Page 28 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

Ezra’s expression mirrors my own fear. “We can’t keep doing this,” he says. He takes a deep breath, blows it out, and walks to the observation desk.

“But I saw him,” I say hoarsely. “It’s working.”

Ezra looks at the readings on his devices and sighs. “It is,” he admits. “The temperature plummeted and the EMF showed the strongest reading yet.” He looks at me. “But that means Dorian is stronger than ever. He’ll be fine if we take a break.”

Still shivering, throat raw from choking up water, I can’t bring myself to argue.

* * *

I spend most of my two days off sleeping, yet I stumble into the MRF again feeling like I’ve barely slept at all.

When I step into the observation room, the radio sputters to life in Dorian’s cell—playing “Run, Rabbit, Run!”—and my nose immediately spurts blood. I swoon on the spot.

Ezra catches me before I hit the floor and sends me home again, which is both a frustration and a relief. He promises to do more research into hypnosis and scour the MRF files for anything useful. He sounds doubtful, though, and I feel the same. We’re the only psychics who have tried this, to our knowledge. It’s new territory.

As eager as I am to reunite with Dorian, I have to admit it’s a relief not to venture back into my memories for a little while.

But stuck at home, the days crawl past. Now that I’ve uncovered some of the holes in my memory, it’s like a constant, nagging itch in the back of my consciousness. Without hypnosis to rely on, I return to the old-fashioned way of snooping around my childhood home. I rummage through my bedroom in the hope that I’ll find something that will spark a memory.

Most of what I find is mundane. A hairbrush makes me recall how Dorian would tug on the end of my braid to tease me when we were children. A pearl necklace has me smiling as I remember him helping me clasp it around the back of my neck, his invisible fingers brushing my skin. God, I miss him.

It couldn’t have been him pushing me under the water in that memory. I refuse to accept it.

When the ache in my chest becomes too much to bear, I crawl under my bed and lie there on the floorboards. This was the first place I saw Dorian, and I remember hiding here with him when he was too frightened to come out. I trace my fingertips over the letters of my name carved into the bedpost.

Then I notice a piece of paper crumpled between the mattress and the bedsprings. I tug it free and smooth it out. I expect to find one of the pictures I loved to draw when I was a kid, but instead it’s a list, written in black crayon in my own childish handwriting.

The rules

Don’t look at him

Don’t say his name

Don’t think about him!

My brow furrows as I mouth the words. What was this? Some kind of game? Yet it feels important, since I tucked it away here, beneath my mattress, like some kind of secret treasure.

A floorboard creaks in the hallway outside my room.

My head whips in that direction and my heart skips a beat. I hold my breath, listening. Was that a footstep? It sure sounded like it, but the house is quiet now.

Don’t look.

I can almost hear the words, like they’re being whispered right in my ear. In a flash, I remember hiding under the bed, peering out at the doorway just like I am right now. My hands clenched and my heart pounding.Don’t look don’t look don’t look—

A blink. A drip. And I’m back in the present, blood trickling from my nose. I sigh and crawl out from under the bed, reaching for a tissue. These nosebleeds are such a pain. It felt like I was on the verge of remembering something important, but now my concentration is broken and the moment is gone.

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