Surrounded by the serenity of the open field and the soft rustle of leaves, it was one of those serene, quiet afternoons that put you at ease. Leaning against the vehicle, I relished the tranquility and the warmth of the sun as I considered spending a brief bit of my day with my spouse. I took a quick photograph and sent it out without thinking twice because the truck looked amazing against the trees.
The response was not what I had expected, and it arrived almost immediately.
“Who is that in the mirror?”
Uncertain of his meaning, I scowled as I read his words again. No one had been in sight. “What kind of reflection?” I typed back, feeling a little uneasy.
“The rear window.” His tone then became more serious as he said, “There’s someone there.”
With my heart racing, I opened the picture and focused on the reflection in the back window. I initially thought it was just a glare, perhaps a trick of the sun or a tree shadow. But my gut wrenched as I looked at it more intently. There was, indeed, a figure—a faint outline of a person standing just behind me. The more I looked, the more familiar the shape became. A man in a hat, his face obscured by the brim’s shadow.
My breath caught. It looked just like the hat my ex-boyfriend used to wear, one he was rarely seen without.
A chill ran through me. I had been alone, hadn’t I? I hadn’t noticed anyone when I took the picture, and the field was empty, just me and the truck. But there he was, unmistakably standing close enough to be caught in the window’s reflection. How was this even possible?
I tried to calm my husband with a hasty reply. “It’s probably just a shadow or something from the background. I was definitely alone.” But even I felt the uncertainty in my words.
His response came back with unwavering suspicion. “That doesn’t look like a shadow. It looks like him.”
My stomach churned. I knew exactly who he meant, and it didn’t seem real. It was as if my past had come creeping into that quiet afternoon, catching me off guard in a way I couldn’t quite rationalize. Could my ex somehow have been nearby, without me noticing? Or was it just a terrible trick of timing that happened to look exactly like him?Surrounded by the serenity of the open field and the soft rustle of leaves, it was one of those serene, quiet afternoons that put you at ease. Leaning against the vehicle, I relished the tranquility and the warmth of the sun as I considered spending a brief bit of my day with my spouse. I took a quick photograph and sent it out without thinking twice because the truck looked amazing against the trees.
The response was not what I had expected, and it arrived almost immediately.
“Who is that in the mirror?”
Uncertain of his meaning, I scowled as I read his words again. No one had been in sight. “What kind of reflection?” I typed back, feeling a little uneasy.
“The rear window.” There’s someone there,” he replied, his tone suddenly more serious.
Heart pounding, I opened the photo and zoomed in, focusing on the rear window’s reflection. At first, I assumed it was just a glare, maybe a trick of the light or a shadow from the trees. But as I studied it more closely, my stomach twisted. There was, indeed, a figure—a faint outline of a person standing just behind me. The more I looked, the more familiar the shape became. A man in a hat, his face obscured by the brim’s shadow.
My breath caught. It looked just like the hat my ex-boyfriend used to wear, one he was rarely seen without.
A chill ran through me. I had been alone, hadn’t I? I hadn’t noticed anyone when I took the picture, and the field was empty, just me and the truck. But there he was, unmistakably standing close enough to be caught in the window’s reflection. How was this even possible?
I tried to calm my husband with a hasty reply. “It’s probably just a shadow or something from the background. I was definitely alone.” But even I felt the uncertainty in my words.
His response came back with unwavering suspicion. “That doesn’t look like a shadow. It looks like him.”
My stomach churned. I knew exactly who he meant, and it didn’t seem real. It was as if my past had come creeping into that quiet afternoon, catching me off guard in a way I couldn’t quite rationalize. Could my ex somehow have been nearby, without me noticing? Or was it just a terrible trick of timing that happened to look exactly like him?
I gazed at the picture, examining the person in the mirror. It was all too familiar, the cap, the way he stood. The uneasiness persisted despite my best efforts to persuade myself differently. What if it was, in fact, him, hovering just outside of my present?
With my voice trembling, I called my husband and tried to explain that it must have been a strange coincidence. On the other end of the line, however, the quiet was filled with a tangible sense of doubt. When he did speak, his voice was reserved and far away. He answered slowly, “I don’t know.” “I don’t think that reflection is a coincidence.”
I sat there looking down at the photo that suddenly seemed to contain much more than a momentary glimpse of my day after the call ended. In the distance, the dim form of a guy seemed like a shadow, resurrecting something from the past that I had assumed was resolved.
In the days that followed, there seemed to be a shift in our relationship that neither of us could fully resolve. Overhanging us was the picture of that figure in the reflection, an uneasy reminder of my history and an unsolvable enigma. I tried to tell him it was nothing, that I had been by myself, but it felt like that small, hardly perceptible reflection had shattered our mutual confidence.Everything had abruptly altered, leaving a shadow from which none of us could ever fully recover. It had started off as a straightforward photo, a little time spent together. And we were forced to consider what ought to have been obvious in that tiny, eerie detail.
