The Ones Who Stayed Inside
Chapter Two She didn’t grow up with imaginary friends. She grew up with real ones—just no one else could see them. The first time she realized she wasn’t alone in her own head, she was eight. Sitting in the back of a classroom, staring at the chalkboard, drifting again. The teacher called on her, and just like that, someone else stood up inside her skin and gave an answer with a voice that wasn’t quite hers. The other kids stared. The teacher didn’t notice. But she did. She remembered watching her own hand move, her own lips speak. She heard the words, but she hadn’t chosen them. It was like watching someone else drive her body from behind a fogged-up window. That’s when she knew—something was living inside her. Several somethings. They didn’t come all at once. They arrived in whispers, in fragments. Some were loud. Some were silent. Some came to keep secrets. Some came to protect her from things even she didn’t want to remember. And all of them, in their own way, were trying to ...