Imaginary

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   "I'm thinking about dying it blue," Hailey says. I nod. The silver in her hair is fading back into bleach blonde, which she was blessed with naturally. "I like blue," I say. She giggles, "It's not like I need your opinion."

Hailey shoots up quickly. I furrow my eyebrows. "What's wrong?" She shushes me. "Your mom is coming." I nod, as I hear foot steps coming up the stairs.

"Don't tell her about it," she says firmly, closing the closet door. Mom peeks her head into the room. "Hey, Avery. What are you doing in here all by yourself?"

"Talking to Hailey," I say, immediately regretting it. Mom sighs. "Avery, honey... I love you, but all of this talk about Hailey..... no one else has ever seen her. She isn't real, we've talked about this."

I sigh, and look at my hands that I'm fiddling with, "Right, sorry.... you're right, I'm sorry, mom." Yes, I just repeated the same thing. I'm bad at talking. Except for with Hailey. We could talk for hours and hours, but mom doesn't think she's real. Just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't real. Think about it. You can't see angels, but some believe they're out there. There's no proof that they don't exist.

Mom sits down on my bed, and puts her hand on my knee. "I just came to remind you that you have an appointment today. With Mrs. Walker?" I nod. She thinks I need therapy because of Hailey. I hate it there. Mrs. Walker always asks me questions that I don't know how to answer, like "If you were to rate it from one to ten, how bad was your anxiety over the past month?" I don't know.

"It starts at 3:30. We're going to leave in about an hour. Okay?" She smiles, sympathetically. I nod, again. But I don't need to talk to Mrs. Walker. I complain in my head. I have Hailey.

No one has ever understood like Hailey has. There's a difference between being heard and being listened to. While others would hear me, she would listen. Mrs. Walker always talked to me about the same things that I don't want to talk about. The usual 'how has your mood been?' And the usual 'I don't know' I knew she hated it, but what was I supposed to say? I don't want to say I'm not happy, because then she'll just put me on more drugs that I don't want to take.

I nod my head again. "You're driving me?"
She nods.

     "Okay," I say quietly, managing to fake a borderline grin.

Hailey is in my sight as soon as the door closes. "Mrs. Walker? I don't like her." She protests.

"Me neither."

"Why don't you tell anyone?"

I hesitate. "I don't know."

She sighs. "You don't have to please everyone, Avery. If you don't like this thing, you don't need to do it anymore."

"But... no one else gets it like you do, Hailey," My voice cracks.

Hailey doesn't say anything, just looks at me. I have always been jealous of her. She always knows what to say and when to say it. She's witty, kind, yet sarcastic, and cunning. And she's beautiful. Her eyes are the perfect shade of emerald green, and long eyelashes. She wears cute pastel clothes, that somehow looked more flattering on her than any model I have ever seen. And she doesn't even have to try.

Her hair is always an interesting, eye catching color. Next to my brunette head of hair, you could easily spot her in crowd. Her eyebrows are perfect, with out even trying. Hell, even her name is lovely. She's basically like a girl in a tumblr picture. Even her voice is appealing. Like light rain on a window, or falling asleep to your radio playing.

I sigh, and run my hand through my hair. "Blue, huh?"

She smiles, subtly. "Yep."

"What kind of blue are we talking?"

"Probably as pastel as I can get it, with it still looking blue," she shrugs.

And with that, we continue our pointless conversations. Making me forget the world, forget my problems for the next hour.

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I'm pretty proud of this I guess. If anyone is reading this, please let me know what you think! I will have slow updates most likely, but I'll do my best!
~Abby 💫