The Old Friend

As invisible as I was to the rest of the world, I didn’t mind. Though I’d never seen my own reflection in the mirror, felt a pair of eyes meet mine, or heard my name come from the mouth of anyone else, I was content. Because amidst this invisibility, I was seen by the only person I cared to be seen by: Amber. 

I can recall the moment I floated into existence. Amber was alone on the playground. There I appeared, standing before a lonely 4-year-old girl, weaved together by the strings of her imagination. 

The first few years of existence were happy ones. They were spent with walks around the playground, slumber parties, blanket pillow forts, and family dinners with an extra chair open for me. Though Amber’s parents truthfully wished I never joined those many family dinners, they never looked my way, so there I stayed. 

For years, we’d spend our days in a fantastical Adventureland that existed beyond the four walls of her bedroom. We spent afternoons traveling to the south of France or Neverland or the depths of the ocean blue. We’d transform into mermaids when we stepped into the shallow end of her backyard pool, and we’d soar above the clouds when we jumped up high on her jump-string mattress. 

Amber would talk to me all day long, whether through passive glances during the begrudgingly long day of school or through audible chatter on walks home across the cul-de-sac neighborhoods. Then that dreadful day arrived when Amber was nearing the end of Elementary school, and the teachers became concerned about Amber's social life. They brought her– who brought me– to the counselor’s office one Tuesday afternoon. The teachers scribbled notes in files as they probed her with questions about this “friend” she wouldn’t stop talking to. They asked if she had talked to anyone at school, and she shouted out that I was someone at school. The teachers gave each other worried glances and excused her for the day. 

After that, we’d still spend hours reading books and sipping lemonade by the pool together, but Amber stopped talking to me in public. She’d glance my way, but she’d never outwardly acknowledge my existence. I felt sad, but I understood. 

At that time, I had accepted this narrow existence because even if I was a secret, I was still Amber’s best friend. I was still the person Amber ran to when her head pounded or she couldn’t sleep or she wanted to play with dolls. Even when everyone else couldn’t look me in the eye, Amber did. 

The years of junior high approached steadily, and Amber saw me less and less. This wasn’t because she didn’t want to, but because Amber had finally made her way into a clique at school. Their group was quiet and conventionally cool, and Amber molded herself to be one of them. 

I watched from a distance, lingering in a memory, as Amber spent her hours scrolling on her phone with her friends. I saw her in little moments, but Amber had stopped inviting me to dinner.  

At first, I didn’t understand why I had been pushed to an afterthought, but then I saw the way her cheeks went red when my parents teasingly mentioned my name. She was embarrassed. Embarrassed to have created our friendship, embarrassed to have kept it so long, but most of all, embarrassed to want it to continue. 

In her attempt to distance herself from me, she began looking the other way every time she saw me standing on the sidelines. For a while, I had forced myself to believe this was only a phase. I was convinced that soon, Amber would remember our adventures and our wonderful years. I was convinced that, with those memories, Amber would bring me back. I hadn’t realized that this wasn’t just a phase; it was the beginning of the end. 

When high school came around, Amber never saw me. I lingered in the background of brief memories of the past, but I was no longer a part of her present, and it became clear that I wouldn’t be a part of her future. I was quiet during these days, unseen by all and unable to see myself. I was curious about how I looked, but Amber’s eyes would never find their way to me anymore.

I wondered when I would fully fade into a past memory, no longer of this world. I knew the moment was approaching, and I was prepared to dissipate into oblivion soon. But I stayed around, stuck in Amber’s past thoughts for years. I watched from a distance as she traveled miles away for college, began and ended a myriad of friendships and relationships, graduated school, married, had children, and experienced every little moment in between. 

The view was hazy from where I stood, but I could see her growing and evolving and changing from the Amber I knew. The woman I saw was still her, the creative and energetic four-year-old, but she wasn’t the same. She was serious and mature, and she no longer dreamt of traveling to a fantastical world all within her bedroom. 

I missed that old Amber, but if it wasn’t her that I saw, how could I still be here? How could I still be watching her from the back of her mind if I wasn’t still a lingering thought? 

By her old age, with children out of the house and her hair turned to an ash gray, I appeared before her. She looked at me quietly, pursed her lips, and stared. 

I was angry at her; for leaving me so long ago, yet never fully letting me go. I was angry that she had kept me as her best friend and left me behind. I was angry that she had ever created our friendship in the first place. But as soon as I saw her face, the anger vanished before me. She was Amber, and she saw me. I was seen again. 

She greeted me with a hello and invited me to tea. It was like old times. After an hour of catching up on all the years I had missed, her husband walked through the door. He stared at her as she continued babbling on, and his eyes narrowed. He nervously asked who it was that she was talking to, and she looked back calmly with a slight smile staining her cheeks. 

“An old friend,” she noted. It was the first time in a lifetime that she had regarded me as a friend again, and I felt content. Because even though I was only a figment of her imagination, I was Amber’s imagination. I stayed with her for the next few years until she slowly closed her eyes and her life washed away like the sea. We had both faded into memories, real memories, even if just between the two of us.