Beyond The Reflection

Lilia POV

The rain felt like a personal insult. 

It didn’t fall like rain normally should—calm, refreshing, and gentle. No, the rain pounded down in sheets, as if the sky had finally snapped and decided to unleash its fury on everything below.

It came down hard, thumping against roofs, slapping against windows, stinging my skin, and sneaking into every little crack it could find. The street had transformed into a slick, muddy river, swallowing bits of garbage and spitting them back out in the gutter. 

My sneakers, once white, were now a dull brown and completely drenched. Water seeped in through the holes in my worn soles, making my socks squish with every step. My jacket, which I’d picked up secondhand a couple of years ago, clung to me like wet paper, heavy and useless. 

My hair lay flat against my forehead, dripping into my eyes. I attempted to raise the collar around my neck, but it proved entirely ineffective.

Nothing could keep out the cold anymore, not even the weather's chill nor that other cold—the one that had settled inside me since that day, four months ago, when everything shattered. 

It had been four months since my father passed away. It has been four long months since we laid to rest the strong, dependable man who had built our life together. I spent four months watching my mom shrink in on herself, day after day, as if grief were hollowing her out from within; four months of forcing smiles for my siblings, even as I felt myself unraveling; and four months of carrying a burden I wasn’t strong enough to handle. 

The city didn’t care. It never did. Once, it seemed like a land of opportunity—a thousand windows glowing at night, promising lives full of choices. My dad used to point at those tall buildings and say, “One day, we’ll work in offices like that. Or better yet—we’ll build them.”

 Back then, I believed him. But now, the city felt different. It was like a predator. Those towers weren’t promises—they were bites. The streets weren’t roads—they were traps, and I felt small and defenseless, struggling to hold onto what little I had while the city reached into my pockets and tore it away. 

My father had been a builder. His hands were his pride—calloused, scarred, but steady. He fixed chairs, patched roofs, rewired lamps, and made shelves from discarded wood. He started a small construction company, and for a while, it felt like there was hope. 

He came home with blueprints, his eyes sparkling, saying, “We’re moving forward. This is just the beginning.” But then he got sick. Illness doesn’t care about blueprints. It doesn’t care about dreams. It crept into our lives slowly at first, then hit us all at once. 

Doctor appointments. 

Medications. 

Hospital stays. 

Each one dented our savings, leaving us with loans to cover what the insurance wouldn’t. His strength ebbed, his hands trembled, but he still smiled at us and promised he’d overcome it. 

When he lost that battle, all that was left was debt. Our home was consumed by debt. The debt hung in the air like smoke, suffocating us. The debt kept my mother awake at night, whispering to God while tears streamed down her cheeks. 

Now, we live in a cramped rented apartment on the outskirts of the city. The walls perpetually smelled of mildew, no matter how often I scrubbed. The pipes groaned at night, the fridge buzzed louder than it should have, and the paint peeled in the corners. This wasn’t a home—it was a prison. 

The worst part wasn’t even the poverty. It was the feeling of helplessness. I realized that no matter how diligently I worked, sometimes juggling two or three jobs, we would never make enough money to pay for the surgery my mother needed. 

The doctors were clear: “Without it, her heart will fail.” The figure they gave us was unfathomable. The string of zeros was so harsh that it could have been considered another language. 

My paychecks—thin slips of paper earned by scrubbing office floors in the morning and standing behind a register in the evening—vanished as soon as I got them; rent, food, and bus fares. 

There is always a subtle sense of insufficient resources. Sometimes, late at night, when my siblings were asleep, I’d sit at the kitchen table, staring at the cracked ceiling. My chest would tighten, haunted by a single thought that echoed repeatedly until it hollowed me out: I am failing them. 

Tonight, as I walked through the storm, I paused in front of a boutique window. The glass was so clean it almost seemed to disappear, revealing a different world. 

Inside, under warm golden lights, a mannequin stood tall and perfect. Its painted face was expressionless, and its limbs were posed with grace. The figure wore a silk dress that glimmered like liquid each time the lights hit it; that dress likely cost more than all of our savings put together. 

Bitterness flared in my chest.

I hated her. 

I hated the lights, the glass, and the very idea that people could stroll into this store casually and walk out with clothes worth more than what my mother’s surgery would cost. 

My world wasn’t silk. 

My world was peeling paint and whispers in the dark. It was instant noodles, thrift-store coats, my brother’s laughter, my glass, my tears, and my mother’s cough echoing in the night. 

Then my phone buzzed. I pulled it out, careful not to drop it in a puddle. The cracked screen lit up with a message from my landlord: Rent due tomorrow, and no excuses this time. The words were blunt, but their weight crushed me. 

I stared until the letters blurred. My throat burned. I swallowed hard, forcing back the tears. I couldn’t afford to cry. Tears wouldn’t change anything. I shoved the phone back into my pocket and turned away from the window. 

That’s when I noticed her.