A Figment Of My Reality

I’ve been many places and seen many things, but none have interested me as Ava Johnson has.

A LITTLE NOTE ABOUT YOUR NARRATOR:

You’ve probably come across me at one point or another. I make my way around. They call me imagination, creativity, a moment of inspiration. I am all of those, and I am none of those. You’ll find me if you really look. But enough about me, let’s get back to Ava.

Ava wasn’t a simple child. She was very precocious. I visited her many times in her early years, and she saw me every time. Most babies ignore me. Spit up on me. 

Not Ava. 

Ava found me everywhere. She giggled and gurgled and dragged me out of corners. 

Well, you can’t blame me for going back again and again after a reception like that. But I knew I had to go visit others. 

Inventors, parents, students, they all needed me. 

How to harness the powers potent in the air. How to get your progeny to eat their greens. How to write a short story in a week. I could help them all. With just a soft whisper in their ears, a murmur in the wind, they would find the answers they seeked.

And yet, I couldn’t help visiting Ava every so often. I delighted in her presence, and she, in mine. Together we made paper into mountains and birds into spaceships. 

But I should’ve known better. 

By the time she was 10, Ava knew me well. Too well. She found me everywhere. Hunted me down. Spotted my footprints, smelled my breath. 

We talked, her and I. She treated me like a person. She was an interesting one, that Ava, and I learned much from our conversations. The human mind never ceases to amaze me. 

But it wasn’t healthy. I had to make my rounds every day, and I was spending far too much time with the girl. 

Parting was difficult for me. I told Ava I would have to leave, but before I left I taught her the fundamentals of my work, so that she wouldn’t feel the loss so potently. I would suffer alone.

The next time I saw Ava, it was many years later. I stopped by her house on the way back from showing a young teacher what she thought she didn’t know. 

Time had passed, but I recognized the upturned eyebrows that made her look like she was in a state of constant confusion, and those white-blonde, tightly bound curls perched on her head like miniature springs. 

She needed help studying for her LSATs. She was 16. 

I  snuck into her room. The truth: I didn’t really have a plan. Maybe I would drop a thought in the air, or leave it on her pillow. 

It didn’t matter; Ava ignored me.

She looked calmer than when she was younger. At peace. I walked toward her desk, and she was sitting there, scribbling like mad. She turned and gave me a sharp look before shaking her head and sighing. 

I tried talking. It was futile. She couldn’t hear me anymore. 

When I saw Ava Johnson for the first time, I was struck by the thought that she looked like nothing. Her hair was white slinkies, her eyes so pale, they were almost clear, and her skin so light she was almost translucent. I was tempted to go blow on her to see if she would topple over. I resisted my temptation.

I ’m not sure when I first noticed Ava was a little, well, strange. Maybe it was the first day of first grade. Miss Davies said that we would go around the classroom, and one at a time, everyone would stand up, say their name, and something they like. I was first. “Hi everyone! My name is Vivi Cooper! And I love sparkles!” Then went Kennedy Emerson (gymnastics), Ella Green (fuzzy animals), and Aspen Harlow (ponies). 

And then we got to Ava. Ava looked at everyone, her pale blue eyes wide, and said nothing. She didn’t look scared, or overwhelmed, or confused. She simply looked amused. “Ava?” started Miss Davies, and Ava swiveled her head to look at her, the slinkies bouncing. She fixed that teacher with such a look, that Miss Davies didn’t finish her sentence. “Alrightie, let’s continue!” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Jayden Kennedy?”

“Hey that’s my name!” shouted Kennedy, and everyone started giggling. Everyone besides for Ava. 

Then again it might have been when we were all playing red rover by recess and Ava sat on the top of the jungle gym all alone. Some kids said she was talking to herself.

I could go on and on, but the point is, by the time I reached the fifth grade it was common knowledge that Ava Johnson was a weirdo. That’s not to say she was stupid. Ava got the highest marks in the class. But there was something off with that girl. She was kinda like a real life Luna Lovegood. She spoke to herself, misconstrued everything, and weirdest of all, spoke about herself in third person. It was seriously creepy. She didn’t really have any friends, but not for lack of trying. I always try to make sure that everyone has someone to talk to, but Ava always ignored me when I tried to make contact. My friends told me to quit, but I refused. I talked to Ava by lunch, offered her some of my snacks, tried to get her to converse, but it was like talking to a wall. I sat with her at her lunch table once, but she just looked at me, annoyed, and went to sit at a different table. I was at a loss. I wanted to help her be normal, but she didn’t want my help. 

Then came winter break of fifth grade. I don’t know what happened but Ava came back a changed girl. She lost the glazed look in her eye and started talking out loud. To people. She referred to herself in first person and started taking things more literally. Hopeful, I approached her at lunch, and we had a normal conversation. A two-way conversation. I was ecstatic beyond belief. Ava seemed touched that I wanted to be friends with her, and almost overnight, we became inseparable. My class was shocked, to say the least. I remember quite vividly Aspen Harlow coming over to me, and with her perfect little nose all scrunched up saying, “Why are you friends with that freak?” I did not appreciate her comment and told her just what she could do with it. (My mom probably would make me wash my mouth out with soap if she heard what I said, so let’s just keep it on the down low, yeah?) She harrumphed, and flipping her shiny golden tresses with much more force than necessary, she flounced away. Aspen wasn’t the only one who disapproved of my newfound friendship; my best friend, Ella thought I was being silly. 

“Vi, you’re being foolish, I know you want to be nice but this is ridiculous! I mean this in the nicest way possible, she needs help, that girl. You can’t just start spending time with her, she might rub off on you or something, I don’t know!”

I tried explaining that she’s changed but she didn’t believe me. The thing is, I wasn’t sure that I believed it myself. I was so curious, so so curious as to what caused her change, but I was too shy to ask. 

Ava and I became study buddies. I used to study by myself because Ella didn’t care as much about her marks as I did, but Ava cared as much as me, if not more. We spent many long nights and early mornings together, just reviewing “one last time”. It was never one last time. Ava and I named ourselves the super scholars, and lived up to our name in every sense of the word. With time, Ella came around and joined our crew. At first, she mostly brought food to the table- literally, and listened to Ava and me study. But soon enough, Ella’s fear came true, except it was herself she should’ve been worrying about. Ava and I rubbed off on her and she became a studyholic like us. We got 100s and above on everything. I couldn’t believe I used to be scraping by with high 90s. 

In sophomore year, Ava decided to pursue her dream of passing the bar. We studied together every night. We all knew the day would come sooner or later that she would leave; she was being dragged down by us deadweights. Ava belonged in college, and Ella and I were just hard working high schoolers. But when Ava got into Yale, after the initial screaming and excitement we realized this was it. The tears shed were not few. We decided to facetime each other every Friday night, and till today, Senior Year for Ella and me, Junior Year for Ava, we keep that up. 

When I was younger, I thought I was being nice. I thought I was helping Ava. But now I see it for how it really was. Ava was helping me. 

I used to be crazy. When I was little, for as far back as I can remember, I would talk to myself. I made mountains out of molehills. Superheroes out of birds. I never answered anyone with a straight answer. I didn’t talk to anyone in school for a long time. I sat on top of the jungle gym at recess. Sometime in fifth grade, something just clicked. Maybe right after Christmas? I’m not sure exactly. Vivi Cooper is the one who brought me to normalcy, I think. She would come speak to me, share her snack, sit near me, and I stubbornly ignored her. And then one day I was like, hey, why am I doing this? I couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer, so I stopped. Ella Green was nice to me too, after I became friends with Vivi. I think it’s just because she realized that if she didn’t start talking to me, she would only be able to talk to Vivi half as much. We spent most of our time together studying. I never told them this, but I knew everything that they spent hours memorizing, in my sleep. I was really just there for the social aspect. But, in middle of tenth grade I realized that the time had come for me to start achieving. I wanted to pass the test to become a lawyer. I didn’t actually want to be a lawyer, I just wanted to see if I could pass, because it was known for being very difficult. I was making great headway with Vivi, studying every night, but I knew to really succeed, I had to go to college. And so I applied to Yale, and got accepted the next week. I stayed in a dorm there, and passed my exam with flying colors. 

Once, when I was in the middle of studying, I thought I saw someone standing there, watching, but when I looked again, I decided there was nothing there. 

Vivi, Ella, and I still facetime every Friday night, and continue being the best of friends.

A CORRECTION:

It’s not that Ava couldn’t hear me that day. She just wouldn’t. 

I didn’t discover this until years later, after Ava was happily married and living a successful life. She found me again, like I always knew she would, and she told me that she just needed some time to find herself, to catch up to the rest of the world. 

And she did.

She surpassed them all.