just imagine me away (tronnor)

1.5

Emily

Generally, I hate everything that comes along with Sundays. I also hate mornings, so waking up early on a Sunday morning was not on my list of things to do today. So when Connor knocked on my door at 7:30, let's just say that I wasn't at all happy. 

"What in the world could you possibly want at 7:30?" I yelled at the door, still hiding under the comforter. 

"Right, sorry, Em. Just wanted to ask about last night."

I closed my eyes, remembering what had happened, waking up to the screams coming from the room on the other side of me. The way he had cried out a name then screamed, and didn't stop. "Well, come on in, then."

The door was pushed open, and he stepped inside. And, boy, did he look awful. There were dark rings around his eyes, and his normally spiky hair was pushed everywhere, like he had done a lot of tossing and turning during the night. Which I knew was definitely true. Since our beds were less than ten feet away from each other - mine pushed up against the wall our bedrooms shared and his in the center of the room - I could hear everything that went on in there, and vice versa. Now that I was thinking about it, that definitely did not bode well for the future, when he had a girlfriend, or boyfriend. "You look like - " I started. 

"Yeah. I know, thanks, Em."

"Sorry. Did you get any sleep last night?"

He shrugged and sat down in my desk chair, closing the door with his foot. "A little, but the dream kind of just repeated, so I gave up."

I sat up and gave him my full attention - not that there was much of that at 7:30 in the morning, but it was something. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He swallowed and looked at the ceiling, counting the plastic glow in the dark stars. "Five Questions?"

I shifted around, trying to get comfortable. The last one, in fifth grade, was a few hours long, so I was preparing myself for that now. "Okay, first question." There were a few rules to the game: no asking directly what had happened, you had to answer truthfully, no judging the question or the answer. "Who was the dream about?"

"Some kid called Troye. He...oh I don't know. He was kind of a little like my old imaginary friend Troye. Okay, he was a lot like my Troye."

I tried not to flinch as Connor said the name. If this dream was the one he used to get all the time, it definitely could not end well. The dream about the accident - the one that put Troye in a coma and killed his mom. The dream that, in Connor's filtered mind, "killed" his imaginary friend Troye.

When the accident first happened and Connor was having all these panic attacks and breakdowns because of it, my mom decided that it would be a good idea to convince him that it never happened, and Troye wasn't even real. So over the years it became that Troye was an imaginary friend, and the car accident was a dream Connor thought up to get rid of him. Only I knew that Troye never went away completely, and Connor would still fall asleep talking to him. Or in sixth grade he was, anyway.

"Uh, have you been um...talking to Troye recently?"

A blush spread across his cheeks as he looked down. "Um...maybe."

"It's a yes or no question, Con."

He coughed a little, then sighed. "No judgement, right?" I nodded, though he probably couldn't see me. "Yeah, I have."

"Okay." His head was lowered still, and I could see his nervousness and...embarrassment? "You shouldn't be embarrassed, Con."

He laughed a little. "Em, I'm thirteen years old, some semi-popular football player, and I have an imaginary friend."