The Vanishing of Brandyn Taylor

Reality collision

I tried my best to enjoy the party, but the things both my father, and Rachel, had said kept replaying in my mind. I wondered what the heck was going on, why my father said I needed to face reality and that Brandyn wasn't real. I'd known Brandyn the vast majority of my life, we'd had so many experiences together, I had so many memories of him. He couldn't be imaginary, other people knew him too. None of this was making any sense to me at all. I gave myself a headache thinking of it all. The party began to wind down about four in the afternoon, it had felt like a long day to me. I didn't want to ruin all the effort everyone had made for me, so I stayed even though I just wanted to go home and get this talk over with. We decided on a taxi to get us home, as the three of us left with arm fulls of gifts and packages of left over food that other people didn't want. (We packed most of the guests off with food parcels, and gave some of the snooker hall regulars food and cake too.)

When we got back to the flat I could tell Rachel had told Tim what was going on, just from the serious mood in the air.

"Thank you guys," I said, "both of you, you went to so much effort for me and I really appreciate it. It was a great party. I couldn't believe you'd organised it so quickly. I only said yesterday we should go to the snooker hall."

"Ahhh, that was a little tactic of Rachel's," Tim said. "We had everyone on stand by for the past week or so, just waiting to tell them the location."

"I take full responsibility." Rachel laughed nervously.

"Well thank you both. I've no idea how you managed to keep it a secret from me for a week. I'm useless at keeping secrets. If it had been me arranging it you'd have found out pretty fast." I replied. "Well, now down to this chat. There's no use putting it off I suppose."

Tim and Rachel looked to each other, and Tim sighed, taking a seat on the sofa. He patted the cushion next to him.

"You're gonna need to take a seat for this babe." He said.

I took the seat he had gestured to, and Rachel sat in the armchair opposite us.

"I just want to know what's going on, nothing makes sense to me anymore. It's literally hurting my head trying to figure it out." I said, looking from one to the other of them.

"Kiera, you know Tim and I both care for you very much right?" I nodded agreement but said nothing to Rachel. "Everything we've ever done has been with your best interests at heart. What we are going to tell you isn't going to be at all easy for you, but just remember we really, truly, do care for you."

"Ok, I will." I responded.

"Kiera," Tim continued, "there's no easy way of saying any of this to you, so we may as well as just come right out and say it. Your dads right honey, Brandyn isn't real."

"What the fuck?" I raised my voice almost screaming at them. "How can you say this? You've seen him. More than once."

"No boo, we haven't. None of us have. Just listen carefully, and we will explain it to you. When you were little do you remember having an imaginary friend?" Rachel asked me.

"No. But I know a lot of kids do."

"Yeah. I did." Said Tim. "Well Brandyn started off as your imaginary friend when you were about seven. As you got older you saw him less and less, because that's what happens as we grow up; not because he went off to college or anything like that."

"Most people outgrow their imaginary friend." Rachel said. "You never did, and that's not me saying you didn't mature. You know you have numerous mental health conditions honey. Seeing Brandyn is part of the coping mechanism for that. Whenever you start to see him again we all know you're having a relapse, sometimes a minor set back, sometimes a full blown relapse. But it's one of the signs we were told to look for."