A Friend Lost
I heard her talking at dinner last night.
"No, Mom, I don't have my imaginary friend anymore. I'm not a little kid."
My heart shattered. "Maybe I'm having a dream," I murmured.
I tried to talk to her today. "Hello, Ginger! Hi! Can you... Can you see me?" But I was just a lonely, betrayed friend. A used toy, thrown in the dump.
Like most imaginary friends, I was crushed.
But as Imagine a Friend always says, I will get assigned a new friend soon. I had a week to get over it. Ginger was my first friend, though, and I couldn't just let her go like that.
The next day, I tried again. This time I tried to wake her up. "Ginger... Come on! Get up! It's me, your friend... It's me..."
She snored. I backed away. What had I ever done to her? To make my only friend ignore me?
At dinner, I creeped up on her and grabbed her shoulders. "Ginger! I got you! Haha...Right?"
Once again, another attempt failed. Only four more days left until I got assigned a new friend.
The next day, I waited until she went outside to be alone. This was her routine. She used to always ask me to go with her... But not this time.
I creeped out with her and sat down next to her in the grass. "Hi," I said quietly.
Ginger did not even look up from her daisy chain.
"We used to make those." I tried again.
Ginger muttered out loud, "I miss her sometimes..."
"Who?" I asked, my heart pounding. "Who do you miss?"
She sighed. "Oh, my imaginary friend. We used to have so much fun together. But then my friends teased me, and... Well, I guess I just gave up on her." Ginger looked up, surprised. "Who asked that?"
"It's me!" I exclaimed. "Me, your imaginary friend! I'm still here! Please, please see me!"
Ginger sighed again. "Probably just the wind. Or some stupid voice in my head."
Stupid? Me? My heart, already broken, divided into fourths.
Three days later, the Head Imaginary Friend came and gathered up me and my stuff. She looked very much like a librarian, with her tight bun and small glasses. She gave me a form. "Your new friend is downstairs," she said. "I believe it is Ginger's little sister, Cornelia."
I smiled sadly. "Oh. Thanks." I took my stuff from her and went to see Cornelia. She was two, a perfect age for imaginary friends.
When I entered her room, I found I had a plastic phone in my hands. Cornelia was talking into an identical one. "Hi? Hi?"
"Hello, Cornelia," I said warmly into the phone.
She took the phone off of her ear and glanced at me. "Who are you?" She asked.
"I'm your new best friend," I said, and embraced my friend in a big hug.
Will
Will walks past me with a steady glare and slams his door. He was having problems with Mom again, something about by outside at dark.
I remember when we used to hold each other under the covers because safety comes in numbers but now his hands pass right through me and leave me feeling empty inside.
"Will? I can give you a hug. Just say my name and I'm there."
Trying to hide my sad little smile I break inside when he crams those funny ear things inside his ears am loud noises come out. Will said he never liked the way they felt but everything's changing.
I can't see me all the way anymore. Will can't hear my voice unless I'm real loud and it scares me.
If Will doesn't know I'm here then whose going to remember me? What if I just fade away?
"Will! Will please!"
Pleading I let all those big boy tears I had been holding back fall and clutch at his pant legs.
"Dixie off."
". . . My names not Dixie Will. That's the puppy we got for Christmas. She's over there on the doggy bed with the white eyes and fat little tummy. You know she can't walk good anymore. Will please."
Will doesn't speak again and I sink to the floor. I can't even remember my own name anymore and I tried really hard. I don't want to try anymore.
But without Will, I'm nothing.
time lapse.
tommy is four years old, and i am his best friend. only he can see me, and it makes me feel special. we do everything together, and that's how we like it.
tommy is eight years old, and i am his best friend. he likes to stay up with me late at night, reading books like "the giving tree." we sleep in late on those mornings after, but he doesn't mind.
tommy is twelve years old, and i am his friend. he says we can't be best friends because he's twelve now, and he needs best friends that are "real." i don't understand; did the times we had mean nothing to him?
tommy is sixteen years old, and i am not his friend. he likes to be called thomas now. more "grown-up." he doesn't talk to me. he likes to take a blonde girl in his pickup truck down to the pier where they can play games. one day he kisses her behind the photo booth. i turn away so he can't see me cry. doesn't he know i can love him that much?
thomas is twenty and i am not his friend. i have become nothing but a memory, left behind for something "better" just like the giving tree. he is in college and the blonde girl he kissed at the pier is long forgotten, like me. at college parties he can kiss as many girls as he wants, as long as they've had something to drink and he has, too. he's living the life he wants and he couldn't be happier without me.
thomas is twenty four and he has graduated college. he found a nice girl with green eyes and he wants to ask her an important question. i am mentioned once, at a family reunion, by an estranged aunt who hasn't seen thomas since he was tommy. thomas laughs. he says he remembers me, and that gives me hope.
thomas is twenty eight, and i am never mentioned again. childhood friends are things of the past, and thomas lives in the present. he has a child now, a little girl. i miss tommy. the hope sparked at the reunion quickly died, and i can feel my own life force ebbing with it.
thomas is thirty two, and i am nothing. there is no need for me to be around anymore, and my own hopes of being acknowledged have been gone for a long time. he has his own family, and he doesn't need me any more. so i slip away, only to be found in times long forgotten.