Where were you?

I waited for as long as I could before starting dinner. No, I didn't go shopping because I was waiting for you so you didn't yell at me for getting 'the wrong stuff' again. I tried to ring you but you're phone was off. Again. Would you ever get yourself organised? I've got to go get ready now, I'm going out with James. I could have used you're help with that as well, you know! I have no idea what to wear. I'm going to be horribly late now. I've borrowed your necklace-the one with the funky red beads.

I figured you would already have eaten with your new mystery man anyway. You really have to stop hiding him and bring him up to meet me sometime. Not that you could be bothered to text me and tell me where you went. There's stuff in the fridge if you haven't eaten yet. Although, if he has you out all hours won't even buy you dinner, you might want to find another guy.

I mean honestly, with what happened to Kate Winslow I thought you might be more considerate. Next time you disappear on me like that I'm calling the cops and reporting you as missing.

Don't wait up.

Love you! Mum.

Miriam took a deep breath and put effort into not ripping the note up. She opened the drawer and grabbed out a pen. If her mother wanted to communicate by notes, that was just fine. Miriam could do that.

30 minutes.

She flipped over the note, and started to write.

Where was I? Where were you? I told you I told you I was staying in school late today to finish up my history project. You said that you would get me! You told me not to waste money on the bus or a taxi. Remember that? It only happened this morning!

Get myself organised? Says the woman who stole my phone charger last week and lost it? The same woman who can't go one month without cracking her phone screen?

Also, stop taking my things without asking! You always break them or loose them. Nana gave me those beads and if you come back having left them in a bar somewhere I swear I'm going to live with Dad and Linda or something. I don't even care how much of a bitch she is. It has to be better than being stuck here with you.

How many times do I have to tell you I'm not seeing anyone? I told you at least three times yesterday. Guess what, mum? I'm not you. I don't need to jump onto another man to get over the last one. Oh, and the stuff in the fridge is sour milk and gone-off strawberries. That's all that's there because someone didn't go shopping. AGAIN.

I cannot believe you are using that poor girl's disappearance to try and guilt me. Her poor parents have been miserable for months. Then you think to yourself-hey maybe I can use this to try and manipulate my daughter. You know what, next time you might have to call them because I might just have had enough of your shit and actually run off somewhere.

Miriam slammed down the pen when she was done. She felt smug knowing that what she wrote was going to hurt her mother for an entire five seconds. Then the guilt started to seep in.

"Damn," she said as she crunched the paper into a ball and threw it into the bin.

She dumped the empty yogurt pot in over it and headed upstairs, feeling way more tired than she did when she got home.

She couldn't blame her mother for thinking she had been out with some guy. Not really. Cry and then move on, that was her mother's way. She couldn't handle being alone for all that long. She was terrified of it. Miriam had to wonder how much of that was down to her father running off the second he heard she was pregnant.

Miriam was out all the time this weather, but that wasn't because she was running to try and replace Aaren. She could never replace him. She would never want to. She spent her time in the library or at friends' houses. Sure, she could study at the house but that meant being in the house.

She missed the apartment, her real home, and she hated every smelly inch of the old house. Her grand aunt had left it for them to take care of. A last act of pity from a nice woman who had barely known them. Miriam wished she had left the thing to someone else. It was too much for the two of them. Miriam couldn't relax there. Not with the constant noises and that eerie feeling of being watched that she couldn't shake.

20 minutes.

The mirrors hadn't helped things. Turned out, her late grand aunt had been a bit of a secret hoarder. She had at least two mirrors in every room, and an entire room stuffed with them when they moved it.

Miriam had never realised how creepy that could be until she was in there, moving things with her mom, in the dark. That light had been the first to go. Despite being careful-Miriam had gotten about seventy years bad luck that day. Many of them had faced towards each other so they made strange tunnels of lights and multiplies. Despite Miriam's begging, none of the mirrors left the house. Most of them were in the attic somewhere but that room was still full of them.

"They aren't ours to get rid of," her mother had said.

Miriam knew that she hated them as well. She wouldn't admit it because they were hand-carved and she didn't like to talk bad about other artists.

They did put sheets over most of them, though. They couldn't do that with the mirrors bolted to the wall. One of these was on the back of the kitchen door. Miriam kept forgetting it was there. She kept getting startled by the movement of her reflection in the corner of her eye.

That night she didn't forget, she left the door open so the mirror faced the window. There, instead of reflecting her, it reflected the outside eyes that were watching her.

15 minutes.

She left it open as she walked out of the room and up the stairs. The light in the upstairs landing flickered when she reached the last step.

"Oh, not you too," she said.

She hurried into her room and turned on the light there. Switching on her phone, she was glad to see a message from Sue cancelling until tomorrow.

You're miserable enough at the moment without getting sick as well. But don't think I'm letting you off! We ARE going out at the weekend.

Miriam smiled and text back, agreeing that the weekend would be better. She didn't mention her mother and the walk home. Sue would start a fight with Jackie again if she knew. Miriam closed the bedroom door and turned on her laptop for a bit of background noise.

10 minutes.

The picture on it made her frown. It was still the picture from when she and Aaren went to the festival. Her hair had been shorter then. She had put a green streak through the boring, mousy brown in an attempt to make it less boring.

Maybe she should dye it again, and do more than a single streak. Karen, her old neighbour, had gone from blond to a pretty blue-black colour. It reminded Miriam of raven feathers. She could do that. Of course Karen also had about a dozen piercings and tattoo sleeves. Miriam had watched Aaren get a tattoo the weekend of the festival and had chickened out of getting her own.

Miriam traced a finger along her collar bone. He had gotten some phrase inked along his. What had it said again?

She tried to imagine her eyes looking out from behind a black fringe with a silver stud in her ski-slope nose. She tried to picture someone completely different to the girl who was sitting in the room. She couldn't get the image to work, though. Her freckles and mud-coloured eyes didn't work with the theme.

That had been a great weekend, and she hadn't smiled like she was in the picture for weeks now. She had to change the background soon. Every time she looked at it, it made her even more miserable...

But not that night. Instead, she turned on her music and put the laptop to the side. She knew a message from him was waiting for her, along with their weekly essay-length emails. If she didn't respond soon he was going to call. Or worse, call her mom looking for her.

The idea of trying to keep it together while listening to his voice wasn't all that appealing. She hadn't thought about a way to respond yet. What was she supposed to say? Congratulations? Goodbye?

5 minutes.

She lay down and rubbed her eyes. She hadn't taken off her make-up so her mascara had travelled south in the shower. A bit of black rubbed off onto her hands. She groaned and got back up. The last thing she needed was her mother coming back drunk, and thinking that she had been crying. It was difficult enough to deal with her when she wasn't trying to act like an adult.

Miriam walked over to what was the only mirror in the house she didn't hate. It had a wooden frame, painted white, filled with flowers and spirals and oak leaves. Her mother liked to crave things into wood. Miriam couldn't imagine her making something so simple and so lovely.

1 minute.

She got a wipe and started to work it around her face, cleaning the gunk from around her eyes. The light in the hall flickered again. She could see it from under the gap in the door. She had forgotten to take her earrings off in the shower, so she did it there. She two tear-drop pearls her Nana had given her wouldn't exactly work with the goth aesthetic either.

"Maybe I'll go blond," she said, to no one in particular..

20 seconds.

The light in her room decided to flicker as the one in the hall went out. This startled Miriam, who dropped the earrings in surprise.

She cursed and bent to retrieve them. One had rolled under the mirror.

"We definitely have to get an electrician out," she said, making a mental note to bring it up to her mother.

As she caught hold of it, she noticed something blue on the carpet in the mirror's reflection. Miriam reached her hand to touch it, but there was nothing there. The light flickered again and she could still see the blue thing.

"A spot on the mirror?" she asked, but wondered at the same time why a spot would be glowing.

5.

She pulled at the end of her t-shirt and rubbed at the glass, but the weird smudge remained.

4.

The light went again as she was bending in front of the mirror.

3.

The music cut off.

2.

This time the light did not come back on. Miriam felt something pull her forward before her eyes could adjust to the dark. She raised her hands, expecting to use the glass to stop her fall.

1.

They found only air as she tumbled forward.