My last imaginary friend

I was born with an illness that made my immune system relatively weak compared to average persons. Because of this i was often alone as a child, I spent most of my time cooped up in my room with looney toons and the transformers to keep me company. I never really had any friends considering my mom would always be on edge when I wanted to play with other kids, trying to keep me from catching any microscopic sickness through the dirt covered local gang of boys my age. Sometimes I’d pretend to have a whole host of imaginary friends to go on adventures with. I’d write story’s and draw pictures of our fictional crusades against the evil forces of germs and the deceptions. I don’t remember most of my imaginary friends, they all just went away after I aged. All except one, Fredrick. I’ll never forget him, not for as long as I live.

When I was two my parents divorced, my mom just couldn’t handle the everyday abuse that my alcoholic father would dish out on a daily basis. I never really knew him either, he’s spend more time outside doing god knows what than even taking care of his own son. In fact the only memory I have of him when my parents where together, was him trying to rip me from my mothers arms and take me away somewhere. Thankfully my mom called the cops and the rest is history. Life was pretty hard for a single mother and a fatherless son, but at the age of four things got better.

Marvin and my mom married only after four months of dating, he was a kind, funny, and loving man; that had no second thoughts of becoming a father to the son of an other man. He raised me like I was his own and I’ll never forget him for that. My step father worked two jobs to hold down the house, so I never really got to see much of him as a child. I knew he loved me and my mom but he was just so worn out by the time he got home we never really had the chance to bond. I guess that added to the loneliness I felt back then.

That’s why Fredrick at the time was my best friend. When Marvin was working and mom doing house work it was me and Fredrick that were making up grand adventures, watching scooby doo and preforming dangerous science experiments. We did everything together, I’d see him almost everyday, more than any of my other “friends”. He’d always disappear whenever anyone entered the room. My parents would often walk right in while I was with Fredrick and ask who I was talking to. But when they went in Fredrick would go under my bed. He told me he was scared of grown ups, even though he was a grown up himself, he said to never trust an adult.

From then on I almost exclusively talked to Fredrick, distancing myself from the outside world and my parents. I did this to such an extent that i was taken In to see a psychiatrist about my imaginary friend. She asked me what he looked like and how he made me feel. I told her he was a tall monster with stripes on his body and a paper bag for a head, and even though he looked scary he was always nice and understood me. He would jump in from the window when I thought of him and would jump right back out when it was night. She would tell my parents that I made up Fredrick as a cooping method for the traumatic experiences as a toddler and for the lack of interaction with people at school and home. I didn’t see Mrs Perine after that, after she basically told my parents they were neglecting me.

From then on Marvin and me and mom would always go out somewhere on Saturday. As a new sort of family bonding time. From swimming to fishing to ice cream we’d set aside Saturday’s just for me. And as time went on I got some actual friends of my own. I saw Fredrick less and less to the relief of my parents. But every time i did see him he’d seem sad that we never got to talk as much. One day I told Fredrick that I didn’t need him anymore because I had real friends now and I have to hang out with them because at least they’re real. I got my wish after mom and Marvin died, I never saw Fredrick again.

They were both murdered when I was eleven. Stabbed in the night by an intruder. In shock as it all came crashing down, all my happiness washed away in one day. After that I was pin balled between foster homes until I was fifteen and was adopted by the Hendricksons. I lived a somewhat normal life or as normal as I could’ve had. No matter what however I would always have nightmares of that night in December. I could never figure out how anyone got in the house, we locked the doors every night and even had an alarm system installed. The police report said there were no signs of forced entry. In that snowy winters night when I lost everything I saw my imaginary friend one last time. He hugged me and said that I was free to be what ever I wanted now with nobody to hold me back. He waved goodbye and disappeared into the cold night, I didn’t get it as a child but now I know that imaginary friends don’t leave footprints.