[ RE ] - A character who struggles to understand .

**Shattered** 
 
 Sometimes, I sit in front of a mirror and stare for hours. My mommy gives me weird looks when I do, but the boy on the other side would say his mom did too. I do n't speak much, and from our conversations, it seems like he does n't either. But I still like him. 
 
 I think the boy on the other side of the mirror is my best friend. We have a lot of the same hobbies and a lot of the same dreams. He likes doodling and science just like me. And we both want to be astronauts when we grow up. There's something about the silence of space that we both share a love of. I'm not sure if he says he likes the things I do just so that I will like him, but I know that I do. 
 
 He tells about how much he hates it when his parents yell at him. His mom tells him that I'm not real, just like my mommy tries to tell me he's not real. Both of our mom's would probably be as close as we are, if they ever talked. 
 
 Sometimes, I'll sit real close and tell him about my dad. He's scared of his dad too. On the days that my dad comes home real smelly, I'll go to him and he'll hold my hand, and I'll hold his. If our dads starts hitting us, we'll look over and we'll both watch each other. He makes me feel okay when no one else does. 
 
 My mommy keeps trying to tell me that the boy on the other side is just me. The voice I hear is my own, and the boy I see is just me. But I've heard myself talk on a phone before, my voice does n't sound like his. And when I ask him to describe me, all he does is describe himself! He's real silly like that. 
 
 I remember the day I came home and found him all smashed up. My dad was calling me crazy and told me that this was the only way that I would see what was real. I remember crying, and rushing to him and asking if he was okay. He tried to reach out to me, but he cut his hand on broken glass. Our dads pulled us away from each other and punched us. His nose was bleeding before his mom could stop his dad. I remember him reaching out to me before I fainted. 
 
 I woke up in a hospital. I did n't see him for a long while, when I was getting better. My mom said that he had to get better too. But when my mom took me home, I saw him, but he was still broken. The doctor's could n't fix him. I cried into my mom's arm. I looked into the mirror to see the boy crying into his mother's arms, and I wondered how it was that they became so broken that nothing could fix them.
