My imaginary girlfriend is awfully inconsiderate.

  I don’t care how bad my acting is, if I’m pretending to be asleep, assume I have my reasons and try to play along. I can pretend to snore to try and elevate my performance to the next level, but doing that in front of my girlfriend seems counter productive. If I was willing to take such risks I could’ve just rudely asked her to shut up. So my hands are tied when it comes to quality by my non-existent talent, but it’s common courtesy to play along even if my performance is subpar. So please stop calling my bluff.

  “Mai, I know you are awake. I want to talk to you.”

  She believes everything she sees on tv, so why don’t I get to enjoy some of that suspension of disbelief? It’s actually smart of her, I would have definitely abused that privilege to make myself look less pathetic overall. But crying myself to sleep seems on brand for me, it really should be believable, the problem has to be my acting skills. I have no choice, I’ll have to snore to really sell it. I just need to do it in a cute way, that doesn’t make her wake me up to dump me on the spot.

  “M-m-meow.”

  I really shouldn’t improvise, it never works.

  “Pretending to be asleep didn’t work so you’re pretending to be a cat now?”

  I panicked, okay? I have stage fright, as well as every other social fright imaginable. I didn’t have time to rehearse this either, so the pressure was just too much.

  “I-i w-was snoring.”

  “I didn’t get that at all. So can we talk now?”

  Didn’t we talk enough during our little therapy roleplay earlier? Crying for half an hour and acting like I fell asleep once I calmed down was my way of saying I had enough for today. I’m asleep anyway, how can I possibly talk?

  “M-meow.”

  “More snoring, right? You aren’t just being a cat now?”

  Yes, I’m rolling with it. I already established that character trait, so it should land much better now.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Okay, so you are asleep and I should just ignore how you are talking right now?”

  I’m sleep talking, she says I do that all the time anyway so it’s in character.

  “S-sleep t-talking.”

  “Can you sleep answer my questions?”

  “N-n-no.”

  “Mai, you won’t be able to sleep after what happened earlier anyway, isn’t it better to just talk to me rather than spending all our free time pretending you are meowing in your sleep?”

  You don’t know I wouldn’t be able to sleep after that, I could have completely changed as a person after experiencing something like that. Isn't that what therapy is supposed to do? Granted, it probably takes more than ten minutes of talking to usually take effect, but a narcissist like Ami shouldn’t question her ability to do it better than anyone.

  “I-i am s-sleeping.”

  “I can see that. So what made you break down like that?”

  I really really don’t want to keep thinking about that after I finally managed to stop. This annoying little memory that somehow found its way to the forefront of my mind should just be ignored and allowed to disappear back to where it came from, but it doesn’t seem like Ami will allow it to do so. My body is already warning me that I shouldn’t talk about this. The way my heartbeat reverberates through the bed, the weird empty feeling in my stomach and even the way the roots of my hair hurt as if they are about to fall off at any moment, all of those are warning signs. I really want to listen to them, but I guess that isn’t an option right now.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I-i remembered s-something.”

  “What was it?”

  Thinking about it now, it’s silly really. Nothing important at all, just a slightly unpleasant memory. I really overreacted there.

  “I-it’s n-not i-i-important.”

  “I highly doubt that, if it made you react like that.”

  I don’t really understand it either. At the time it made me feel so awful, but right now it hardly makes me feel anything. It feels distant for some reason, a memory that is not quite my own, that I can’t quite empathize with. Right now, I really don’t know why it made me react like that. I feel like it shouldn’t have.

  “I-i d-don’t know w-why. I-i-it’s s-silly.”

  “It must have some meaning for you then. And anything that is meaningful to you Mai, is meaningful to me. Can you please tell me about it?”

  I don’t think it’s that meaningful like she thinks. I don’t even remember it that well, I don’t remember what led to that situation, or even how old I was back then. All I can really remember is my mom grabbing me with both hands, and yelling at me ‘why can’t you be normal?’ while shaking me. It’s not a pleasant memory at all, but it’s not that bad. I just happened to think something similar and it suddenly came back. I guess it hit me a bit harder than it should because of the situation. It’s not worth talking about.

  “I-it’s n-n-nothing r-really.”

  “Mai, please.”

  Fine, but she is just going to think I’m being dramatic because I overreacted over something like that.

  “M-my mom, s-she was y-y-yelling ‘w-w-why c-can’t y-y-you be n-n-n-normal.”

  “Mai…”

  That’s all it was, I told her it was silly.

  “I-i said i-it w-was s-s-silly “

  “I don’t think it’s silly at all Mai. It can’t be, it hurt you after all. When did that happen?”

  When I was in elementary school, maybe even kindergarten. I was fairly young back then but I can’t really remember.

  “I-i-i was s-s-small.”

  “Why did she say that?”

  I don’t remember that either, but just look at me, I think she had plenty of reasons to pick from.

  “I-i d-don’t r-remember.”

  “I see. So that is why you said you can’t be normal before you started crying earlier. Is being normal important to you?”

  It used to be, but lately it hasn’t been that important to me. I gave up on being normal a long time ago, and I haven't thought about it as much since Ami arrived.

  “I-it used to b-be.”

  “Not anymore?”

  “N-no.”

  “Why is that?”

  Normal people don’t have imaginary girlfriends, so right now not being one doesn’t seem that bad.

  “B-b-because I-i h-have you.”

  “That’s sweet. I’ll count it toward your daily compliments. So, what does it mean to be normal?”

  Flattery sure got me nowhere. It just means being like everyone else.

  “B-being like everyone else.”

  “That’s a vague answer. So what about you is not normal?”

  “E-e-everything.”

  “You are being vague again. If I ask you to be more specific, are you going to start meowing again?.” .

  Definitely, I’m surprised I didn’t start meowing, I mean snoring again already. For some reason it wasn't as difficult to talk about this as I expected, but this whole situation is still making me very anxious. If we start listing all my faults I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it.

  “M-m-m-meow.”

  “I assumed as much. Since I don’t want to be ignored for the rest of the evening while my girlfriend pretends to be a cat, I’m going to let you choose between giving me a more specific answer now, or preparing it as homework for our next therapy session. Which do you prefer?”

  We already established that I was pretending to be asleep, try to be a little more supportive of my craft. Both of those options sound horrible, but she did say earlier that I can take all the time I need, so I can only hope I’ll be able to somehow handle the homework thing over the next three years.

  “I-i need t-three years.”

  “I’m giving you three days.”

  “Y-you said a-a-all the time I n-need.”

  “And you are making me regret that. You have three days.”

  That liar, I found a perfectly good loophole and she just ignores the rules like that. I’m going back to sleep.

  “M-m-meow.”

  “I was hoping to avoid the cat sounds.”

  “I-it’s snoring.”

  Its just cat sounds Mai, but alright I love you.”

  “I-i-i l-l-love y-you t-t-too.”