Page 16 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

No response.

“Ezra?” I try again, louder, and he jumps and turns to me. His shoulders slump as the tension bleeds out of him, and he shoots me an apologetic smile.

“Sorry,” he says. “I thought I felt something. Or heard something. I don’t know.”

“Something weird?” I ask, my heart rate picking up. “Like…?”

Ezra shuts his eyes, frowning, and slowly shakes his head. “I think it was just you.” He opens his eyes again, looking at me. “Your presence can be overwhelming sometimes. Even in the MRF.”

I don’t know why I asked. Dorian was the only strange thing living in this place, and the only thing it’s haunted by now is his absence. I need to get a hold of myself and stop letting the bad dreams get to me.

I set a mug of tea in front of Ezra and sit in an armchair with my fingers curled around my own. Breathing in the smell of chamomile, Ilet the warmth seep into me. I’m not sure I’ve stopped shaking since I admitted the truth to him.

“I should’ve told you right away,” I blurt, when I can finally form words. “I… I should’ve admitted it to the people who came from the MRF that night. But I thought— I was afraid to admit it. And I didn’t think they’d be able to capture Dorian. But I was wrong, and so all of these years, I’ve let him take the blame and the punishment.” I blink back a surge of tears. “Dorian never hurt anyone. It probablywasme.”

“Do you remember ever hurting anyone with your powers before that?” Ezra asks. I shake my head. “And have you hurt anyone since?”

“No.”

“Then we can’t assume it was you, either,” he says.

I stare into my tea. He has a point, and I’m not sure if I should be relieved. I don’t know what would be harder for me to stomach: the idea that Dorian killed my parents and he’s too dangerous to set free, or the idea that I did it and he took the blame these past years.

Either one of us could be a murderer. I don’t remember the truth, and Dorian is too scattered to speak of it.

“It isn’t just that night missing from my memories,” I say. “There are blank spaces. I canfeelplaces in my head where things don’t make sense. I could be forgetting times where I hurt someone, or Dorian did, or both…” I remember that moment in the observation room where I felt I was on the verge of remembering something. The pain in my skull, the nosebleed… Discomfort shivers through me. Whatever is hidden in my memories, I know it will be difficult to face.

Ezra taps a finger against the rim of his mug. “As far as I see it, there are two possibilities: either we get Dorian to talk to us, or we dredge up your lost memory.”

I set my tea aside and lean back in my chair. “I wouldn’t know where to begin with solving either of those problems.”

“Well…” Ezra tilts his head, thoughtful. “It may just be one problem, actually. It’s clear there’s a link between the two of you. Whatever is causing your blocked memories may be what has Dorian in such a state as well.”

I hug my knees to my chest. “So how can we fix it?” I’m not sure if I meanFix himorfix me.

“Well…” Ezra hesitates. Then he seems to shrug off whatever he was about to say. “I suppose we could start with some good old-fashioned detective work.”

Chapter Ten

After we part with a promise to meet at the MRF the next day, sleep doesn’t come easily. My emotions are a tug-of-war between hope and dread, relief and fear. Ezra is the first person who has ever seen therealme since I first ran from Ash Valley. And yet…doIeven know the real me, with so much of my memory lost?

I bring my laptop to bed and try scouring the internet for anything I can find about my parents, but there’s little available. The MRF must have scrubbed everything clean. It’s almost as though my parents never existed at all.

My fingers hover over the keyboard. I type:Dorian Elwood.

There’s not much about him online, either, but I devour the few articles I can find. One has the same picture of a dark-eyed young boy that Ezra showed me. His disappearance was never solved. The details are sparse, but they paint a sad story. A few years before Dorian’s disappearance, his mother left the family. And shortly after, Dorian’s father killed himself.

One article has a photograph of the three of them. It’s blurry and pixelated, but they have the same dark eyes, and they look…troubled. Unhappy. I squint and zoom in further, trying to get a better look at the faces.

Creak.

I freeze at a sound outside of my bedroom, my eyes darting to the open doorway. It almost sounded like a footstep. But try as I might, I hear nothing else.

I shake my head and shut my laptop. No sense in frightening myself with stories like this in a creaky old house. Tomorrow, I hope, Ezra will have answers for us both.

* * *

I’m tense as I walk through the doors of the MRF. Every instinct screams that this is wrong. I’m ready to be apprehended at the gate, at the security checkpoint, in the lobby, but Ezra is the only one waiting for me, smiling as though nothing has changed. As though the truth couldn’t get both of us locked up within these walls.

---