The Society of Imaginary Friends

The next day, Valerie wandered the halls, thinking through the details of her plan to escape. The easiest thing to do would be to slip out at night through the door with the broken alarm, like Thai had. But her instincts told her that it wouldn’t be that easy. She didn’t want to admit it, but she wasn’t sure that she had enough of her energy back yet to make it very far. She needed another day or two to recuperate with some of Dr. Freeman’s oxygen treatments.

All of the walking and planning had made her limbs heavy, so she headed back to her room. She paused outside the door, hearing a muffled crying coming from inside. She went inside and found Jeremiah, the eight-year-old with leukemia who slept in the bed next to hers. She knew that he’d had a round of radiation to treat his cancer that morning. His mother was a single mom who had to work during the day, so she wouldn’t be back for a few hours.

“Hi, Peanut.” At the sound of her voice, Jeremiah covered his face, not wanting to be caught crying. She pretended not to notice as he wiped his tears away with the back of his hand. “I wanted to check to see if everyone liked your Halloween costume. I bet everyone thought you were a real pirate!”

He smiled. “Yeah, my mom didn’t recognize me for a second. And my brother brought me black stuff to put on my tooth so it looked like it was missing,” he exclaimed. He was tired, but excited to tell her about how much candy he collected and what everyone thought of his costume.

She listened to his chatter, watching his eyes droop. Right before he fell asleep, she took his hand and held it. He smiled as he drifted to sleep.

Feeling eyes on her back, Valerie turned around. Dr. Freeman was standing in the doorway watching her, a deep crease on his forehead. “I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve gone to check on my patients and found you comforting them,” he said. “You’re something of a favorite around this hospital, Ms. Diaz.”

“Thank you,” she managed to say, a little choked up at his words.

“I know you’re set on leaving, but of course this hospital can’t condone that without proper guardianship in place,” he said. He gave her a significant look, and she read between the lines. He knew she was leaving, and he wouldn’t stop her. “Goodbye, Valerie.”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. He hardly ever called her by her first name. “Good bye, Dr. Freeman. I’ll miss you.”

Two nights later, Valerie packed everything she owned into her backpack, which wasn’t much more than some clothes, a toothbrush, and the one keepsake she had from her grandmother—a faded old book titled The Legend of King Arthur. It was finally time to go.

Ming was awake, watching her, and she sat next to her on her bed. “I’m going away to get better, like I told you I would,” she whispered.

“You won’t forget about me, will you, Valerie? Someday will you come back and tell me about your magical world?”

“It might take a while, but I’ll find a way. But until then, will you keep this for me?” she asked, giving Ming Mr. Hopsalot, whom she had carried with her since her first Christmas in the hospital. Ming loved to stroke his long ears, and she took it without a word.

But the second Valerie peeked out the door, ready to sneak out, rough hands grabbed her shoulders.

“Is this the girl you saw?” A nurse with dark hair that Valerie didn’t know well stared down at her accusingly.

A few feet away, the woman from the front desk stood with her arms crossed. Next to her was Yellow-Eyes, dressed like an orderly again. “Yes. I thought she was meeting with her boyfriend, and I was nice enough to let them have their privacy. But I should have known it was her drug dealer.”

“Kids like her… They don’t know anything else.” The nurse turned to Valerie, shaking her head. “It’s a good thing you’re leaving here tomorrow. Consider it a favor that I’m not reporting you to the police.”

“He wasn’t giving me drugs! Search my room if you don’t believe me,” Valerie said, but she didn’t know why she bothered to argue. Sanguina and Yellow-Eyes could be very persuasive, and from the look on the nurse’s face, her mind was made up.

“She probably flushed anything she hasn’t already used,” Yellow-Eyes said.

“Come along,” the nurse said, and pulled her down the hall by her arm. Before Valerie could register what was happening, she was whisked into a room. The nurse left, and when she shut the door behind her, Valerie heard a lock slide into place.

Why could things never be easy? Sanguina had said she wanted Valerie to leave. So why was her partner in crime trying to keep her in the hospital? They must be afraid of something—of her. Sanguina was trying to scare her into staying, and when that didn’t work, Yellow-Eyes had found another way to keep her from leaving. The realization steeled her determination to get out of there, one way or another. And certainly before she was shipped off to the next foster family.

She tried the door, using all her strength, and failing, punched it in frustration. It jiggled in its hinges, and she heard a bustle in the halls. When the nurse came back in the room, Valerie knew her struggle had been a mistake. The nurse sedated her, and she blacked out.

“Val! This is not the time to get your beauty rest!” Cyrus’s voice awoke her. He was joking, but she could here the strain in his voice that he was trying to mask.

Groggily, she rubbed her eyes and pushed herself into a sitting position. She was grateful that they hadn’t restrained her. That had happened before when the nurses had heard her yelling at Sanguina and had assumed it was a schizophrenic episode.

“What ’m I gonna do?” she mumbled.

“It’s now or never, so get it together!”

“Huh?”

“Your favorite doctor showed up to check on you. He returned your backpack and conveniently left the door unlocked when he left.”

“He did?” Her heart warmed at the thought, and it brought her to life a little. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair a couple of times and tied it out of her face. “All right. Can you sneak out there and tell me what you see?”

“Already done. There are two nurses on duty for this hall, but one is with a patient, and the other is writing up her notes. And Thai’s waiting for you outside. So get moving!”

She took a deep breath, stretched her arms over her head, and grabbed her bag. “Let’s do this.”

She decided that this was no time for subtlety. Instead she opted for speed. It was the right call. Sanguina must have been watching her door, because the second she emerged, she heard her unsettling voice calling for the nurses.

Valerie didn’t pause. Her sneakers hit the squeaky hospital floors at top speed. Before she hit the door to the stairwell, the dark-haired nurse grabbed her backpack and held on. For a second, Valerie was jerked backward, and she thought that her escape was over. But adrenaline was pumping through her veins, and she didn’t feel the pain of her knees hitting the ground or the straps of her bag digging into her skin.

Instead of fighting against the nurse, who was bigger and stronger than she was, she shrugged out of the straps of her backpack. She’d be sorry to lose her few things, but this little piece of her past was a small price to pay for her freedom.

She catapulted down the stairs, taking them three at a time. The nurse had no hope of catching up. She burst into the lobby, and the woman at the front desk could only stare, open-mouthed, as Valerie raced past her.

She crashed through the front doors of the hospital at top speed. She saw Thai in the parking lot. “Start running!”

To his credit, he didn’t waste a second. By the time she caught up to him, he was running as fast as she was. A cool, fresh breeze lifted her hair off her neck, and everything suddenly smelled amazing. As she raced through the bright November sunshine, a thrill sizzled through her entire body. The world shone brightly before her, full of possibility.