January 14, 2011 

Ugh, Mondays. Always hated them because of school. Nothing but education being injected into my brain, it’s all useless anyway… the teachers don’t even care, they’re just spouting irrelevant nonsense. I never really understood why my little brother liked school. It may be because he's in First grade and I’m in high school, so that might explain part of it.

“Ari, come downstairs now! I need you to take James to school!”

“Why? He can go to school by himself!”

“He’s only 6, think! And what about you?”

“Ugh,” I rolled out of my bed and stomped down the stairs.

“Ari! Ari! After school can you play with me and my new toys?”

I rolled my eyes and bent down giving a small smile “Of course I would!” I said sarcastically.

I checked my phone and it was about time to leave, so I grabbed James and we headed out for school. We only just turned the corner when James pointed out a little girl walking alone in the distance, across the street from us. I didn’t see her. Still, the thought of a little girl walking alone was somewhat unsettling. I just thought it was his imagination, or maybe… I just wasn't able to see her, so I just brushed it off.

                                                                 ~~

After school I saw a note on the kitchen counter; it read, ‘Hey honey, I’m going to be on a business trip. I will be away for 4 days, take care of James for me.’ -Mom. Yes, home alone for 4 days! Wait- I still have to take care of that brat… At least, I get the decision whether to go to school or not.

“Ari! You said you’d play with me!”

“Don’t you have homework or something?” I asked with some hope he would just forget and leave me alone.

“Nope!” He replied with a grin.

Damn it! I turned around letting out a frustrated sigh. Well neither did I, but I needed to make an excuse to get this brat away. So i just said the first thing that came to mind.

“Well I have homework, go play by yourself. ”

“I don’t want to!” He pouted

I spun around glaring at him clearly annoyed.

“Then... create an imaginary friend!”

“Imaginary friend?”

I sighed and quickly replied, trying to get him to leave.

“An imaginary friend is a person you make up and pretend they are real.”

James smiled, and replied with a simple “Okay” and skipped away happily. I finally had some alone time. I found no other thing to do so I went to my room and decided to look through my feed on Instagram. I was never really the type of person to post a ton of pictures. Mostly just once in a while when there was some kind of big event or if I had something interesting to share. Thinking about it, I never really cared to interact with many people at my school.

                                                              ~~

A few minutes later I noticed my phone was running low on batteries, I sat up to grab a charger but realized that they didn't work currently. I flopped back down silently cursing to myself. I layed down and shut my eyes for a moment, after briefly glancing at the time. I didn't have much time left with this percentage so I used what was left. Soon after my phone eventually died. I sat there bored out of my mind with nothing else I could or wanted to do. After nearly 20 minutes of staring at the ceiling, I decided to check up on what James was doing. I walked down the stairs and heard James talking to someone.

“James, who are you talking to?”

He looked up at me and said, “A friend.”

I shut my eyes from slight annoyance, “Who is your, friend?”

“Her name is Amy!”

“Amy?” I began to assume it was his imaginary friend.

“Yup, she’s my friend!”

“So, she’s your imaginary friend?”

“No, she’s real,” he said looked back over to the blank space in front of him.

I knew it was just childish thoughts, but somehow it managed to creep me out. So I just ignored it hoping the feeling would leave. I looked back down at James, then scanned the room. There was nothing, I had a slight feeling of disappointment not finding what I had hoped to see. So I went to watch TV, to clear my mind off things for a bit. I sat on the couch flicking through channels. It was already nearly 8 pm and yet, I felt no sense of tiredness, just boredom.

                                                                ~~

After some time past by, James ran up to me shoving a piece of paper in my face.

“Hey, what are you doing?! Get that out of my face!”

“It’s me and Amy!” he said happily holding up the picture.

I took a look at the drawing, and I was quite puzzled. I looked at James, then back at the drawing. After a moment of examining the paper, I looked back at James and pointed to the slightly taller figure.

“This is... Amy?”