"Happy Birthday Janie!" her mother said smiling. She brought out a large pink cake with a burning 7 on the top of the cake. Janie smiled from ear to ear as the guests sang to her. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her nose making a wish inside her head. She blew out the flames and sucked the icing off the bottom of the wax number. All of the guests ate cake while I observed the colored packages and bags.
"Emily, do you want any cake?" Janie whispered to me. I shook my head and smiled at her and said happy birthday. She smiled back and dug into her cake.
"Who are you talking to darling?" A short wrinkled woman asked her.
"It's just my friend Emily." She responded with a mouthful of pink icing. Her grandmother looked uncertainly at Janie's mother. Her mother grimaced a little and let out a sigh.
"It's her um... Imaginary friend mom." she said looking ashamed. Janie's grandmother looked somewhat disgusted as she checked her manicure.
It's quite sad when adults don't believe their child has a great imagination but they think they've raised a psychopath.
The party went on for about an hour before the little girls left. Janie sat in her bedroom floor playing with a new doll.
"Emily? Do you wanna play with me?" Janie asked me.
"I'm fine, I just like watching you." I replied sitting on the carpet.
"Okay, well this is Brittany and she's also mermaid fairy princess that shoots lasers from her fingers." she says acting out the description with the doll. I giggled at her imagination. We talked for a while about the mermaid princess but were interrupted by a knocking on her door. Janie invited the knocker into her bedroom.
"Can we talk sweetie?" her mom said coming in. Janie said yes and they both took a seat on her pink bed.
"You know that Emily isn't real, right?" she asks her daughter. This is typical conversation that I figured would happen sometime soon because parents just can't accept that their kid is talking to something they can't see but I've learned to deal with this.
"Oh no she's real, right Emily?" she looked at me expectantly I smiled and nodded. She giggled and looked back to her mom. She cringed and walked out of the room deciding not to go further with the subject.
"Why doesn't my mommy see you?" Janie asked putting down the doll and giving me a concerned look.
I replied, "Well grown-ups just don't use their imagination good enough."
"Oh." she said. I nodded and continued watching her dolls very dramatic life.
YOU ARE READING
Fading
FantasyI always new she would grow up someday, but I never thought it would happen so soon.