Jeremiah looked shocked, "What do you mean you figured out how she was imaginary?" he shakes his head, "Wait, what do you mean your dad has something to do with it?"

I reply, running my hands through my hair again, pushing it out of my face. "It's one of the human improvement programs they were working on."

"How to make an imaginary friend?" His eyebrows furrow in confusion. "No, go back start at the beginning, what research are you talking about?"

I take a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. "What do you remember about my life story, before we met?"

"Well, I remember the two of us being the only new kids in the tiny high school in the middle of a God forsaken corn field. I hated Iowa." Jeremiah pauses, he shrugs his shoulders, "I remember you were Evan back then."

--

"Newbies! Uh, Even and Jeremiah," the 10th grade physical education teacher, Mr. Matthews, calls out, consulting his clip board for names, "Over here." He points to space next to him. I run over to him; a broad-shouldered, black teenager follows close behind me.

"Jeremiah, Evan. Evan, Jeremiah" He comments, introducing us to one another. Only he mixed up our names referring to me as Jeremiah.

I hold out my hand, shaking hands with the boy who must be Jeremiah. "Evan." I introduce myself as, still getting use to the sound of it coming out of my mouth.

"Jeremiah." He drops my hand and gives a brief nod of his head.

"Uh, right." Mr. Matthews says, shaking off his confusion. "Listen up boys, everyone else in the class already has tennis partners, so that leaves the two of you." He hands each of us a racket and a ball and walks away.

"Well, he seems friendly." Jeremiah breaks the silence with a shrug and starts walking toward the courts. I follow, falling into step with his long stride. "You just moved here too? Where from?" He asks while serving the ball over the net to me. I move to hit it back.

"Yeah, I just got placed with a foster family here, I used to live in California. The Northern part, up in the mountains." That much as least was true, though my school records say I came from Wyoming. He returns my hit, "You?" I ask him.

"Yeah man, I don't exactly look like I come corn field Iowa." He remarks sarcastically while running to get the runaway tennis ball. "I am about the blackest thing for a hundred miles." I hear the ball bounce on the ground next to me.

I laugh and shrug. "Yeah it's a little white-washed here. Like I am one to talk though."

"Nah, don't stress it."

-

The cold air hits my lungs as soon as we leave the school building; taking off with the rest of the team, I begin to run. Jeremiah calls out from behind me "Dude, wait up."

I slow to a jog in place, waiting for Jeremiah to catch up. "If I keep running with you, I am going to miss my chance for varsity team this year. Will you be able to sleep knowing that it's your fault?"

Jeremiah reaches me and we follow in the direction of the rest of the team. "You are the one who made me sign up for this damn sport. Honestly, who picks cross country running? Okay, I am a football player build, wide and beefy, not a long-distance runner. Man, that's all on you; I will lose no sleep over that."

"Whoa, back up, let's remember that I forced you to do nothing. I want to run; you wanted to look at girls in tiny shorts." I turn my head to look at him, seeing him already visibly panting. "Not my fault if you didn't realize that they wouldn't let you be a spectator. Go to the volleyball game if that's all you are interested in." I remark sarcastically.

"Evan, you know I can't go there. The team hates me. Sara turned them all against me."

I chuckle at his upset, "Next time, don't dump the captain of the volleyball team the day before you are meant to take her to the Junior homecoming, and you would still be invited to the games."

He shoots me a glare, I just laugh it off and pick up my pace, catching up to the rest of the team. In the distance, I hear him call me a choice word, turning to look over my shoulder, I see him doubled over trying to catch his breath.

-

"Okay, that's enough." Jeremiah remarks as he pushes up against the lockers. "You look like shit, and its only getting worse. As your one and only friend, since the day we stepped into this hellhole, you need to tell me what's up. Out of concern for your safety, you have to tell me." He grabs my arm and pulls me around the corner, so we were hidden behind the locker bay, I don't bother resisting him. He was right, ever since that first day we were partnered in tennis, we were each other's only friends. Apparently neither of us fit into the small farming community mold. He was too black for the white walls and white bodies and I was too quiet.

"Is it your foster dad again? Because I swear, I will report him. I know you are almost 18, and age out of the system anyways, but you can't let him keep hitting you like this."

"It's not him." I pause, rubbing my eyes with the heel of my hand. "He hasn't even been hitting me recently."

Jeremiah waits expectantly, his strong arms crossed over his chest. The start of football season had helped him pack on muscle. I knew he wouldn't let it drop this time; for the past two months he has let it drop, but it's gotten worse. I was maybe sleeping two hours a night. I was going to have to tell him something. But the truth? Could he handle the truth? I might not have a choice but to tell him.

I raise my eyes to meet his. The past year I had grown three inches, I almost was the same height as he was now. He raises his eyebrows, asking again with his eyes.

"Fine," I decided I would never be able to come up with a convincing enough lie, I might as well tell him the whole truth. After all he kept my secret about my stepdad, who's to say he wouldn't keep this one as well. "But not here. Meet down by the river after school?"

"Okay." is all he responds with before pivoting and walking off to class. I lean my back against the lockers, sliding down till I was sitting on the floor. I put my head between my knees. Was I ready to trust someone with my past? It appeared that I didn't have a choice. I shook my head out, fighting the exhaustion that threatened to pull me under. Standing, I began the slow walk to class.

I stumble down the riverbank, seeing that Jeremiah was already here waiting for me. He released a smooth stone, I watched it skip three times across the surface of the muddy water filled with fallen leaves. A cool breeze comes up off the water as I approach.

"You really want to know?" Jeremiah turns to the sound of my voice "Because if I tell you, I have to kill you."

"A, stop being dramatic, and B, yes, I REALLY want to know."

I sat down on a rock, he sat by me and I proceeded to tell him my story. Something I had never told anyone before. He sat there, listening, just listening.

I told him about my parents being researchers. I told him running away from California. I told him about using the foster system to hide from the people who killed my parents. I told him about Aideen. I told him she wasn't real. I told about the nightmares that kept me from sleeping. Simply put, I told him about my life, the one I was running from. I told him things I had ever told anyone ever before, not even my family.

When I finished, he stood pacing in front of me. "Let me get this straight, your name is not Evan?"

"Of all the things I just told you, that is what you fixate on?"

"Yeah, okay I am processing. Give me a minute." He sits back down next to me. "Emerson, you name is Emerson?" I nod in confirmation. "And you have no idea what your parents were researching." I nod again. He stands picking up another skipping stone, turning in his fingers. "And you don't think Aideen is real?"

I nod again. "I mean, how could she be? No one ever knew she was there." I felt my voice creeping up in pitch. "She was literally like a figment of my imagination. How could she be real?" I asked, I could feel tears forming behind my eyes, but I swallowed them down. Jeremiah might have been processing, but so was I. In the past three years, since I had started running, never once had I said any of these things out loud. They had suddenly become so much more real, and I couldn't manage everything I was feeling.

"No man, the way you talk about her. She was real." He throws the stone, hard; it makes five jumps before falling into the current. "And these nightmares, they aren't just of you as kids? They aren't just memories?" I nod again.

"Some are. Some aren't. Sometimes they are like distorted memories. Other times they are exactly as I lived them. But the ones that freak me out the most, is when she is like us, 18-years-old; like present day. And there are other people in them. People I have never met. Aren't you only supposed to dream about people you know?"

"Ah, son of a bitch." He throws his last stone and it crashes into the water with a splash, startling the hawk sitting on the opposite side of the bank. "I'm sorry, man. I didn't know you were going through this. I wouldn't have pushed otherwise." He sits back down beside me, bracing his elbows on his knees with his hands wound together, mirroring my position.

I look at him, meeting his dark eyes with my light ones, "Honestly, I am glad you pushed."

--

"So, what does your messed-up childhood have to do with right now?" Jeremiah asks, I look at the sound coming from behind him. A large group of people just walked into the bar. Apparently, it was late enough for everyone to come out.

"The research that my parents were working on, that they died protecting, I know what it is. They were making the perfect soldier."

"What like Steve Rogers?"

"Yeah, kind of exactly like Steve Rogers, only better." I sigh, picking up my third beer that the waitress had just dropped off. "I didn't spend lots of time on it, but I did find one folder that was particularly interesting. It was titled Project Chameleon. Okay man, from what I understood, think like invisibility but on steroids. I am not just talking like nobody can see you, I am talking about full on control of your perception."

I lowered my voice, leaning in so Jeremiah could hear me whisper. "They created a biological formula that alters a person's gene expression so that they can't be perceived. Full on imperceptible. Like walk into a room open and shut the door, pick up an apple and start crunching, and no one will know your there. Like they don't hear the door, they don't see the apple floating. Nothing.

"If she had this, and I had her specific antidote, I would have been the only one who could perceive her. I look at Jeremiah, as he absorbs what I tell him, only I notice he doesn't even look phased. "You aren't even shocked. Why are you not shocked?"

"No, I am shocked, I am just wondering why no scifi movies have thought of the premise before? It's bloody genius."

"Your priorities are so messed up, you freaking nerd."

He laughs, "Okay, sorry, so assuming this what was going on from the time you were five-years-old to the time you were fifteen, it would explain how she was real and no one else knew, but it doesn't explain the dreams now."

"I know, I don't have an explanation for that." I can feel Jeremiah's eyes on me, but I don't want to look at him. He very rarely looks at me with pity, but I can feel it emanating from him now.

"Well hey," he shakes out his head, "I do have a solution."

I perk up at his words. "We get drunk, like all-out, shit-faced drunk. Then blackout and get a decent night sleep. Problem solved." I really couldn't argue with that. I had been contemplating it all day.

He flagged Jessica, the bartender, over. "I am going to need like a dozen shots."

Jessica shifted her weight to one foot, putting her hands on her hips, "Okay, then I am going to need your keys. I am not letting you drive after that."

"I walked here." Jeremiah remarks, shrugging his shoulders.

She looks to me, "I got dropped off."

Apparently satisfied with our answers she walks back to the bar, pouring 12 shots of liquor.

Returning, Jeremiah grabs the first one before she even sets down the tray, raising it high he says "Here's to... sleep. Bottoms up boys!" And with that, we drink.