would have made the tradeoff, that he had?
Was it a testament to their love, or proof that even geniuses could be swayed towards irrational ends sometimes?
Who in their right mind traded such a bright future for Cindy Vortex?
Cindy could safely say that she had made the right choice to stay on the island away from her otherwise disappointing life. Had he?