Reflection
”Danny, look at me.”
Danny looks up from the sink, but Paulina isn’t looking at him. She’s looking at the mirror. At his reflection.
His eyes move instinctively to her reflection, and he meets her eyes in the mirror. She smiles gently at him, her hair a perfect, beautiful mess of bedhead, her eyes green like the sea, and he could get lost in them forever and be content. Then she moves slowly, carefully closer, her eyes still holding his own, until she’s right next to him.
She pauses for a second there, appraising him, before wrapping her arms around him, leaning her head into his chest. He chuckles and wraps his arms around her as well.
”Good morning to you, too.”
Paulina sighs, almost contentedly, but there’s something in her eyes, some worry that he can’t quite decipher.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighs again, holding him tighter. “Danny, what do you see?”
He smiles at her reflection, then kisses the top of her head. “Only the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Paulina looks up at him, then, chin resting on his chest. She unravels one of her arms from the embrace, and then gently grabs his chin, carefully maneuvering his head so it faces forward.
“What do you see now?”
“... The luckiest guy on the planet?” He smiles a winning smile, trying to turn to look at her. But her grip is firm, her eyes in the mirror serious.
“No jokes, Danny. What do you see?”
Danny deflates a little. He frowns. And he forces himself to do what he’d been avoiding all morning. For her, he looks at his face in the mirror.
He sees light blue eyes (dull and stupid, just like you) and messy black hair (at least mine is messy because of the wind; what’s your excuse?). He sees a square jaw (you wanna be a hero so bad, you may as well look the part you nerd) and the remnants of a bruise on his left cheek (what a klutz you coulda dodged the shit out of that). He sees a nose he twice remembers wrinkling in anger; a mouth full of twice the words he’d rather not repeat.
He looks down at Paulina— at her, not her reflection— and she lets him turn his head, bringing her arm back down to wrap around his waist.
“I guess... I just see me.” He looks away as he says it, opting to stare a hole into the sink, holding back the green that wants to light his eyes.
She hugs him tight, ruffling his hair, pressing her cheek into his chest. Then she looks up at him again.
“You know what I see?”
He waits, but she doesn’t say anything. He then looks into her eyes, staring into a sea of love and wisdom and determination.
“I see the bravest and most caring man in the world.”
He goes to close his eyes, to shake his head, to press his face into her hair— he doesn’t know what— but her hand reaches out, grasping his chin and forcing him to look at her, to stare into her eyes. They are serious, and they are determined, and they are raw with emotion and with truth.
“I see a man who goes out there every day, and saves peoples lives. A man who lives his life to the fullest, and who fills his life with the love he has to give. I see a man who loves more than anyone has ever loved, and who brings that love to work, and who saves people he’s never met with his love, and who has more than enough love to spare at the end of the day for his family.”
Paulina’s eyes soften, and her hand softens against his face, and he leans into it, still holding her gaze with his own.
“I see a man with so much love to give... he should give some to himself, as well.” Paulina smiles gently at him, and his vision of her goes blurry. When he goes to bury his face in her hair, she lets him this time, running a hand through his hair as he holds her tight.
They stand like this for a few moments, Danny shuddering, Paulina standing solid against him.
As Danny collects himself, she whispers, “I love you. All of you. And you deserve that love, and the love of your family and friends, and the love of this town.”
She pauses for a moment, and Danny lifts his head from her hair to look down at her. He knows his face is red and blotchy, but she smiles up at him and puts a hand to his cheek anyways.
“But most of all, you deserve your own love.”
She kisses his chin.
“And you can start by looking at yourself in the mirror.”
