Genre: fluff and a bit of angst (hardly any but just a bit sad really)
Word count: 2802
A boy is coming through the door. It looks like he is new. Well, he is compared to everyone else.
I stare at him from across the room. He has a suitcase and is pulling at the sleeves of his hoodie nervously.
Hello. My name is Phil and I am 19 years old. I live in a mental hospital. I have been here for 3 years today and I came here because of my friend, Dan. He's imaginary. Was imaginary. He was the best thing that ever happened to me.
See, before him I had no friends, no one would speak to me at all, just give me weird looks and call me names. It hurt me so much that I found Dan, lingering in the back of my mind, waiting to finally appear when I needed him most and be my friend, help me with everything I was going through. But somehow me imagining someone put me down as hallucinatory, crazy, a freak. I never used to mind being here, I had Dan back then, he looked out for me, helped me stay positive and happy. I wish he hadn't gone.
I don't really have friends here anymore... no one does. We just sit clumped together, muttering under our breaths or staring awkwardly. I don't think anyone wants to be here at all. I think they just want to be at home and happy, away from their problems which are shoved in front of them here on silver platters and left there for them to deal with, going through each overcooked chewy piece until they have managed to clump the indigestible food down. It makes me sick, the food here. It's disgusting and I understand why people hardly eat, it's definitely not nutritious and is often tasteless, just more to add to our emptiness inside.
I do wish Dan was still here, I am so very lonely without him. Like a child without its blankie. Oh how I want mine. I wish I hadn't chased Dan away, I wish he was still here and my friend, laughing with me, telling me jokes. I never cared that he was imaginary, for me he was as real as anyone else in the world. But as he wasn't to other people it meant I had a problem. I hate how only the staffs' opinions matter here, it just infuriates me how they can say one word to another member and they will be taken out the room. Just like that. When this happens whoever gets taken out gets put in their room, because apparently they over reacted or started to become 'dangerous' when really all they were was scared. Scared of being here, of being alone with themselves. So the best cure for that? Make them sit alone in a room and feel isolated from everyone who could make them feel better. Great logic right there. I got taken out once, when Dan had gone for the first time, and I just lay on my bed and sobbed for the rest of the day.
That session was in the afternoon so that day I didn't eat my dinner. It didn't make a difference at all. They shoved food through my door but I wouldn't eat it, it wouldn't of helped. I just wanted Dan back. He did come back after that, for a while. It was nice having him back. But then he started going away at certain points. I cried for an hour each time that happened. And when he left me entirely it only took me a minute before I realised he was never coming back. That's when I stopped talking to people.
He is lead away and I stare at the door before he comes back out. Everyone who lives here is outside together and he will be made to join us. I wonder if he will see me.
I half blame them for making him leave, putting me in an environment where he was literally all I had and then making everything tense up, get tighter and tighter before it snapped and left me gasping.
Before he left I said some things I really regret. If I hadn't of said them, he wouldn't of left. I hate myself everyday for them.
Do you know how it feels when the best friend of your life just disappears? Well it is like half of your gets ripped off you body. Me and Dan literally did everything together, he never left my side. We woke up together, we slept at the same time, we shared a room, ate together, walked together, laughed together, just literally everything, he was there. Our little room with like a miniature flat but with just a desk, bed and connected bathroom. Wherever I was in it he was there too. He never disappeared. Like if I was in the shower he would be sitting against the door outside of the bathroom and he would talk to me, making me laugh. We even sang little duets together. He had such a lovely voice, it always gave me goosebumps. What I would do to hear it again.
But then he was gone. He disappeared and he never came back to tell me why. Well, I sort of guessed, but he never came back to explain. Not fully. That's why I don't speak anymore. I don't want my words to mess up anything else I have.
One day we were sitting outside on the little grass lawn they had outside and I was making him a daisy chain. He was making me giggle and I started to realise how pretty he was. He had chestnut hair and deep brown eyes. His skin was the perfect tan and he had this cute little dimple that only showed when he was truly happy. Just like now. He was beautiful, I didn't get how I hadn't seen it before. I was staring for a while and I think he must have noticed because he coughed awkwardly and made a joke to make me tune a little more into the real world. It worked of course but I never really saw his face the same was as I did before. Once the daisy chain was finished I turned it into a crown, and passed it to him.
I am absolutely certain he took it, he wore it the whole afternoon, and when I looked at the ground the next day it wasn't on the floor where it would have been if he was imaginary. I am so sure he was real. I think.
He has come out the sliding glass doors and is standing awkwardly, looking out, eyes scanning the people here. He can't see me. I am sitting in a low branch of a tree, thick green leaves covering me. Only my legs in their dark jeans can be seen.
I think that was the day I started to ruin things. I started to develop, I think, feelings towards him. It was pretty weird but he made me feel so happy I didn't think that mattered. It obviously did later on, but whilst he didn't know it was fine. The funny thing was I thought I caught him looking at me a little weirdly, a bit like how I used to at him, before he left. He was still his usual self but his eyes was slightly misted, a small confusion had swept like fog across them. I wonder if he felt the change I did. We got a little closer after that. Most of the time if I felt a little sad I would talk to him about it, late at night when we should have been sleeping. He shared my bed with me, just sleeping on the other side of it. They had given me a double especially for us to share, so I didn't kick up a fuss and maybe start a small riot which would spread to the other patients. He would listen to my troubles and I could never face him about them, getting shy and embarrassed. He would make them better for me and I would never stop thanking him after.
Sometimes if I was crying he would hug me in comfort and I would wake up with his arms still wrapped around me. He had always said it didn't mean anything when we woke up but he always looked uncertain. Quite often when I woke up I would be hugging him, and he never seemed to mind.
I felt him in my arms. Every single time. And he was real.
He finally decides to sit on the grass, and starts to pull up the little flowers speckled over it, linking them together into a long chain, threading stem after stem in the warm sun, the light shining across his chestnut hair.
It was about a week after the first few times we woke up entwined that he started to randomly go. We went to breakfast together and we sat together at lunch and at recreation we were just sitting and talking and that's where it went wrong. At the simplest of times I started to ruin it. He was helping me feel better about the weird looks I always got and just as the signal went to go back in for counselling I hugged him and told him how I was so lucky to have him as my own. It must have slipped out. I stood up and joined the crowd, thinking he was there beside me but when I looked round he wasn't. I tried to stop and push back the other way but I got pulled towards the counselling room. I guessed Dan would just meet me in there but I was scared. I had never had him not next to me before. I had started shivering slightly, on edge about what was going on. The carer of the session was asking people how they were and when she asked me it got bad.
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"So Philip how are you today?"
"Bad,"
"And how's Dan?" Her voice was stickily patronising, it oozed with pity.
"I don't know,"
"Why not?"
"He's not here. I don't know where he is. He has never not been here before,"
"But he has never really been here Philip, he is just part of your imagination,"
"No."
"Pardon?"
"No. He is not part of my imagination. He is real. He. Is. Real. He is fucking real! And I don't care about what you say he is real and alive and you may not think so but you don't know him! You don't understand! He is fucking real and he cares for me a damn lot more than you people do! Just because you can't see him doesn't mean he doesn't exist so you can cram all the shit you just said up your ass and go to hell!"
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I had flipped out. That was the afternoon I spent crying on my bed, not knowing what to do or where Dan was or if he was ever coming back. They had dragged my out screaming at the carer, screaming for Dan, screaming for myself. Of course no one listened, they were just shocked I had spoken up. I was usually so quiet and good but there was little Philip Lester swearing his head off. I went down in records as 'unstable' for a short amount of time after that.
That was an understatement.
He finishes his chain and again looks around. He can see me a little better now, I just hope he notices it's me. He is standing up now, and walking towards me. I think he's smiling. Oh god, I hope he remembers.
That was the moment Dan started disappearing and reappearing. I remember how relieved I was when he was back at my side the next morning when I woke, I almost thought it was a dream. But he had hugged me tightly and told me he was sorry he had gone so short notice but he had had to sort some problems out. I remember asking him what was wrong and the way he looked when he said he couldn't tell me. I wish I understood what that look had meant, a sadness mixed with a slight hope, but it still makes no sense no matter how many times I look back over it.
Things went back to normal but Dan slowly started to suddenly vanish for short periods of time, sometimes telling me if he was going, mostly not. He went away for longer and longer and I missed him terribly, crying into the nights when he wasn't there to comfort me. I stayed in my room as much as possible, wanting to stay away from the other people around me. If he was ever there when I went to sleep he would always be there when I woke up, even if it was only for a few minutes before he dashed off again. He seemed to actually become more of an imaginary friend to me and it was so scary, not knowing if he was ever real or not. As soon as that seed of doubt had been planted in my mind it had grown into ivy, wrapping its hateful tendrils around my thoughts and feelings, making my brain ache when i thought about it.
That went on for about 3 weeks and it wasn't fun at all, but compared to now it was heaven. I at least got to see Dan then, now I have nothing.
It was one of the nights when he was again lying at my side and I was for once happy. He was cuddling me and I felt his breath tickling the back of my neck, the warm sensation soothing me, making me relax. I was just so happy that the little words coming out of my mouth didn't seem to be that important, to really make a difference. I thought you already kind of knew.
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"Do you know what Dan? I don't care if you stay with me for only short periods of time. I don't think that matters because I am just so happy when you are here. I think I am in love with you Dan. And that's what I think matters."
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It obviously had mattered. I woke up to an empty bed with no reply. And I cried my heart out.
I slip out of the tree, standing up shakily, awaiting the meeting I have longed to happen again. I really hope he remembers me.
The next few months were spent in silence. When I finally realised he was never going to come back I just didn't see the point in wasting my voice. A waste of energy if it wouldn't be spent on him. So I just generally sit in this spot, on a low hanging branch in the corner of the garden, watching everyone else, seeing them going around in their little routines. Mine seems only to sit now. I also draw too, little sketches of flowers and trees but mostly Dan. It hurts when i draw him but I like it so I am not going to stop. I feel like my heart has been ripped in two and I should have suspected it would happen, he wasn't even real. I had had my heart broken by my own imagination and I didn't know how to live my life anymore. But I still had a little piece of hope left in my torn heart, the feeling that something good was going to happen. I really hope it does.
He is finally here in front of me. Chestnut hair and deep brown eyes hardly far from my own. My Dan has finally come back to me.
"Hey Phil." He remembers me.
"What are you doing here?" I ask him. I had sort of given up all hope on him ever coming back to me. He steps closer and takes one of my hands. It is soft and warm and solid, and they fit together perfectly.
"I came back Phil. I came back for you. And this time, I made sure I was real."