Imagine [UNEDITED, ON HOLD]

Chapter 1: Jade

"James, I can't do this!" my mum yelled. I held my teddy bear close and sat on the staircase, my knees pulled up to my chin. I covered my ears with my hands, but that didn't block out their voices.
"What are you saying, Norma?" my father replied, his voice slurred.
"I'm saying I want a divorce," she said.
"What?"
"Is this honestly a shock to you?" she shouted at him. "You come home drunk every single night. And you know what? I put up with it because I thought it was best for Karl and Jade. I thought it would be best for them to live in a house with their mother and their father. But then I realised something; they don't have a father. You might be related to them; but you're no father. You have done nothing but cause them pain and sadness. And I'm done. I want full custody and I want a divorce."
"You can't do that, Norma. They're my kids," my dad said.
"No, they're mine. And yes, I can do that. You think the court will choose a drunk unemployed person over someone with a steady paycheck and a clean criminal record?"
There was a silence. My dad knew she was right. I felt tears streaming down my face. I didn't want my dad to go, but I didn't want him to stay, either.
"Hey, don't cry. Please."
I looked over and saw a young boy with brown hair and blue eyes looking at me. He was probably my age or a little older, five or six. Logically, I should've been frightened of a strange guy in my house, but I was five.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Niall. What's your name?"
"I'm Jade."
"That's a nice name, Jade."
"Thanks."
Not quite an intellectually challenging conversation, but it was a start.
"Do ya wanna be me friend?" he asked me.
"Sure." Then I wrinkled my nose. "What's wrong with your voice?"
He looked offended but replied to me anyway. "I'm Irish."
"Is that a disease?"
"No, it's a place. Ireland. I'm from Ireland so I'm Irish and I have an Irish accent," he informed me.
"Oh."
I didn't get it. Then I thought of something. "Where did you come from?"
Niall shrugged. "I'm your guardian angel, Jade."
"My what?"
"Your guardian angel."
"That's ridiculous." I have to say, my five year old self was smarter than she looked.
He shook his head. "No."
"Alright, then what does a guardian angel do?" I said suspiciously.
"I'm not a person. Nobody can see me but you. I don't have a heartbeat. I don't need to eat and I don't need to sleep. I can't die and I can't be heard or touched by anybody except you. That's why I'm a guardian angel; nothing can take me away from you. I'll always protect you."
He sounded like he was reading out a textbook.
I smiled. I didn't believe him.
"Do you believe me?"
"No. Well, you said you can't be harmed, right?" I asked. He nodded at me. I grinned. "Let's test it. Can I stab you?"
He stared at me like I was crazy. Fortunately, I got another form of proof. Karl came running up the stairs and stopped by me. He sat down next to me, right where Niall was. I panicked for a moment, but Niall just flickered out and then reappeared in front of me.
"I told you," he said. "I'm in your mind. I'm not real."
"What's wrong, Jadey?" Karl asked. He put his arm around me. "Have you been crying?"
"Mam and dad are getting a divorce," I whispered.
Karl narrowed his eyes. "Good. Mam should've left that bastard ages ago," he hissed.
"Don't say that," I started to cry again.
"Oh, no, Jade, don't cry. I didn't mean it like that," he said, hugging me. "You're young. You deserve a father who cares about you and will take care of you. Not our dad. He's not a father."
Deep down, I knew he was right. But I didn't say anything.
I crawled into bed and whispered, "Niall?"
"I'm here."
"Can you close my door?"
"Of course."
I heard footsteps and then the door snapping shut, and then more footsteps towards me. "Niall?" I said again.
"Yeah?"
"If you're not real, how did you close the door?" I asked.
"That's why I'm a guardian angel and not just an imaginary friend," he explained. "I can change things and touch things as long as you're the only one watching. I could pick up a pencil if it was just you, but if your friend was here, the pencil would go through my hand."
"Oh." He had quite the vocabulary and sentence abilities for a little kid. I always wondered if he went to some guardian angel school. I never found out the answer.
"Go to sleep. I'll be back when you wake up," he whispered.
"Are you going back to Ireland?" I asked sleepily.
"Something like that."
When I fell asleep he was there, and when I woke up he was there. He smiled at me. "Good morning!"
"Hiya. Where do you go when you're not with me?" I asked as I got dressed. He was facing the wall to give me privacy.
"I go to where all guardian angels come from," he said. "It's not a place, exactly. I don't really know. You created me. A year ago exactly, you thought of me. A friend you could count on. And from that idea I came to be. I developed a profile as you became more and more wrapped in this idea of me. And now, a year later, I'm a guardian angel. And if I do well, I'll be a person."
"What?"
"I'll get a second chance at life."
"A second chance?"
He bit his lips. "I'm here because I died, Jade." He turned around as i finished getting dressed. "I drowned and I died, but you...brought me back. Sort of."
"Well, I gotta go to school. You coming?" I asked. "Do you go to school or something?"
He shrugged. "Mostly we just train and...watch television."
"Train?" I skipped downstairs and put on my shoes, pulling my knee high socks up tighter. I grabbed a pastry from the table and a boxed milk. I drained the milk and took a bite of the pastry. "You want? Oh, right, you don't eat."
He grinned. "Nope. Mind if I come along to school?"
"Sure. Karl drives me," I explained. Karl came crashing down the stairs right at that moment.
"Ready, Jade?"
"Yep! And Niall's coming, too, is that okay?" I asked.
"Who?"
"My friend. He's right...oh," I said. I looked at Niall. "I forgot. You can't see him."
"Ah." Karl looked at me and I knew he assumed Niall was just an imaginary friend. "Well, he can come too if he wants."
The drive was mostly silent. Though Karl let me sit in the passenger side, I opted for the backseat so I could sit next to Niall. "Karl?"
"Yep?"
"If mam and dad divorce, will we live with dad or mam?" I asked.
He was quiet or a minute. "If you want to live with dad, mam won't stop you. But I thinks she will try to get full custody of us if we don't say we don't want to live with her."
"Who are you going to choose?"
"At this point, it doesn't matter. Jadey, I'm fifteen. I'll be going off to study my A-levels soon, and then, if I do well, which I hope I will, I'll be off to university. I won't be home much anymore," he said. "And so I want you to choose to live with mam, not dad."
"Why?"
"Because dad is a drunk who won't take good care of you. I can, while I'm there, but you're still a kid, and you need a proper father, not your older brother. And mam can be that for you," he explained.
I thought about it for a moment. The word 'dad' felt foreign on my tongue. All my friends talked about how their dad's brought them sweets or took them to the park. But all I could say was that my dad was busy with work all the time. I don't think my dad worked then, I don't think he thought he had to.
"Niall, did your parents divorce?" I wanted a second opinion, as if a five year old would have a good judgement of what to do.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "But my older brother, Greg said he thought they were going to. I died before they did, if they did. So I don't know yet."
"Oh."
"What'd Niall say?" Karl asked, humouring me.
I scowled. "If you're not going to take me seriously then I won't answer."
"Awe, Jade, c'mon, I'm just teasing. What'd he say?"
"He said he doesn't know. His older brother said he thought they would, but Niall died before he found out if they ever did," I told him.
"Niall died? What the hell?"
I shrugged. "Niall can explain." I looked to him.
Niall sat up straighter. "When little kids die, they're trained to be imaginary friends by lonely children. Children develop this idea of a friend, a perfect friend, and we adapt to become that. After a year, we become more than just imaginary, we become physically there. But just for that one kid. Like I said before, if it's just you and me, I can pick up pencils and make a sandwich, but if someone else is there, my hand just goes right through the stuff. I can't die and I can't be harmed. I don't eat and I don't sleep. I'm just there."
I repeated that to Karl. Karl raised his eyebrows. "Smart kid. Are you sure he's five?"
I rolled my eyes, he didn't believe me, I could tell. But it didn't matter, not anymore. I had Niall.