Imaginary Friend (ARC)

by Stephen Chbosky

David had buried himself alive.

  “No!!!” Ambrose shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the man, railing against the sky.

  “nO!!!”

  The man in the grey suit smashed David’s tree to kindling. Great hunks of wood ripped the man’s flesh until there was nothing left of the tree. Just an empty space that made the clearing around it that much bigger.

  When the tree house was charcoal, and the wood of the tree dust, the man dragged his depleted body back out through the garden. His handsome was gone. He was old and haggard. And his suit suddenly looked to Ambrose like prison greys.

  When the man was gone, Ambrose’s body finally returned to him. He ran to his little brother’s grave and shoved his hands into the fresh earth. He dug feverishly. His brother was here. It wasn’t too late.

  I can still save my brother.

  Ambrose dug through the dirt. Foot after foot. Looking for his brother’s body. But he couldn’t find him. He kept digging. Faster and faster. He felt the dirt in his mouth. His eyes. Worms crawling on his body. His lungs screaming for air. This is what his brother felt. This was eternity.

  forEver and eVer and evEr

  Suddenly there was darkness. He reached inside the dirt and found something hard and cold. Plastic. A light switch. Ambrose turned on the light. He looked around, expecting to see the tree house. But he wasn’t in the tree house anymore.

  He was in his old house.

  The basement.

  Chapter 124

  Christopher’s mother opened her eyes.

  She was in a nice, warm bed. Clean sheets fresh from the dryer. She looked up at the white ceiling with the cracks that greeted her every morning. She stretched and yawned, feeling the little aches and pains dissolve like butter on a pan.

  “Jerry?” she called out.

  There was no answer. It was just as well after last night. If he had been there, she would have just seen that same sheepish smile that greeted her the morning after the first time it happened. She thought about leaving him that first night he hit her. But better judgment calmed her down. Men could be changed. Men could be saved. Didn’t her mother always say that?

  Christopher’s mother got out of bed.

  She looked down at the pillow, white and fluffy like clouds. For some reason, that first night wouldn’t get out of her mind, like the chorus of an annoying song. Why didn’t she leave him that first time? Just pack her things, get the Visa he didn’t know about, the hidden cash from the drawer, and just go?

  Because.

  That single word sat there like his car on blocks in the driveway. What would have happened if she had left that first time he hit her? Who knew? Her mother always said that when something bad happens, think about the worse. If you get a flat tire, it’s just God saving you from a fatal accident twenty seconds later. That sentence helped her mother endure (or allow) two decades of men coming in and out of her life so quickly that she joked that she should have installed a revolving door and saved them all the trouble. Christopher’s mother didn’t know what the accident would have been if she had actually left Jerry, but there are worse things in the world than a black eye. Or two.

  Right?

  Right. It’s not like the world came to an end. Plus, she reminded herself that her own mother had known a lot worse than Jerry. Little Kate had listened to more than her fair share of kisses mixed with fists through the bathroom walls of their studio apartment. The little girl she was hated those men. Especially when she was left alone with them. But the woman she became hated her mother more. Kate may have had low standards for herself. But no one touched her son. No one would fucking dare.

  If only Christopher could give her credit for that.

  Christopher’s mother went to the window. She looked at herself in the glass. It was fogged a little. Just enough to soften the wrinkles that marked time. Thank God for small favors. She got out the concealer she kept in the nightstand.

  Then, she covered up the fresh black eye with a practiced hand.

  It didn’t look so bad, she told herself. Not in the opaque window anyway. And it’s not like she was leaving the house today. He cried last night after it happened. Real tears. Jerry wasn’t a bad man. His childhood was almost as bad as hers. Maybe that’s what made them understand each other. Maybe that’s what made him propose and her say yes all those years ago.

  When she was done, she looked down into the backyard at the swing set that she had begged him to buy. The swings were rusted now, but they were moving in the wind like they did back when Christopher and his buddy Lenny Cordisco played on it.

  Back when her son would still talk to her.

  Christopher’s mother put on her favorite house dress and left the room. She looked down the hall at her son’s old bedroom. How long ago did Jerry finally insist that she get his stuff out of it? She put her foot down. But so did he. That was a bad night. She didn’t like to think about it anymore.

  She walked down the stairs. She stared at pictures of a lifetime together greying like her hair. Their wedding photo. The honeymoon in West Virginia at that casino. What was the name of it again? She couldn’t quite remember. She couldn’t quite remember anything outside of this house anymore. She shook off the feeling with more photos. Christopher’s graduation. High school. Then, military academy. Then, wedding. Then, her first and only grandchild. And somewhere along the line, he or his wife decided it was best if Jerry wasn’t in their life anymore.

  “It’s me or him, Mom,” he said, two decades too late.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs where Christopher’s belongings had been thrown when she finally lost the argument.

  Not argument! Fight, Mom! Wake up!

  She suddenly got a terrible feeling. A chill ran down her back as if she were lying on the ground in the dead of winter. That’s what she got for remembering things. Just forget it.

  Christopher’s mother shook off the past and brewed herself a pot of coffee to get through the morning. Jerry had left the living room in shambles. Again. She told him a million times that she wasn’t put on this earth to pick up after him like his God damn mother as she spent the best years of her life picking up after him like his God damn mother. But that’s what marriage is. Clothes are only new once. So are vows. So are kisses. Didn’t her mother always say that?

  Christopher’s mother busied herself with the living room first. Then, the dining room table that his pension check kept filling with empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays. She made herself eggs. She watched her stories. For some reason, she could never remember what happened in yesterday’s episode. But it was still better than silence. She finished her eggs, and during the commercial break, she put the paper plate in the trash can.

  The one right next to the drawer.

  She promised herself that she wouldn’t do it this time. Don’t open it. It’s only going to make you cry. But she couldn’t help herself. It was the closest thing she had to him anymore. She opened the kitchen drawer and looked at the stack of letters. The first one she wrote angry. The second desperate. The third insulted.

  Every emotion from A to Z with one message in common.

  “Please, let us back into your life, Christopher.”

  Every unopened envelope—from faded yellow to fresh white—with the same indifferent stamp.

  RETURN TO SENDER.

  Christopher’s mother closed the drawer with a snap. She wouldn’t let herself cry. Not today. She had too much to do. Like sitting in the warm kitchen and looking out into the cold. And remembering her son as a little boy who worshipped her. Not the grown man who looked at her with the same disdain with which she looked at her own mother.

  All of these lifetimes stuck in her mind like the end of a record turning over and over in the wax. Going nowhere. Hadn’t she been here before? Hadn’t she sat in this warm kitchen all alone staring out the window, waiting for him to come home out of the cold? Even settling for the mailman to just come with a message? Hoping. Praying. Just one ti
me to bring her an envelope not marked RETURN TO SENDER. One letter from her grown son’s own hand. Mom, I’m sorry. Mom, I know it was hard for you. Mom, you gave up your life for me, and I don’t hate you anymore for that. I understand you. And you are still a little boy’s hero.

  Christopher’s mother put her head in her hands and wept. Her voice echoed off the kitchen walls, and for a moment, she thought of her tears like trees falling down in the middle of a forest with no one there to hear them.

  Knock. Knock.

  Christopher’s mother looked up. Her heart leapt. She ran to the door. She had installed a mail slot in the front door because she couldn’t bear to walk to the mailbox anymore. Or did Jerry just not let her leave the house without him? She couldn’t remember.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  But the mailman said nothing. He never did. He simply slipped the mail through the slot like a schoolkid passing notes and walked away. She had never even seen his face.

  Christopher’s mother dropped to her knees and grabbed the stack of mail scattered on the floor. She waded through coupon books and catalogs until she found what she was looking for. Her hopes and dreams took their familiar place in her throat. She turned over the letter, and she saw it.

  RETURN TO SENDER.

  The envelope was blurry through her tears. Like cataracts in an old man’s eyes. Why did she always think of an old man when this happened? She picked herself up with whatever dignity she had left. She went to the kitchen and opened the drawer. She was just about to throw another log on the fire of her lifetime of disappointment and go upstairs for her afternoon nap, hoping that this time she wouldn’t have that terrible nightmare of Christopher’s father stabbing him with the knife again.

  When she stopped.

  She looked outside again. The cold backyard. The swing set moving in the breeze. Reminding her of Christopher. Reminding her of something important. His hand on her chest. When did that happen? She looked at the light behind the swing set. The sun had risen. It reminded her of Christmas morning for some reason. Christopher asking if the word “sunlight” came from son’s light? And if so, what is a mother’s light?

  Christopher’s mother held the envelope up to the sunlight and looked at the shadow inside it like a child looking for a check inside a Christmas card. She remembered writing it. She remembered Jerry saying that it wasn’t worth the price of a stamp right before he gave her a black eye in their last argument.

  Not argument! Fight, Mom! Wake up!

  She remembered she had put a one-page letter into the envelope.

  But there were two pages inside.

  Then, Christopher’s mother did the one thing she had never thought to do in all those years of disappointment.

  She opened the envelope.

  She pulled out her original letter. Then, she pulled out the second and began to weep when she saw her son’s handwriting. The way it used to be. Back when he was a child. Struggling to read. Back when he needed her. Back when she was still her little boy’s hero.

  Mom. I love you. Now, open them all. Everything you need to know is inside.

  Chapter 125

  Christopher stood in the middle of the cul-de-sac, the key in his pocket, looking at the nice man. So calm. So gentle. So patient and polite. There was no terrifying face. There was only his reassuring smile with rows of perfectly white, perfectly straight baby teeth.

  “All you have to do is kill the hissing lady, and I promise you, everything will be okay,” he said.

  Christopher looked down the street. The man in the Girl Scout uniform was happy and innocent.

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone, Christopher,” the nice man said. “I just want my freedom. It’s all I want.”

  The man in the Girl Scout uniform pulled himself into the bushes.

  “I just want out of this prison, so I can do some good. You see that man in the bushes? Do you know what he did to a little girl?”

  “Make it stop!” the man in the Girl Scout uniform screamed.

  “It was terrible. And he knows it now. I just want bad people to stop hurting good people. That’s all I’m trying to do.”

  The mailbox people moaned and pulled at their stitches. The street was so loud, Christopher couldn’t hear anyone in the woods, but he knew they were there. He felt Mrs. Henderson on the real side. She saw her husband sitting in the kitchen. She cried tears of joy. He was home! Her husband finally came home! She ran across the kitchen to hold him in her arms. Then, for some reason, she couldn’t stop herself from picking up a knife and stabbing him.

  “NO! I don’t want him to die now! He’s finally home!”

  Christopher looked up. The street went silent as the nice man’s eyes changed to a beautiful green color. He smelled like pipe tobacco. This was the man Christopher remembered. The man who got Christopher’s mother a house.

  “What about the people in the town?” Christopher asked.

  “You want to save the people who hurt you and your mother?” the nice man asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Christopher said.

  “There will never be another like you.” The nice man smiled. Then, he looked at the little boy and nodded.

  “Once you free me, you can free them.”

  Christopher looked into the nice man’s eyes, pained and wise.

  “How can I trust you?” Christopher asked.

  “You don’t have to trust me. You are all powerful. All knowing. You are God here. You can save anyone you want. But someone has to die for the rest to live. It’s either the hissing lady or your mother. There is no other choice. I’m sorry.”

  He spoke the words, then went silent. His face remaining still and solemn. But Christopher could feel the thoughts playing hide-and-seek. He would not let Christopher kill himself like David did. The choice was set.

  The hissing lady or his mother.

  Christopher looked at the nice man, then over to the hissing lady bound in a heap in his yard just off the street. She panted like a deer that had been hit by a car.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her.

  Christopher began to walk toward the hissing lady. She screamed in her restraints. Terrified. Writhing in pain.

  “NO! DON’T! STOP!” she begged.

  Christopher walked to the lawn and grabbed the hissing lady.

  “YOU’RE OFF THE STREET!” she cried.

  Christopher felt the fate of the world as he held her, and she struggled. He felt her torment. The world’s torment. All the moments the hissing lady tried to scare him away. She had been here forever. She was exhausted. Tortured beyond recognition. Christopher began to drag her to the street.

  “NO! NO!” she screamed.

  The street came alive like a hot skillet. The man in the Girl Scout uniform pulled himself into the bushes at a frenzied pace. The couple kissed harder and harder until they began to eat each other. The frogs couldn’t get out of the pot. The pavement was as hot as one hundred billion suns. One hundred billion sons. Burning.

  “STOP HELPING HIM!” she begged.

  Christopher looked down and saw a reflection in her eye. She was running through the woods, desperately searching. She found David Olson buried under the earth. She dug him out with her bare hands and held him in her arms. David was terrified. She kept him safe. She gave him food. She showed him where to hide. Where to sleep. Where to bathe. For fifty years, they were always together. She was his guardian. In here, David was her son.

  “Who are you?” Christopher asked.

  “YOU’RE OFF THE STREET!” she screamed.

  “Please, tell me who you are,” he begged.

  “STOP HELPING HIM!” she yelled, the words barely recognizable anymore.

  Christopher brought her to the edge of the lawn. The street was an inch away.

  “You have to tell me!” Christopher said.

  She reached up and gently touched his hand. She had no words anymore. The words had been tortured out of her. But he felt something. He turned around and sa
w his neighborhood through her eyes. Not as it was today. As it was two thousand years ago when there were no people here. No houses. Nothing but quiet and stars twinkling in a clear sky untouched by people. The clouds were pure. In a blink, Christopher saw the world grow up and people spread over the continents like trees.

  God had a son who served on earth.

  The hissing lady looked at him. A spark of recognition filled her eyes.

  But He also had a daughter.

  Christopher held her hand and felt the truth flow through his skin like electricity.

  And she volunteered to serve here.

  Christopher felt the last of her pain with whatever strength he had left. Which wasn’t much. The warmth from his body left him. Then, he stood, shriveled and empty, and faced the nice man.

  “No,” Christopher said.

  The nice man turned to Christopher.

  “What dId you say?” he asked calmly.

  Christopher said nothing. The nice man walked over to him.

  “The tree house made you God. I gave you that power to kill hEr. Are you refusing me?”

  He smiled. His baby teeth trying hard not to look like fangs.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Christopher,” he said kindly. “I can make this so much worse.”

  He picked Christopher up in a warm, paternal hug.

  “No!” the hissing lady cried helplessly.

  He smiled and studied Christopher like a dissected frog.

  “You think you’ve seen this place, son, but you haven’t. Do you know what the imagInary world looks like wIthout my protection?”

  The nice man’s wrinkles began to spread from his eyes like the earth cracking in a drought as rage coursed through his veins.

  “thiS iS whaT iT reallY iS!”

  Christopher looked up in horror as the white clouds burned with souls crying out for murder and blood. The clouds twisting into the faces of the damned. The people there were not screaming, “Make it stop!” The people there were screaming, “More! Give me more!”

  “i wilL pasS yoU arounD tO thE reallY baD peoplE anD telL theM thaT yoU arE a gifT froM heaveN whilE youR motheR watcheS theM. i wilL leT theM torturE yoU untiL yoU arE unrecognizablE tO goD.”