The Imaginary Friend

The first time Tara had ever seen the snow, she was seven. She remembers the way the air around her hit her face in a frosty invasion, and the way her parents kept taking pictures. Snow was a rare occurrence in Tara’s home city of Johannesburg, South Africa, and it looked nothing like she had expected. It wasn’t so much a white, fluffy blanket as it was a wet mass of ice.

The second time Tara had ever seen snow was at the age of eighteen, while she raced through a vast forest. By then Tara had moved to the small town of Lions Brooke to attend university. Lions Brooke was a town that always seemed to be drenched in rain and clouds. The cold seeped through her boots and hit the soles of her feet, numbing them. The icy wind whirled around her fingers, turning them stiff. Tara was certain that her blood had frozen.

She gasped for breath as she tried to pick up her speed, but it was a futile attempt. She could neither breathe nor could she run fast. It was a miracle that she had made it this far without collapsing. Tara felt as if she had been running for a lifetime, and in many ways she was. The forest was silent. Not the peaceful kind of silence that you might like to hear while reading a book or drifting off to sleep, but the unsettling kind of silence that is loud enough to drive one to insanity.

Tara stopped for a moment, convinced that she had managed to outrun whoever or whatever had been chasing her. She let her eyes travel upwards towards the pitch-black sky. Tara had never felt more alone in her entire life. She exhaled a sigh of relief, allowing the knot in her stomach to release. It was only until a few minutes later- when Tara heard a rustle in the bushes- that she realized that she was not alone.

24 days before.

Tara shuffled into the basement of the local church, clinging tightly to Alistair’s hand. She grimaced slightly at the moisture spreading on her palms. The basement smelt of coffee, cheap tennis biscuits, and despair. Tara knew full well that she didn’t belong here, but when Alistair helped her sit down and kissed the crown of her head, she felt that same feeling of satisfaction flood over her. “I’m so proud of you for coming here.” Alistair gave Tara a warm smile as he took a seat to her left.

Tara’s insides always seemed to melt whenever people looked at her that way. “Welcome, everyone.” A tall man with curls of ginger and red resting upon his head smiled towards the support group circle as everyone began to sit down. A large woman wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon turtle on it took a seat to the right of Tara. The woman looked like she could be in her late twenties or early thirties. Tara wondered how a woman of that age had not yet outgrown the impulse to wear a t-shirt with a cartoon on it. Tara’s eyes wandered towards her jeans.

For a moment, she could not remember where she had bought them or when. All she could think about at that moment is what it would feel like to be in someone else’s skin. Tara’s eyes drifted shut slowly as she pictured what it would be like to open her eyes and be an entirely different person.

“My name is Jake, and this is Life After Grief support group.” The tall man said, seating himself directly opposite Tara. Jake spoke with authority and certainty, and Tara felt like Jake was staring into her soul as they locked eyes. Does he know? She thought to herself. A few people in the circle murmured half-hearted hellos and welcomes. Tara could hardly bring herself to breathe, let alone speak. She felt as if her rib cage had decreased in size and was now small enough to crush her organs. Jake droned on and on about the impacts of grief, his dreary voice echoing through the room.

One minute seemed to last a lifetime in the Life After Grief support group.

Everyone introduced themselves, and one name blurred into the next until Jake started rambling again. Tara couldn’t exactly make out what everyone had been saying at certain points of the discussion, she just kept staring downwards at her blue jeans.

"The death of a loved one is never easy to deal with," Jake dragged on, his eyes traveled around the circle as he spoke, piercing blue orbs that made Tara increasingly nervous. Some people sobbed bitter, painful tears. Others were stoic and unmoved, not displaying much emotion. Tara spared no tears, she cried until her mascara and eyeliner crafted menacing streaks on her face. "Why don't you tell us some more about your friend, Tara?" Jake nudged his stubbly chin towards Tara and her heart stopped for a moment. Can they notice? She thought to herself. Paranoia generated itself abundantly within the confines of Tara’s mind, making her thoughts race at a pace so fast that she could not catch up. Everything that can go wrong usually does.

"Um," Tara cleared her throat nervously. She felt her heart pound against her chest. She was certain that everyone could hear her heartbeat, "His name was Steven." She felt her breath catch in her throat and her heart speed up. She felt like she might choke on her own words. She felt as if her words would disintegrate and turn to dust as she spoke them.

"Go on." Jake encouraged, smiling and nodding around the room like a demented donkey. Tara smiled inwardly. She loved the look of sympathy that formed on the face of others as she told her story. She glanced around at the other members of the support group. They too sported the look of sympathy that Tara thrived off of. She began to feel herself relax slightly.

"He was so young and so full of life." Tara sobbed even harder now, snot dribbling down her face, "I just don't understand why he did it. I loved him so m-much." By now Tara's sobs had turned into tears of hysteria. Her voice bounced off of the walls of the church basement and returned to her ears; the sweet, comforting sound of the release she had desperately craved. Tara glanced over to Alistair. He was smiling gently at her.

"This wasn't your fault, honey." A woman in her early sixties said from a few seats down. Tara’s insides swelled with joy and the feeling of belonging as the woman spoke. This isn’t so bad, she thought to herself. No one knows. No one could possibly know.

"I was t-the last person t-to see him alive." Tara hiccupped violently through her tears. You would never guess that a young girl weeping her eyes out about the loss of her dearest friend was lying. Not only to herself but to everyone at the support group.

Tara's lies began when she had left the comfort of Johannesburg. The lies were small at first, lying to her classmates about allergies that she didn't have or sick relatives she hadn't spoken to in years. She enjoyed the sympathetic look that others gave her when she denied a cookie during study sessions, saying it would hurt her stomach. It made her feel warm and fuzzy inside. She did it mostly just to see if she could get away with it, and when she found that she could, her lies grew.

The Steven lie began when Tara found herself on the most boring date in the history of mankind. Alistair was a philosophy major and he had been drawling on and on about the death of his childhood dog and the meaning of life.

Tara had tried to sympathize with Alistair, but Alistair was rather hard to comfort. He just stared blankly at the space between Tara’s eyebrows while telling the dead dog story. It made her more uncomfortable than she had ever been. She tried to eat her pasta in peace, but Alistair was just so morbid.

"My ex-boyfriend died a few months ago." Tara thought that maybe if she spoke about a similar experience she wouldn't seem so stupid and sheltered. Except, there was no ex-boyfriend and there was no death. The truth was that Tara had been spared the pain of losing a loved one. She had never experienced the death of someone close to her unless you counted the numerous goldfish she had as a young child.

"That's awful." Alistair gasped, his hand fluttering to his chest. His eyes glazed over with that sympathetic warmth that no one had shown towards Tara for quite some time. "How did he die?" Alistair asked gently, leaning across the table.

"Suicide," Tara said quickly, stumbling over her words a little. It was the first thing she could think of. Suddenly a rush of other possibilities had entered her mind; cancer, a sudden aneurysm, a car crash, a freak crocodile attack. But it was too late now to change the cause of death.

"Oh my God." Alistair raised a hand to his shocked face as his eyes widened. Tara was shocked herself. Had she just lied about the death of a boyfriend she never had? A rush of guilt surged through her veins. By the time Tara had realized what she had done, she was too deep in it.

"He was so full of life." She sobbed, letting her pain echo through the small restaurant. Tara felt like a cage had suddenly wrapped around her lungs, robbing her of every breath of air she might be able to grab. She thought she might faint as she excused herself from the table, using every ounce of her power to push forth towards the bathroom.

“What have I done.” She whispered to her reflection. For a small moment, someone else entirely was looking back at her.

14 days before.

Winter was approaching fast; Tara could tell by the crisp air that greeted her each time she stepped outside in the early mornings. Tara was not fond of winter, she felt as if everything fell apart during the winter. Every winter for the past eighteen years had been the winter of Tara’s discontent. Tara wondered what winters in Lions Brooke would be like, maybe nothing would go wrong this year. Although from what she had heard, winter in Lions Brooke would be nothing like the sunny Johannesburg winters she had been accustomed to. “Winter here is harsh and unwelcoming.” Alistair had told her bluntly some time ago, although she could not remember when exactly.

Sounds about right for a town like this, Tara had thought bitterly.

Tara had known for sure that by the time the frosty ice would begin to settle on the grass, everything would be ruined.

The chilly wind wrapped around Tara’s body as she walked from her apartment to her car that late afternoon, messing her hair up, freezing her skin, and breaking the numbness that had seemed to plague her for months now. At this point, Tara attended the Life After Grief support group twice.

Each week Tara had received the love she felt she had been lacking. People at Life After Grief knew what she was going through. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Tara had felt a sense of belonging. Sure, the death of an old life and the death of an actual person were two very different things, but she was grieving nonetheless. The truth was that Tara missed Johannesburg and regretted her move to Lions Brooke every single day that went by in this dull town. Tara had managed to rationalize what she was doing; people at a support group are there to offer support, she told herself each time she told a new lie. My grief is as valid as theirs.

After a while, the Steven lie had taken on a realistic, human shape. Tara had made-up memories, moments, achievements, and significant events for Steven. Tara had picked out his birthday, favorite foods, and crafted him a peaceful childhood. It was almost like she created another part of herself that had been missing for ages. Steven was everything that Tara wished she could be. Creating the fictional life of Steven had almost made Tara’s life feel complete. Often times Steven had felt real to Tara. Sometimes Tara found herself crying genuine tears for the loss of her dear Steven.

Tara’s car roared to life in the parking lot, and for a brief second, she could’ve sworn that she was not alone in the car. It wasn’t really that she had seen anything, but she could feel the presence of another with her. She could almost make out the sound of someone breathing behind her. It was overwhelming. “Hello?” She whispered, whipping around to face the backseat.

For a split second, her own hair hit her in the face and she was certain that she had seen something. Or someone. There were no sounds at all coming from the backseat. In fact, everything around Tara was silent. The car, the parking lot, the apartment building. Even the wind could no longer be heard. The radio sputtered awake at that moment, filling the car with the sounds of the generic pop music Tara delighted in during her drives through the town. Tara paused for a moment, and once she was certain that the feelings and the sightings were simply just a figment of her imagination, she pulled out of the parking lot.

Although by the time she stumbled into the Life After Grief meeting she wasn’t entirely sure about what had happened. Had I driven here alone? She thought. Had I driven here at all? Tara saw her feet lead her down the stairs, but she could not feel them nor could she hear them. It was like she was a spectator watching from the outside; a member of the audience in the movie theatre. It was only until she spoke of Steven in the comfort of the support group that she was one with her body once more.

2 days before.

The lines between imaginary and reality had begun to wear thin, overlap, and blur all around Tara. Tara had been plagued with nightmares ever since the incident in the car, and often she would find herself being jolted awake at night with the vivid dreams of Steven. They all ended with him saying the same thing, “Have you forgotten about me?”

It wasn’t even a matter of sympathy anymore, Tara just liked the idea of having someone like Steven in her life once upon a time. Those feelings grew stronger each time she spoke of him or when she saw something that reminded her of him. And while she tried her best to remind herself that he was not real, sometimes she could swear that he was. Sometimes it was as if he was right there with her, even when she was alone. Tara had been clouded with an overwhelming sense of sadness about Steven’s death, even though there wasn’t one.

She realized that she was tangled up in her own web of lies when she began searching for remnants of a past she might have shared with him. She thought about liberating herself and exposing the truth or even just leaving the support group, but she couldn’t. She thought about what Alistair would think if she were to tell him that she had been lying all this time. Would he tell everyone they knew? Would he be disgusted by her? A small part of Tara believed that people would understand why she had lied. Maybe they’d even be able to forgive her.

Then she thought about all of the people in Life After Grief who had actually lost loved ones. They certainly would feel betrayed and disgusted by her behavior. Tara thought about all of this over a steaming hot cup of coffee while she sat at her kitchen table. She hadn’t even realized that she prepared the coffee until she was faced with what could’ve been her own reflection. Although it looked nothing like her. It looked like a complete stranger, and in many ways, Tara had become a stranger to herself. In many ways, Tara didn’t know who she was anymore. The person Tara had been a few months ago would never have created some elaborate lie for sympathy and attention. The Tara of a few months ago didn’t lie at all.

Tara had been lost in thought when a soft knock at her door brought her back to reality. Who could it be? She thought. She wasn’t expecting anyone at all. She pulled her dark hair into a ponytail and padded across the wooden floors slowly. “Who is it?” She asked. No one answered. When she opened the door, a piece of paper greeted her from the floor. It was yellow and worn and even torn in some places. She snatched it up quickly and locked the door behind her. Upon closer examination, Tara realized that she recognized the handwriting and that she had seen such a note before. She even thought that she had seen it multiple times. When she read it, it was Steven’s suicide note. Tara stared at it in complete shock.

The day

Tara had read the note over and over again, trying to make sense of it. Nothing could possibly explain the existence of a suicide note that doesn’t exist. Was this some kind of sick joke? Had people known she had been lying and instead of confronting her they decided to give her a taste of her own medicine? No, that wasn’t possible. Only Alistair knew where she lived. There was no reasonable explanation for this. Tara had been sitting on the balcony that evening, reading the note again. When she came back inside, the chase had begun.