Rueben Fisher - Not Me

Chapter 2: Bennie

Let me just get something straight - before I went to the adoption centre I was not mean. My actual parents used to call me angel! I was the most well-behaved kid at daycare, and at home I played quietly and contently with my ducky. It looked like I was playing alone, but in my head I wasn't. You remember how I had an imaginary friend? His name was Bennie.

For my early childhood Bennie was who I wanted to be. I gave him a simple backstory, describing his mommy and daddy who gave him lots of toys, his little brother who would always play, and his big bedroom with space for lots of cool things. I may have been very young, but I had a big imagination. I was his best friend forever, but I couldn't help feeling jealous of his extreme happiness. I was jealous of an imaginary person! My life with my actual parents was pretty depressing.

Then one day when Mom and I got back from daycare, Dad had all my things packed in bags by the door. I thought we were going on holiday. I remember going into a tall, bleak building and listening while my parents talked to a strange woman. They hugged me and kissed me, and I think they were crying, then they left. I never saw them again.

I didn't cry when they left. Of course, I thought they were going to come back. But after a couple of hours I began to eagerly question the woman (our caretaker) about when would they finally return and take me on my holiday. I only cried when she gently told me that they were never coming back. I sat alone in a dorm room and took out my ducky, but Bennie wouldn't come. In those few hours I had grown up so much that Bennie had faded away.

And so began the next stage of my life.