Unseen Friends

My best friend, Ella, has had an imaginary friend since she was five years old. She came from an abusive home where her alcoholic father would constantly beat her mother. Ella’s mother once took Ella and fled their home, but her father found them a few days later and killed her mother. He then kidnapped Ella and was on the run from the police until he eventually died in a shootout with them not long after.

Ella was then placed in an orphanage until she was adopted seven years later, but the cycle repeated there as well and she ran away and started living on the streets. That’s where she met me. She and I became best friends, and we kept each other safe. Initially, her imaginary friend didn’t bother me, but over time, it began to irritate me because Ella would insist that I talk to her. Ella said her friend’s name was Anna, and that she was a lot like me.

One day, I suggested that maybe she should see a psychiatrist. Ella got offended and stopped talking to me for a few days, but she eventually decided to see a doctor on her own. However, she wanted me to join her sessions as well. I accepted her request, and that’s when things became even stranger.

Ella introduced both Anna and me to her therapist, but her therapist never addressed me. She only spoke to Ella. I was puzzled. She didn’t even ask me a single question. The doctor then asked which one of us suggested that Ella see her. What was she thinking? I was clearly the one who suggested it, not her imaginary friend. The session ended with the psychiatrist prescribing three different types of medicine for Ella.

In the weeks that followed, Ella’s conversations with Anna steadily began to decline, but so did those with me. I brushed it off as her being distant, but over time, she began to ignore me entirely, as if I never even existed. A month passed this way before her next appointment with the psychiatrist came up. I went with Ella even though she didn’t ask me to come. The therapist then asked a question that made me sink in my seat.

“Can you still see Anna and Isabel?”

Isabel was my name. What was she implying? I looked at Ella and even she was confused.

“What do you mean, doctor? Isabel is my friend.”

“I know she is. She was here last time with you, just like Anna was, right?”

Ella nodded.

“But neither of them are here today, right?”

Ella looked over to my side of the couch and frowned before turning back to the doctor. “Right.”

My thoughts began to spiral. Was I…?

“I’m real, aren’t I?” I yelled at the doctor; she didn’t even budge. I then turned to Ella. “Tell me you can see me, please!” I tried holding her arms, but my hands slipped right through her.

It seemed that Anna and I were both friends Ella had turned to at the stages of her life that brought about the biggest changes—one to help her escape the harsh reality of life and the other to help her overcome it when she was finally ready. I had served my purpose, just as Anna had served hers. Soon, I would be no more than a mere memory.