At first, it was just because I felt alone. It was too easy to pretend that the reflection I saw in the mirror was his face instead of mine…a pair of empty glasses frames and the illusion was perfect. I had known him for so long that I could smile like he did, talk like he did, stand like he did…

We had always had the same eyes.

I stopped playing the guitar. He had never really liked them, what they did to one's hands, and the piano was just as convenient. My home was more than big enough for the grand piano he'd been forced to leave behind, and my guitar only reminded me of the other failure, the other betrayal that I'd suffered. I couldn't be the rocker anymore; the thought had too many memories…too many good times that were soured by the last abandonment I couldn't take. I just looked in the mirror and smiled and told myself that it was alright, that I could still have music and that it would have better memories, private memories, memories that could never be so horribly sullied because no matter how horrible the things that he had done, they had all been done out of a twisted kind of love.

Even at the end, he had told me that he loved me.

It got easier to pretend, as time went by. I had wanted to deny his death ever since the day of his execution, when I had been forced to watch them put the needles in his arms through the shatterproof window, when I had forced myself to look into his eyes, deep, ice blue and suddenly more sane than I'd seen them in a long, long while. I saw the words his lips formed; though I couldn't hear them, though they were stolen…Ich liebe dich, Klavier…

A part of me died when he did, when he finally fell still and my heart broke and I pushed everyone away, even though there were people there to comfort me. I just went back to his old home, the one I had moved out of what seemed like decades ago, and curled into the sofa, crying until I couldn't breathe, filling my lungs with what lingered of his scent. I could have stayed there for days; I tore the battery out of my phone the first time it rang. I wallowed in the thick sorrow that flooded my veins, the disgusting knowledge that I had done the betraying this time, that I had signed my own brother's death warrant and no matter what he'd done, no matter what they said was justice, I was more of a killer than he had ever been. I had let them take him from me. I hadn't fought hard enough. I had failed him. I had let him die.

I don't know when it was that my guilt became so overwhelming that I decided to join him.

All I can remember was going into his bathroom and searching through his cabinet for the aspirin I knew would still be there. I almost started crying again when I remembered the times he would come home from work, complaining about a headache because he'd fought so hard for his client. It took a long while for me to be able to wrench open the lid, to pour a handful of pills into my palm, to close the cabinet door so I could offer myself some kind of final farewell too…

It wasn't my face that I saw in the mirror, though. It was his.

I can almost remember the clatter of the pills falling into the sink, rattling into the drain, but what I really recall was that he smiled at me when my own face was slack with shock. That he shook his head, though I didn't move. I thought that I was seeing things, but his face didn't move, didn't change when I stepped back, when I almost fell into the tub. He told me to be careful, that he still loved me, even though I'd done a bad thing. I believed him, and for the first time since he'd left me I felt something. He promised not to leave me again. He promised to help me be strong. All he wanted in return was to be a part of me, was to have a part of me, and I was so happy to see him again, how could I do anything but agree?

No one noticed that I started wearing his cologne. No one I knew had ever worked closely enough with him to recognize it…and I avoided anyone who would. No one seemed to care that my right hand would touch my hair sometimes when I wasn't paying attention to what was going on, that I would lean into the touch. No one commented on the little mirror I started keeping on my desk, because even when they looked into it, they only saw me, not what I saw.

I'm happier now. I don't feel so alone. I can sit down at night, in front of the mirror on my vanity, and I can watch him brush my hair, smile that beautiful, enigmatic smile, and he and I can be strong again. He can love me again. And I can lose myself in his deep blue eyes and forget that I ever lost him in the first place.