Written by: Manal Rabiey
In a dimly lit room, Layla sat staring at a shattered mirror. What she saw was not her face, but fragments of a past she had hidden behind faint smiles and a heavy silence. Each shard of glass held an image, a memory, an unheard scream, and a tear never wiped away.
She had been there when she first broke. Her father’s voice collapsing into sobs after her mother’s departure rang in her ears like thunder. The cold stares of strangers pierced her chest like thorns. Loneliness clung to her like a winter shroud that refused to lift. She never cried, never screamed—but she began to crumble from within, piece by piece.
That night, she felt a part of her face fall into the mirror. A sliver of glass detached from her cheek, revealing a strange darkness beneath the mask. The pain wasn’t in the wound, but in the emptiness each shard left behind as it drifted away, as if her soul had grown tired of pretending.
With trembling hands, she reached for the table, trying to gather herself. But the glass was deceptive. Each piece she touched cut her, its reflection sharp with truth. She hesitated—should she rebuild, or let the collapse complete its course?
She remembered then her old laughter, her voice telling stories, her simple dream of being loved without conditions. She knew she had to reclaim that— not from the mirror, but from within.
She realized this shattering was not death, but beginning. The fractures unveiled what she had long buried. It was time to reassemble the shards—not to be what she was, but to become what she was meant to be.
Slowly, she lifted her head. For the first time, Layla saw herself as she truly was—a woman who walked through pain and emerged whole, even if made of broken glass.
