My Imaginary Friend | l.t au

3:Why?

Without him, I was lost.  Without him, I didn't know what to do when I was bored.  Without him, I felt empty.  Without him, I felt like there was a hole in my heart.  Without him I felt like nothing.  

I thought about him everyday.  I thought about him when I woke up in the morning.  I thought about him during scool.  I thought about him every night before I went to bed.  I thought about him in my sleep, and often dreamed of him, imagining what could have, would have, and should have been if he hadn't had to go and leave me.

But then there came a point in time where I was slowly starting to forget.  What he looked like, what he sounded like. Was he right-handed or left-handed? Was he an only child? These facts and a few others were begining to slip away from me.

So, the only logical way I could think of to keep him in my memory, I told my mom about our adventures, but she just thought I was talking about my imaginary friend.  I didn't mind.  At least she listened to me for once.  At least she paid attention to me for once.  At least she never interrupted me.  At least she was patient for once.  That's all I could have asked of her right then.

So then every night before I went to sleep, I told her stories about him and I.  I told her about my best friend, Louis Tomlinson, who was afraid of growing up.  A year went by, I was running out of things to tell her, so I made up a story, which was totally unbelievable and unrealistic, but she didn't seemed phased by it.  She was probably thinking he was a fairytale anyway, so I guess I could have told her anything, and she'd have played along.  So that's what I did from then on.  I turned my best friend into a fairytale, much like Peter Pan, but much, much better.

***

Three years after Louis left...

Three years after he left me, everything changed.  After I turned thirteen, I  completely forgot that he wasn't a fictional character I had made up two years ago when I was eleven.  That he really was my best friend for two years of my life.  The best two years of my life, and I forgot.  He was actually becoming my imaginary friend that I would dream about at night then tell stories about during the day and before I went to sleep.   

I recently started becoming interested in art, but I mostly just drew Louis, my imaginary friend.  At least, how he looked in my dreams. Drawing him was a good way for my audience to have a visual when I tell them my stories.

I also really love writing, so sometimes, if I have time in the morning, I would write down what happened in my dream into this journal that I took everywhere with me (and I don't go out much).  Inside contained random stuff that ranged from drawings to song lyics to my favorite book quotes to dreams.  I never let anyone near it.  I protected it with my life.  I never trusted anyone to look through it.  Actually, I find it hard to trust people in general, I don't remember why, though.  I just remember that when I was a little girl, either six or seven years old, I had this friend that I used to be so close to, but we lost contact somehow.  Eh, it was a long time ago, so it doesn't matter now.  The past is in the past.

I was writing in my journal when I heard a knock at my bedroom door. 

"Hello?" I asked.

"Wendy?"

"Yes?"

"Can I please come in?"

I groaned, but let her in anyway.

"What, mother?" I demanded, not looking up from what I was writing.

"Wen, look at me when you talk to me," she scolded me.

I rolled my eyes at her, but looked her in the eye. 

"I don't think it's healthy for you to have an imaginary friend still at this age," my mom said. "You're a teenager, Wendy! You're more mature than this, I know it.  Maybe it's time that you started growing up, eh? Start focusing on school.  After all, you'll be starting eighth grade in the fall!" I roll my eyes at her.  This was probably the twentieth time she's said that or something like that to me in this month alone, and it's gotten really annoying.

"Don't you have divorce papers to be signing right now?" My parents have been fighting increasingly for almost a year now, and I'm pretty sure that if they don't separate soon, they'll proably end up ripping each other's heads off in the near future.  Coincidentally 'growing up' was one of the things I've heard them argue about.  

My dad thinks that I should do whatever the hell I want, saying that while I'm still young, I should be making choices on my own, ya da ya da.  He thinks this is the time of my life where I make three important things: friends, memories, and mistakes.  Unlike my mom, he doesn't see locking me up in my house is a smart idea.  In case you're wondering, my mom is so strict with me and hates the idea of me leaving the house.  She says it's to protect me from the horrific world and society we live in, but my personal opinion is that she hates me.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a waif with no friends or anything; I have a small group of people that I hang out with at school, and occasionally they come over to my apartment.  Those uncommon times are usually for a specail holiday, like my birthday, though.

She didn't seem offended by the bluntness in my question. "Well, actually, now that you mention it, I literally just finished signing them right before I came to your room, thank you very much."

I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it again, not actually sure how to respond.  I had no idea that they even went to thier lawyers to have thier split legalized.  "Well that sure was fast," I replied, still dumbfounded at the quickness of this.

"Now that we're done discussing this-" She turned away from me, but before she could continue her way out the door, I grabbed her by the wrist. "What?!" She snapped at me.

"What makes you think we're done talking?" I shot back. "This whole dissolution includes me too, mother! It doesn't only affect you and dad!"

"I know that, sweetie," she said evenly.

"Thanks for understanding," I sighed in relief. "So who am I going to go with then? You or him?" I asked curiously.

"Me," she stated confidently, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.  "Now, is that all you wanted to know?"

I nodded as if saying yes.  I did have more questions, but most of them were either rude, dumb, futile, annoying, or irrelevant.  And some of them were ones that I probably don't want to know the answer to.

I reopened my journal, and drew another picture of the boy I always seem to dream about.  He was alluring, with brown hair and blue/green eyes.  He is the imaginary friend of mine that my mom previously mentioned.  Apparently I told her about his and my adventures from when I was seven all the way to this day.  I've recently forgotten his name, but that doesn't really matter.  It's just a stupid dream.  A stupid, attractive dream.

It's weird because whenever I wake up from envsioning this mysterious boy, I feel a sense of nostalagia.  Like something inside of me is missing.  I can't help but wonder why, though. Why do I feel sad whenever I wake up every day? Why do I feel a strange longing for something, no someone whenever I put on this special necklace that a friend -- I can't remember their name-- gave me for my tenth birthday? Why?

*** 

A/N:

I think I'll continue the story like this, each chapter a few years later, until it catches up to the present. There's a lot of background information that must be said to make the 2014 parts more understandable and stuff.  Last week was my birthday, so I am officially 14 now! Yayyy!!! I hope you all had a lovely Easter yesterday!! By the way, I'm on spring break right now, so hopefully I'll be able to update again this week.

~Tori xx <3