Chloe knew from a young age that she didn't belong.

"What's wrong with you?" Her mother had asked her more than once. "We give you everything and you still complain. You know, most children actually look forward to growing up."

Chloe knew better though. Growth just made problems get bigger. She had to find a way out before she got trapped.

She joined a self-improvement chat, pretending to look for study tips, then followed the talks and links in private channels from there. That was when she'd first learned about hopping. Chloe had always thought you needed to use a time machine or portal magic to go to other places and times. But apparently, all you really needed was the power of your mind.

She looked up instructions and success stories. The Mirror Method seemed promising. You sat between two mirrors in a dimly lit room and repeated a set of affirmations. Done correctly, you would find yourself in a parallel world, shuffled there through the mirrors' infinite reflections. She'd had to scrounge a hand mirror from her mom's dressing table, but the bathroom mirror was big and she'd hoped that would make up for it.

But she was still here. Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change, she would never get away, she would never be free.

She couldn't think like that. In all the worlds out there, there was one where things were better. If she couldn't go there, maybe someone could come to her. Someone strong and smart and brave, who knew her like she knew herself.

Chloe didn't know any methods for that, so she just closed her eyes and wished.

And just like that, there they were.

"Hi!" they said. "Am I you? That's kinda confusing. I'm me and you're you. Isn't that simpler?"

Chloe laughed. She was too old for imaginary friends, but she'd used the mirrors and done the affirmations. This was meditation. Having a mental mastermind meeting like in her dad's self-help books. Yeah, that was it.

"Would you like to see my room?" she asked her alternate self.

Their smile shone brightly. "I'd love that."

She swiped an old compact mirror from her mother's dressing table. Under the big old tree in the schoolyard, she opened the mirror and did her meditations.

"I don't know what your world is like," her alternate self said. "What if I get stuff wrong because things are different over here?"

The solution, they both decided, was to read more books over here and try to compare notes. Their school library didn't have a lot of books but the librarian was happy to help them out. She gave them one or two old books each week with strict instructions to be careful with them.

"What does that mean?" Chloe wondered one afternoon under the tree, pointing to a word in the book they were reading.

"Misquemed," her alternate self said. "Hmm. I think it means 'like a mosquito'."

Chloe skimmed the rest of the passage. It seemed strange to talk about mosquito-likeness here but she didn't know if it was wrong either. They copied the word, then went to the school library. Luckily, there was a big old dictionary all the way in the back.

"Well, it means mosquito-like where I'm from," her alternate self said afterwards.

Chloe grinned. "It's okay. I'm never gonna use it anyways-"

"Oh look," someone else said. "It's the freak."

Chloe turned around. It was Ashleigh and her boyfriend Henry. Why were they here? They always snuck out to the mall with their friends at lunchtime.

"They come here to hold hands," her other self whispered. "Henry thinks his friends'll call him a sissy otherwise."

Chloe stood a little taller. "It'll take more than that to misqueme me!"

Ashleigh sneered, but Henry stepped forward.

"You're talking funny," he said. "I'll fix your head real quick-"

He raised a fist, and that was when Chloe hit him with the dictionary.

Everyone left her alone after that.

They had to part ways sooner or later. Chloe was graduating this year, moving on to high school. A bigger class with students who hadn't known her or each other since they were all in first grade. A fresh start.

"I don't know how much longer I can stay here," her other self said. "I'll be busy with school too, so..."

Chloe nodded. Her parents had been clear that she had to stop staring into mirrors and do something useful with her life. "I understand. You taught me a lot. Thank you for everything."

Her other self laughed. "Thank you for letting me see your world for a while. Wanna know a secret?"

At Chloe's nod, she leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

"You don't need the mirrors. You never did."