The Tiny Mirrorball

Short Fiction

Strangers always ask her about her necklace. 

Always ask her where she got it or what it means. If she ever takes it off. If she’s always worn it. 

They complement its beauty, its uniqueness. The way it’s both simple and complex. 

The thin silver chain hangs delicately around her neck everyday, bearing four small tokens. Each one a gift from the most important women in her life. 

She liked when people asked about her necklace. It gave her the opportunity to tell them about these women. The women that came before her and paved the way for her. 

The largest charm was a silver heart-shaped locket. A gift from her older sister from when they were small. Something that her sister had saved up pennies and nickels to buy. After all these years, the locket remained bare – no photos had made the locket their home. 

Then there was the delicate ivory heart from her maternal grandmother. It was much smaller than the locket but bore its same shape. She did not receive it until after her grandmother died when she was twelve. 

Her most treasured charm hung loosely on the chain. It was an art deco-style gold ring that had a thin gold rim that wrapped around two luminescent pearls like small golden waves. Her paternal grandmother – her first best friend – gave this to her on her thirteenth birthday. It was too small to fit around her fingers, but she hated wearing rings anyways. She was always hyper-aware of them like a foreign object wound too tightly on her fingers when she was writing or typing or cooking. So she put it on the chain.

The last token she didn’t add until she was seventeen. This was always the charm that people asked about. It was a teardrop-shaped angular cut crystal that caught every light it was shown, brilliantly reflecting colors in surrounding directions like a tiny portable mirrorball. 

It was stunning. It was her mom’s. That’s what she tells people at least. And it’s not a complete lie. More like a half lie. 

It was her mom’s. But it wasn’t a gift. 

Now it hangs around her neck, becoming heavier and heavier with each wear. She wears it like a memory. A regret. This tiny portable mirrorball reflecting her silent shame on every wall in every room. 

It was originally part of a set of two. A pair of earrings gifted to her mother by a friend who had made them especially for her. They were her mother’s favorite. They were the girl’s favorite to borrow too. Her mom always asked her to be careful with them. To always return them safely to the top drawer of her dresser where her mom kept the rest of her jewelry.

The girl took good care of the earrings. Always grateful that her mom let her wear something so special. And she protected them until the night she wore them to a friend’s party. 

It was the summer before her senior year of high school. She delicately threaded them through her pierced ears and smiled in the mirror as they reflected the light of her pale blue eyes. She always felt beautiful, truly beautiful, in these earrings. 

All of her close friends were at this house, maybe a total of ten people were there. They danced outside by the fire. They drank and laughed like they had always done. But this party was different for the girl. 

There was one boy in the group that had never truly let her in. Never cared to get to know her and always expressed disdain for her. He was there. And for the first time, the two acted like friends – or the girl thought for the first time, they were friends. He laughed when she told a joke. He listened to her speak. He danced with her when the music permitted. Relief rushed over her body as they awkwardly moved to the beats of the song. She wanted him to like her. He was the standard for cool and had been picky with who he called a friend. His exclusivity made him attractive to the girl. Not in a romantic or sexual way but in a way that made her want to win at his game. It was a challenge to her, and that night she had won.

When it was time to sleep, she was properly buzzed on cheap beer and the beds were all taken. The boy kindly offered she take the couch, but she refused. She was a good floor sleeper anyways. So he laid down on the living room sofa and her parallel to him on the rug below. Her front facing the foot of the couch, she rested her head on the makeshift pillow constructed out of a pile of random clothes, and she silently smiled. 

She fell asleep, but it seemed like no more than a second passed before she woke up. He had already begun to take all the parts of her like a petulant child sinking their hands into another kid’s birthday cake before the candles were blown out. 

She was still on her side, facing the couch. Her right hip bone burrowing into the ground, bruised, as if her body was subconsciously trying to bury itself. She could not see him. Only feel him and hear him. Each touch a trespass on stolen land until all that was left were her eyes frozen in place. 

And there it was glimmering softly in the dark, dusty vastness. Her eyes stayed fixed on the singular earring lying limply under the couch as it reflected the light of his every move. She started to silently weep.
When it was over and the house started to wake up, the girl hid in the bathroom for too long a time to know. She went back to look for the piece of jewelry, but it was gone. Every time she returned to that particular house, she looked for it to no avail. It had vanished. 
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She kept the secret from her mom for a while until finally confessing that she lost the earring. Soon after, she slid the remaining crystal onto the thin silver chain. She lies to everyone who asks her about the necklace. One of the tokens wasn’t a gift. But she let it hang around her neck like a noose. No one else knows it's not whole. That it’s missing its other half. A whole part of itself gone. Still she wears it. And still the girl lies. And still the necklace reflects light everywhere she goes, secretly displaying its history on every wall in every room.