I know this is no sleep but idk where else I could write this at, and it’s been on my mind more and more recently
When I was 11 we first moved to California near the Yosemite area, lost of forest and small lakes near where I lived
I moved right around when summer was ending and school was starting, so I took a bit to get settled and used to everything
Summer rolled around the next year, my family is pushing me to get out the house and do something besides staying inside and playing games all day
There was a lake with lots of dirt paths and such that was easy to explore, so I’d go around there a bit and just walk around, especially this one spot that had a cool little waterfall into a smaller lake from the bigger lake of that area
Well one of these days I’m walking to the lake and I spot someone by the waterfall, she’s a girl around my age, orange hair, freckles, and an Accent I wasn’t able to understand at the time, which I think was a Tennessee accent.
I’ve always been horrible with names, but I remember her name being a very common one, something like Alice, or Casey or something like that
As a young kid I never really had crushes on girls, most the time if I was friends with someone, them being a guy or girl didn’t change much in how I interacted with them, and she was definitely the same way cause we immediately got along
I remember us going to the lake and just walking around a lot, I talked a lot about living in Washington, what school was like, and video games, something I could tell went right over her head
She said she was visiting her grandma over the summer at a house down the road from mine
I remember I had her number saved so I’d text her whenever I was planning to go on a walk, and she’d meet me at the end of the driveway of the house she was at
I Remember her saying her grandma didn’t want her going to my place, which was understandable, I’m a stranger to this woman and so would my family, but Alice didn’t want me to come visit the grandma either, which I remember finding weird
I remember my friend Eric who lived near the lake we always came by, wanted to come with me to walk around, and Alice told me that she’d rather it just be the two of us
Maybe it was cause she didn’t know him, but she would only come with me on these walks alone
I remember one time we walked out a bit further than usual on one of these dirt paths, this one was a bit awkward cause of a hide incline on this hill, and she’d have to pull me up for us to walk around, and jump down when we walked back
Well, cut to near the end of summer and she’s still hanging out with me, even meeting me at the end of my driveway. I remember one time I was having trouble finding my jeans so I didn’t get cut my the bushes we walked past and told my mom before she went to work to tell Alice that I was gonna be a little bit
I’ll explain in a bit why this is important
On our last day walking around we went to the rock that kinda overlooked the lake and we just kinda sat there, I remember she was talking about her family, and how she much preferred being there in California than where she was from, something I don’t remember if she ever told me specifically or not
Well, I said bye to her, and said I’d try to meet her at her house before she took off
I never did, I think I was forced to go school shopping that day, so I sent her a text telling her, she didn’t seem upset though
Idk if I just never checked in with her, or I had forgotten her, but I never saved her contact. It was an old flip phone my parents had given me at the time when I was that young, and they didn’t have a good texting/calling plan at the time
Cut to a good while later, 2021, lot of drama is happening in my family which I won’t get into but topics about my childhood and how I was treated are being brought up
I asked my mom about that year being forced to go outside more, and if that was her decision or my fathers, spoilers it was my fathers.
I brought up how it wasn’t that bad though and that I had Alice to hang out, and that sparked a bit of nostalgic happiness I hadn’t felt in awhile thanks to how bad that and the previous year was for us
Well, my mom dropped would tell me something that I continue to think back on over and over again
“That imaginary girl you walk around the lake with?”
I Immediately thought she was fucking with me, but she looked serious, and thought that the time I asked her to tell Alice I was gonna take awhile that I was talking about an Imaginary friend, cause she claimed she never saw anyone when she went down the driveway
I know I had interacted with this girl, I know I had gone with her to this lake many times, but I never ever thought about how I was the only person who ever saw her
Never my friend Eric or his brother who sometimes went to the lake with me, not my family, never even met her grandma
I can’t confirm if I had ever had this girls number, or if I had ever even texted her.
It threw me off a good bit, but then I remembered one thing that made me know I was right and that she was real
One time in July when I was walking with Alice to the lake, my grandma had stopped by to give me a soda while she was heading to my house to give my dad something.
Well when I had next talked to my grandma I had brought it up, and didn’t know what I was talking about, not until I brought up Alice.
“Oh yeah I remember, your dad always brought up how you and some girl would go walk around the lake and I thought it was cute. Weird that he thought it was a real girl and not one of your imaginary friends”
This shit still rocks me to the core, there’s no fucking way that I imagined all this, and I still have no idea what she could mean by “one of” my imaginary friends?
If I ever find that old phone, if I even still have it in box somewhere I’m getting to the bottom of this, she has to be real
Otherwise, who the fuck else have I been imagining this whole time?