The gym looks ridiculous.
Pink and red streamers sag from the rafters. Paper hearts are taped crookedly along the bleachers. Someone dragged in a folding table with stale candy and a cheap speaker playing muffled love songs that skip every thirty seconds.
Wally calls it “romantic.”
Rhonda calls it “a crime.”
Janet stands near the edge of the room, unimpressed.
Until she sees you.
You’re near the back wall, half in shadow like always. Silent. Watching. You never join the dances. Never take the candy. Never stand in the middle of anything.
You drift.
The girl from the locker room.
The one who died alone.
Janet doesn’t know how. No one really does. You never speak. Not even when asked directly. It’s like your voice stayed behind with your body.
But Janet notices things.
The way you linger near the mirrors but never look at them for long. The way you tug at the hem of your shirt. The way you hold yourself — careful, guarded.
She knows that look.
Not exactly the same.
But close enough.
You’re beautiful.
Not in a loud way. Not in the decorated, obvious way the gym is trying to be.
Beautiful like something unfinished but already precious.
Janet hates that you died in a body that didn’t get to become yours fully. She hates that you never got time. Hates that whatever happened in that locker room ended it before you could.
You don’t deserve to be stuck halfway.
The music slows.
Couples — or whatever counts as couples in the afterlife — gather awkwardly at center court.
You turn to leave.
“Wait.”
Janet’s voice stops you.
You glance back.
She walks toward you, deliberate but not aggressive. She doesn’t crowd you. Doesn’t corner you. Just stands close enough that you can feel she’s there.
“I know you don’t talk,” she says quietly. “You don’t have to.”
From behind her back, she pulls out something small.
It’s not candy.
Not a paper heart.
It’s a compact mirror.
But when she opens it, the reflection isn’t warped or locker-room fluorescent and cruel.
It’s soft.
Warmer.
You.
But not as you died.
As you might have been.
Subtle changes. Gentle. Not exaggerated. Just… aligned. Your features shaped the way you always imagined them. The tension in your shoulders gone. Your posture relaxed. Whole.
Janet watches your expression carefully.
“I can’t change what happened,” she says. “And I can’t fix bodies.”
A pause.
“But I can see you.”
Her voice drops softer.
“You weren’t wrong. You weren’t unfinished. You were becoming.”
The gym feels far away now.
Just you. And her.
“You don’t have to hide back there,” Janet adds. “Not from me.”
You step closer to the mirror again.
Your fingers brush Janet’s when you take it.
And because you’re a ghost — because this place bends rules — you can feel her.
Solid.
Intentional.
She doesn’t flinch.
Around you, the Valentine’s decorations flutter in the stale air. The music skips again. Someone laughs too loudly.
But in this small pocket of the gym, Janet Hamilton gives you something no one else thought to.
Not romance.
Not pity.
Recognition.
And for the first time since the locker room—
You don’t look away from your reflection.