The Story About How My Imaginary Friend Died

Chapter Twenty-Six - Visitors

I kept telling my momI was sick the following week. As I had had to turn my phone on occasionally, I found that I had over twenty missed calls from the twins, and many text messages.

While watching the screen, I got glimpses of them.

Where are you?

'One missed call from Tim'

What it going on?

Are you okay?

Emma, we're worried!

Call back!

'Two missed calls from The Creepy Kat'

Hello, did a cereal killer kill you!!??

ANSWER!
Okay, I hate to break it to you, but we have to work on the movie.

Unless you're sick... but YOU CAN STILL CALL ME EVEN IF YOU'RE SICK!
This is ridiculous.

I put the phone down and turned it off again. I'd been very careful not to open any of the messages. I did not want them to know I avoided them.

On the last day of the week, Friday, I woke up to the sound of muffled voices. Checking my clock, I saw that it was three in the afternoon.

I had been up all night, watching movies and then crashed around seven in the morning.

I stepped onto the top of the staircase, peeking down at the open plan. I could see the entrance door from here as the kitchen lay to he right of that. (Okay, just FIX FFS)

I'd intended to be quiet and just sneak to see who was at my house, but as I walked to the top of the staircase, my foot somehow managed to bump into the ground, and the attention of the three people at the door snapped towards me.

I froze, debating to walk back to my room and hide under the covers.

At the door stood Katja and Tim, looking up at me.

Mom stood in front of them, looking rather stern.

I hoped she had not abused them or anything.

Furrowing my brows and frowning, I stood at the same spot, staring at the ground.

"Emma," mom finally spoke. "You have some... friends over."

So now I guessed she had met the people who were stealing her daughter' and had a 'bad influence on me.'

I squeezed my eyes shut and massaged my temples for a moment, a hope building in me that when I opened my eyes again, Tim and Katja would be gone.

When I did so, I was disappointed, but not really surprised to see that the scenery had not changed.

I scratched my forehead.

"Do you want to see your friends, or should I tell them to leave?"

I frowned and opened my mouth, but it snapped shut again, as I did not know what I was supposed to say.

Or, I knew what I was supposed to say. I was supposed to tell them to come in so we could talk, but I did not want to do that, so I shrugged instead and came up with the lamest excuse in the history of lame excuses.

"I am kind of tired right now..." I said.

"Maybe some other time?"

With those words, I turned around.

"Wait, Emma! Could you explain wha..." she started to say, but then she rephrased her question. "Did we do anything wrong?"

I turned back and looked at her and Tim.

"No, nothing wrong at all," I said and walked towards my room.

I heard Tim protest some as well, but I did not have the energy or willpower to hear what they said.

This was not their problem to cope with, and I told them they had not done anything wrong, and I really hoped that that would be enough.

As I lay back in my bed, I could hear Mom tell Tim and Katja to leave. It was so stupid.

She did not speak with much emotion in her voice, which I internally scolded her for - like, if you were going to be rude, might as well do it properly? but at the same time was thankful that she did not behave ruder than she had to.

I heard the door slam, and as a breeze blew through my open window, I heard Tim and Katja's disappointed voices.

"I'm worried," Katja said as they walked onto the road.

I watched them from where I was.

Not that I could see more than the very top of their heads.

Tim said, "I do not really get this. Maybe it is some girly stuff?"

Katja shrugged. "If she was one of the ones who cared about fashion and boys, I wouldn't know," she said, "but to me, she's not like that, but I still can't really understand what is going through her mind..."

It was then that their voices trailed off and I lay still in my bed, listening to my breaths as well as the birds chirping outside.

They had come to my house to see if I was okay. Which meant I had people who cared about me.

Sally's reasons for disappearing became clear, and I felt heavy inside.

Not only had I lost my imaginary friend for forever. Not only was my imaginary friend dead. In addition to that, I had friends who were actual. Who cared about me, but they only made me feel guilty because of that very reason.

I did not want to process anymore, and I was happy that I had been up all night, so it didn't take very much to turn my brain off and fall asleep.