Imaginary Friend (ARC)

by Stephen Chbosky

  oh, god. you’ve passed through. get ready. you can do this, christopher. I know you can do this. there. that’s the doorknob. you’re about to see. please remember something. i will do everything i can to protect you. but if you die in here, you die on the real side. so, whatever happens, don’t ever come in here if i am not there to meet you. never come in at night. and if we ever get separated, don’t leave the street.

  she can’t get you if you don’t leave the street.

  Chapter 35

  Christopher opened his eyes.

  At first glance, everything looked the same. He was standing in the tree house. He was still in the clearing. The snow was on the ground. For a moment, he thought he was just a crazy kid in a tree house listening to a figment of his imagination.

  Except for that smell.

  When he went into the tree house, the air was winter cold. The kind of freezing that made his nostrils stick together. But when he opened his eyes, the air smelled sweet. Like cotton candy.

  “Hey, guys, do you smell that?” he asked.

  No response.

  “Guys?” he repeated.

  He turned and almost screamed. Because sitting there, right next to Special Ed, Mike, and Matt, was his own body. Christopher watched the four boys sitting cross-legged, rubbing their hands together for warmth. He called out to them, but they could not hear him. He waved his hand in front of their eyes, but they didn’t even blink. They were busy making plans about what furniture they could bring to the tree house. Their voices sounded far away. Like how his mother’s voice echoed when he put his ears under bathwater. Christopher strained to hear them. Until…

  knocK. knocK. knocK.

  Christopher turned toward the door. The sound vibrated through his teeth like chalk on a blackboard. Christopher looked back to his friends. They couldn’t hear the knocking. They just kept talking about how they were going to get power in the tree house for their toys and gadgets. Maybe batteries? Can refrigerators run on batteries?

  knocK. knocK. knocK.

  He inched toward the door. He put his ear up against it. At first, there was silence. Then, he heard a voice as clear as his friends were muddy.

  christopher. psst. out here.

  Christopher’s heart pounded. He went to the window. He strained his neck to see, but he could see nothing.

  knocK. knocK. knocK.

  Christopher stood on his tiptoes, trying to see the person, but he just heard the voice muffled through the door.

  christopher. it’s okay. it’s me. open the door.

  Christopher took a hard swallow and inched toward the door. He didn’t want to open it, but he had to know if there really was a person standing there. Or if it was just another figment of his imagination. Was he outside of his own body? Or was he out of his mind?

  Christopher opened the door.

  The light outside was blinding. But Christopher could still see the face. The scars running up and down from a thousand cuts. A young man with an old soul. Or an older man with a young heart. The eyes were so blue. The face was so handsome.

  It was the nice man.

  “You’re real,” Christopher said in amazement.

  “Hi, Christopher,” he said. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

  The nice man offered his hand. Christopher took it and shook it. His skin was soft and smooth. Like the cool side of the pillow.

  “We only have an hour of daylight,” the nice man said. “Let’s go to work.”

  Christopher looked back to see if his friends noticed the change. Could they see the nice man? Could they feel the open door? Did they know that there was a whole other side to the woods and the world? But their conversation never changed. They saw nothing. Just a tree house built by eight little hands. Christopher followed the nice man out of the tree house and closed the door. He walked down the little 2x4s like baby teeth. And followed the nice man through the clearing and out into the imaginary world.

  Chapter 36

  What happened to your fingers?” Christopher’s mother asked when she picked him up.

  They were in the parking lot of the 3 Hole Golf course, standing with his friends and their mothers. The sun had finally set. The air was cold and crisp. Like a sensitive tooth.

  “Nothing. Just some splinters,” Christopher replied.

  “From a plastic sled?”

  “A kid from school let us use his wooden one.”

  Christopher’s mother looked at him for a quiet moment. Suspicion was too strong a word for the look in her eyes. But it was a close enough cousin.

  “Which kid?” she asked.

  “Kevin Dorwart. He’s in my homeroom,” he said without a blink.

  That ended the questions for now. Just as he knew it would. Because there was something else he brought with him out of the imaginary world along with the splinters and the memory of the conversation that his body had with his three friends in the tree house. His mind was only in the imaginary world for an hour, but ever since he left it, there was this…

  Itch.

  An itch on his nose that he just couldn’t scratch because it wasn’t on his nose. It was in his brain. But even itch wasn’t the right word. Because an itch doesn’t also tickle and whisper and scratch. An itch doesn’t leave thoughts behind. The thoughts were like his old flash cards.

  2 + 2 = 4

  The capital of Pennsylvania is…Harrisburg.

  But these flash cards were different. As he looked at his friends and their mothers, the itch flipped the flash cards quickly, like the man he saw playing three-card monte on the street.

  Special Ed’s mother is…

  Special Ed’s mother is…a drunk.

  Mike and Matt’s moms are…

  Mike and Matt’s moms are…seeing a couples therapist.

  “Christopher, are you all right?”

  Christopher turned around. All of the mothers were staring at him. Worried. Christopher smiled a reassuring smile.

  “I’m fine. Just a little headache,” he said. “I want to keep sledding.”

  “Yeah. Can we?” the boys asked.

  “Sorry, it’s getting late,” his mom said.

  “Yeah. Say good night, boys. I have a bottle of white Zin at home with my name written all over it,” Betty said.

  They all said their goodbyes, and Christopher got into the car with his mom. He turned the car vents onto his face and let the hot air melt his cold apple cheeks. He looked over and saw his mother furrow her brow.

  “Hey, Mom. What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  My mother is thinking about…

  My mother is thinking about…the splinters in my fingers.

  When his mother pulled onto their street, a shudder went through his body. He remembered the things he saw on the imaginary side. How it was like a one-way mirror that lets you spy on people on the real side.

  And know things.

  He tried to distract himself from the things he saw by looking at the houses, but the itch only got louder. They passed the old house on the corner. Christopher’s mother told him that a young couple had just bought it. The wife was painting over the red door.

  The house on the corner is…

  The house on the corner is…

  Nothing. His mind was blank. There was no answer. Only the itch and the scratch. Christopher’s mother pulled into their driveway. She hit the automatic garage door opener with the remote and forced a smile.

  My mother is…

  My mother is…worried about me.

  Christopher watched his mother put soup on the stove. Chicken with the little noodles he loved. And grilled cheese sandwiches. Like she used to make for her late husband.

  My father had…

  My father had…voices in his head. Like me.

  The whisper scratch lingered, then died. Christopher had a little headache and a slight fever. But it wasn’t too bad. He felt cozy in the kitchen, slowly filling up with the smell of soup
and grilled cheese. When his mom asked if he wanted to watch The Avengers or Bad Cat, he said no. He didn’t want to watch a movie at all. No television, either.

  “Then, what do you want to do?” his mother asked.

  “Can we look at my baby book together?”

  Christopher’s mother smiled, surprised. They hadn’t looked at it in years. And maybe this was the perfect night for it. With snow on the roof and soup on the stove.

  “Of course. What made you think of your baby book, honey?”

  “I don’t know.”

  And for once, he didn’t. He had no idea why the baby book was suddenly so interesting. He just wanted to look. So, when the soup was done and the grilled cheese was perfectly golden brown and toasty, his mother got down the baby book.

  My mother knows…

  My mother knows…I am different than I was.

  And they sat on their new sofa.

  My mother knows…

  My mother knows…I am smarter than I should be.

  With a fire in the fireplace.

  My mother knows…

  My mother knows…I am keeping secrets from her.

  “This is really good grilled cheese, Mom,” he said to make her smile.

  “Thanks, honey,” she said, pretending to.

  Christopher just wished that he could give his mother the power he brought back from the imaginary side. He wished that she could see the thoughts that played hide-and-seek between people’s words, and she would know what was really going on inside his mind.

  I can’t tell…

  I can’t tell…you what is happening, Mom.

  It would…

  It would…terrify you.

  The nice man said that he had to be careful. The more time he spent on the imaginary side, the more he would know on the real side. But the power would come at a price. At first headaches. And then fevers. And then worse. He made Christopher promise to stay out of the tree house for a few days to recover.

  He didn’t want to train him too quickly.

  So, Christopher put his head on his mother’s shoulder and tried to forget the things he saw on the imaginary side. The man in the Girl Scout uniform near the bushes in the cul-de-sac. The other man rolled in the hollow log near the billy goat bridge. Luckily, it was daytime, and the imaginary people were sleeping. The nice man said that at night, the imaginary world wakes up.

  And then it gets really scary.

  “So, never come in here without me. Never be in here at night. Promise me.”

  “I promise, sir.”

  Christopher gave his eyes to the baby book, but his thoughts went back to the sunset. It was only two hours ago, but it felt as far away as Michigan. When sunset had come, the nice man brought Christopher back to the tree house. He apologized for not answering him for so long, but said he couldn’t risk it because the imaginary people were getting suspicious of him. He said to be very careful if Christopher had a bad dream because bad dreams were the imaginary side poking around to see if you knew about them. So, if things got really scary in a dream, Christopher was supposed to just run to the street.

  She can’t get you if you’re on the street.

  “Who?”

  “The less you know about her, the better. I don’t want her to find you.”

  Christopher then asked the nice man to come to the real side with him, but the nice man said he couldn’t. He had a job to do. Then, the nice man mussed his hair and closed the door.

  In an instant the cotton candy smell turned back to cold air. Christopher returned to his body on the real side. He saw Special Ed with the tree house door open in his hand.

  “Come on, Chris,” Special Ed said. “It’s almost six. We’re going to be late.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said. “We gotta get back to the golf course.”

  “We don’t want to get grounded again,” Matt agreed.

  Christopher followed his friends out of the tree house. He was the last one out. He closed the door behind him, shutting the imaginary world inside like a coffin. Then, he climbed down the little 2x4s like baby teeth. When they reached the ground, Christopher looked at the white plastic bag back on the low-hanging branch.

  And he smiled.

  Because he wasn’t alone.

  “Christopher, are you okay?” Matt asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your nose is bleeding.”

  Christopher reached up and dabbed at his nose. He brought his fingers back into his field of vision like rabbit ears and saw them spotted with blood.

  The power will…

  The power will…come at a price.

  “It’s nothing. I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  Then, he knelt down to wash the blood off in the pure, white snow.

  “Christopher, are you asleep?” his mother asked.

  Christopher followed her voice back to the present. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but his mother had already reached the end of the baby book.

  “No, I’m wide awake,” he said.

  Then, he asked her to go back to the beginning of the baby book and look at the old pictures again. It was the only thing that made his brain stop itching.

  He had no idea why.

  Chapter 37

  Ambrose opened the baby book.

  It was one o’clock at night. His room was still. He opened the window and listened to the snow falling outside. It was barely audible. Someone without gauze covering their eyes probably couldn’t have heard any of it. But he could. Wet, heavy drops falling on the ground like feathers. David used to love to play in the snow. God, his little brother loved to play in the snow.

  Ambrose held the baby book.

  He remembered the time David begged him to take him sledding on the 3 Hole Golf course. “You’re not old enough, kid.” But David could be persuasive. And this time, he won out. They went sledding. David wore his favorite hat. It was a ski hat with the Pittsburgh Steelers logo on it and a yellow tassel on top. Back before the Immaculate Reception when the Steelers were a terrible football team. But Ambrose won the hat at Kennywood and gave it to his little brother. That hat was still David’s favorite. That and the baseball glove Ambrose bought him. He still remembered that baseball-glove smell.

  Ambrose stood up.

  He remembered going down the steep hill of the 3 Hole Golf course. The wind turning their cheeks red like the apple that scared David when he saw Snow White. They went sledding all day, the snow sneaking its way under David’s mittens, making his wrists ache with cold. When they finally left for home, his nose was caked in frozen snot. Mom and Dad were out, so Ambrose made them two TV dinners with the tinfoil peas and lumpy mashed potatoes. They sat down and ate together and watched the Steelers lose to the Bears.

  “God damn Steelers,” Ambrose said.

  “God damn Steelers,” David said.

  “Watch your mouth. And take off that hat while we eat.”

  David took off the old Steelers hat and smiled when his big brother mussed up his hair. Ambrose was getting older, and over the years, it was getting harder to remember details about his little brother. But some things he would never forget.

  David’s hair.

  Ambrose could still remember the color. Not quite black. Not quite brown. Textured so perfectly that a bad haircut was an impossibility. Ambrose remembered his mother taking a lock of the hair to put on the front page of David’s baby book. It sat proudly right next to the little hospital bracelet with D. OLSON printed on it. Right next to the little handprints and footprints. The hair and bracelet pasted with clear plastic tape that yellowed over time.

  Ambrose couldn’t believe that the lock of hair from his little brother’s baby book was now in a plastic evidence bag on its way to a forensics lab in Pittsburgh to confirm that the skeleton they found in the Mission Street Woods was, in fact, David. If it was, Ambrose would finally be able to bury his kid brother after fifty years. His mother and father would never allow a funeral.

  They alwa
ys said David was coming home.

  For years, he tried to make that dream come true. He looked for David everywhere. For years, he thought he saw him in other children. Sometimes he had to look away so that no one would think he was a creep. Eventually, though, deep in his own quiet, Ambrose understood that David was never coming home. He knew that David was taken like children are. Not for ransom. But for something far more evil. He watched his mother and father lie to themselves that David was taken in by some childless family. Not a monster with a van. Or some freak making movies. Or some coward who needed to destroy something small to feel big. Eventually, Ambrose was forced to trade his parents’ war at home for another war abroad. In the army, Ambrose had seen worse things than a child gone missing. He had seen villages of them torn apart by bombs. He had seen girls sold to pay for rice and men disgusting enough to buy them. And when he returned from the war, and his wife wanted children, he said he couldn’t go through that much pain again. He failed his little brother. And he could never forgive himself. And he didn’t deserve his own son.

  Ambrose took the bandages off his eyes.

  He squinted through the haze. He looked at his reflection in the glass window and the snow falling behind it. Ambrose studied his bald head. And the single strip of grey hair that wrapped around his scalp above his ears like Mrs. Collins’ mink stole. David never saw his hair go grey. He never saw it fall off his head and leave traces of itself like pine needles on a pillow every morning. He never heard his wife lie to him about how great he still looked.

  Ambrose stared at the baby book.

  He turned the pages and saw his little brother grow up all over again. He saw a picture of a baby with no teeth become a little boy crawling and walking and eventually running into the coffee table so many times that he called the hospital the “stitches store.” He saw his little brother crying in Santa’s lap. A little boy smiling under the family’s Christmas tree when he got the baseball glove from his big brother Ambrose. The one that smelled like new leather.