My imaginary friend is bad at staying quiet.

  “Mai, remind her to fix the internet already.”

  I can’t exactly talk over the principal's little rant, or in front of him at all, and she knows I can’t respond to her in that situation.

  “Even your mom isn’t listening to him, so just tell her quietly.”

  If I don’t at least act like I'm listening she won’t give us anything back, so shut up already Ami.

  “So Mai, is there anything you would like to say?”

  I’m not allowed to say what I would like to say and I’m incapable of saying what I’m allowed to say, so can I just stay quiet please?

  I shake my head to signify I have nothing to add but considering my mom’s impatient glare I suppose staying quiet won’t be possible.

  “I-i-i…” .

  “She is a bit nervous, she wanted to say she is sorry for causing trouble. isn’t that right Mai?”

  The words won’t come out properly and my mom interjects before I manage to finish.

  I nod at her statement and hope they won’t try to force me to say anything else.

  Ami is standing behind the principal and looks very annoyed with the whole interaction.

  “Mai, don’t let her cut you off like that, you can say it properly by yourself with a little more time.”

  I’m not looking to talk more, so no thanks.

  The two adults in the room say a few more things to finish up and me and my mom leave the principal office, with Ami still grumbling behind us.

  “If you didn’t stop going to school, you wouldn’t have such trouble speaking.”

  So we are just going to ignore the ten years of me going to school everyday and still not being able to talk to people?

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “If you’d give her time to speak to begin with she wouldn’t have that much trouble.”

  She can’t hear you Ami…

  “Listen Mai, I’m doing this for you, so stop acting like I’m your enemy and talk to me.

  I can’t exactly leave you to your own devices at home after how you acted, you must understand that right?”

  She is probably looking for an answer but I just look down at the floor in silence.

  My mom’s master plan to get me out of the house included leaving me some money to use so that I’ll go outside to buy my own groceries once they run out, but since she hasn’t said anything about it and I wasn’t willing to go to the store anyway, I ended up eating some very old, expired products.

  When she finally “got worried” about the fact that the money she left should have run out, or more likely remembered that she never told me about its existence, she found me talking to Ami while eating some canned food that has expired a few months ago,

  So now she acts like I can no longer be trusted to be left alone.

  Though her only reaction to the whole situation was to take away my food and say “You are going to school tomorrow.”

  She did later order a pizza to stop me from grabbing another expired can of corn and lectured me about her master plan and why I should have called her when the food ran out.

  Nothing about why I was talking to myself or if I’m feeling alright after eating that.

  Now she dragged me to school by force and acts like she is worried about me.

  But she is all about appearances after all, if her daughter ended up in the hospital from eating something like that it would look bad for her.

  “Take this, it should be enough for lunch and dinner. I can’t be with you all the time Mai, so I hope you understand that if you keep causing trouble like this, I’ll have to find a place where you won’t be able to do stuff like that.”

  “Mai, stop just letting her say whatever she wants and defend yourself!”

  I look at Ami who is yelling from my side ,which must look like I’m trying to look away from my mom, and then take the money with a sigh from my mom’s hands.

  “I-i-inter-ernet.”

  “Can’t you even talk properly when it’s just the two of us?”

  She gives me an annoyed look and then sighs, probably because she sees Ami is about to cry despite me handling the situation perfectly.

  “Ahh, fine, I’ll give back everything I took from you as long as you go to school. I love you.”

  She tries to hug me, but I manage to slip away before she does.

  Despite what she might think, hugs aren’t a magical fix for everything that has gone wrong.

  I give a little obligatory wave with my hand and start walking away, but a second hug is coming my way from the imaginary girl on my left.

  I want to dodge that one too, but it would look weird and I don’t need to give my mom any more reasons to make my life harder.

  Ami isn’t saying anything, and I’ll have to ignore her a lot going forward, which makes me feel a bit sad.

  Just one more reason why going to school is gonna suck.