------------| Glitch continues |------------

One week.

In one week, Renee will be in Forks for the first time in thirteen years. In one week, I'll be sitting in a fancy pants office, no doubt feeling intimidated by a row of gleaming, gold-gilded books framing a gleaming, sweat-gilded pate. In one week, I will be expected to actually talk to this someone with said pate, a someone I don't even know.

Therefore, I have one week to prove that lots of kids have non-imaginary friends like Edward and Jasper. That Alice and I are far from the "odd" end of the bell curve on this. As I believe I've already discussed, I'm as far from the "odd" end of the bell curve as they come.

Naïvely, I don't anticipate needing the full week.

Instead, I expect that the process will be as simple as churning out a five-paragraph essay, a feat I've been required to perform so often in AP English that I can do it in the time it takes to brush my teeth. (To be fair, I floss. Thoroughly.) I already have my thesis statement. I'll do a quick Google search to find the three prongs of my supporting argument pitchfork. And then I'll drive my thesis home with a resounding, four-sentence conclusion that will leave no doubt in my readers' minds that yes, lots of kids have non-imaginary friends like Edward.

Three hard-copy print-outs and one soft-copy e-mail to Renee later, I will have delivered a crisp, compelling "I told you so" that will not only allow me to get back to my blissfully lazy summer but that will provide the added bonus of edifying my family and friend.

Best of all, I won't even have had to say a single word.

My favorite.

I open Google's blank canvas and happily go to.

An absurd number of hours and mouse clicks later, I'm significantly less than happy.

For the first time in my life, Google has failed me. No matter how hard I squint, the squiggly lines on my computer monitor are not magically resolving into the simple statistics that I need.

I won't lie; I'm shaken. I never thought I'd see the day when the Google giant would fall. Particularly to something as frivolous as this topic. A search that should have taken minutes has stretched into hours. An activity that should have set my world a-right is wobbling my world even further.

Don't get me wrong; Google has spewed more than I ever wanted to know about imaginary friends. For example, I've learned that 65% of kids under the age of six have them. Unlike in previous decades, this fact is no longer considered a sign that a child is well on its way to becoming anti-social. Instead, having an imaginary friend is now considered the kiss of creativity. So far, this is my only proof point that Edward is not imaginary; I'm not creative enough to conjure things of out of thin air, much less people.

If I would have conjured anything, it would probably have been a miniature elephant. Now that I think about it, I really like the idea of a tiny trunk grasping a pencil. I would try to teach it to write its name— Ms. Elle Fant.

Before you ask—no, I didn't come up with that on my own. I'm merely reading an anecdote about a five-year-old child who did.

Is it weird that I'm jealous of a toddler?

Inexplicably irritated, I close the window, which was helpfully displaying a finger-painting of a palm-sized elephant holding a pencil.

Google really does have a lot to say about imaginary friends. Unfortunately, Google has a lot less to say about non-imaginary friends. Probably because the word non-imaginary isn't a real word (the irony does not escape me). And because it includes the word imaginary, which seems to confuse Google into continuing to provide me with yet more anecdotes about imaginary friends.

Try as I might, I can't find the exact word for what Edward is. None of the obvious words feel right. He's not what I would dub magical or mystical. He's like that feeling that you get when you need to sneeze but can't. There's no word for it, which makes searching for it rather difficult.

Of course, I still try.

I dutifully skim content that is only marginally related. The sites I find are not particularly helpful, as I'm not really interested in a list of strategies that have proven effective in dissuading stalkers. Edward isn't a stalker.

I don't think.

I know that he's watching me, of course, but I've never actually seen him doing so. He never sends me creepy letters. He never calls me and breathes heavily on the other line. He never does anything that makes me uncomfortable.

Quite simply, the stalker theory doesn't fit.

When I read about some random guy with an imaginary friend who wants him to kill all his non-imaginary friends, I become disturbed. I think he's kidding.

I think.

In any case, I switch gears, refocusing my search to see if perhaps anyone's imaginary friend has ever proved to be non-imaginary later in life.

The short answer—no.

In fact, Google says that parents should be concerned if an imaginary friend follows a child into the teenaged years. By the age of twelve, most children have said their final farewell to their friend. Teenagers and adults with imaginary friends often create them in response to some type of trauma, such as the death of a parent.

I don't see how this fits. I've never experienced anything that I would particularly qualify as trauma. More to the point, though, Edward isn't an imaginary friend.

He's something else.

Something indescribable.

Something that I'm going to have to eventually divine a word for.

As I finally fall into bed, I mentally revise my estimate of how long this whole proving it business is going to take. Looks like I might need more of this week than I had originally thought.

Next morning, I'm crunching my Lucky Charms (Cocoa Puffs are out of favor for obvious reasons) and am reminding myself that, although my go-to method of legwork has failed, the traditional type of legwork is always an option—the actual "get up and go" type. Despite their decided lack of calf muscle, my chicken legs do, in fact, work.

Still, I'm leery.

I'm always leery of walking around town where people can see me and perhaps even try to make small talk. I'm leery because I will be walking around town with the goal of making small talk.

To hopefully minimize unfocused chatting, I equip myself with a red spiral notebook, a number two pencil, and two yes/no questions: (a) Do you or did you have an imaginary friend? and (b) Do you or did you have a non-imaginary friend? In case the person answers "Yes" to either question, I also have a few clarifying questions prepared.

I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

Turns out, I was right to be leery. My traditional legwork doesn't go as well as I had hoped. (The theme of my summer.)

My legwork does, at least, start out okay. I find it relatively easy to track down my fellow Forks High students, even despite the fact that, without the cohesion of classes, we're scattered to the wind. I start with people I know, people to whom I've actually spoken. After getting a rather blank look from that one person—Angela—I move on to people I have never talked to. Well, aside from saying stuff like "Pass the test tube" and "I'm actually busy that weekend."

I look for said people in the places of torture, a.k.a. summertime employment. Tony at the Thriftway chats me up for thirty minutes because bagging groceries is so boring that he probably would have admitted to having an imaginary mouse in his pocket to keep me talking to him. After finally getting him to admit that no, he does not actually have an imaginary mouse in his pocket, I move along.

My conversation with Mike and Jessica at the Newton's store is my next hurdle. It's hard enough trying to steer Mike in a particular conversational direction. He tends to have a one-track mind when it comes to me—and his one track is, well, me. Throw Jessica in there, whose one-track mind involves Mike, and you can basically step back and watch the situation descend into chaos.

Like so.

When the cowbell above the door heralds my presence to everyone within a one-mile radius, Mike immediately perks up and pounces. "Oh hey, Bella. I was just thinking about you."

Like I said.

I round a row of fishing rods to see Jessica sitting on a stool right beside him.

Mike leans forward on the counter and says, "I was wondering—do you want to go to the movies this Saturday?"

Yes, Jessica is still sitting right beside him.

"I don't really do movies." Particularly since the incident in Port Angeles. "Jess, you do movies?"

Jess preens, sitting prim and proper on her stool. "Yeah I—"

"How about bowling, then?" Mike asks.

I answer, "Five to ten pounds of anything in my hand is dangerous. But I'll bet Jess is a good bowler."

Jess preens more. "Actually, I—"

We continue going in circles for a while longer, Mike looking at me, me deflecting his attention to Jessica, and Jessica's fawning deflecting Mike back to me. Normally, I would have found it epic. But today I merely need them to answer two simple questions.

"Hey," I say, snapping the air in front of Mike's face when he's gearing up to ask me on yet another date-like activity. "Focus. I merely need you to answer a survey I'm doing for, uh, school."

Mike eyes my little red notebook with distaste, as if he hadn't been planning on thinking about school for at least another month. Then his face brightens. "If I take your survey, will you go body boarding with me down at the beach?"

No bimbos blowing stuff up on the big screen and no bowling but he's thinking body boarding?

"No."

I finally get both of them to answer my questions. As suspected, neither Mike nor Jessica has the appropriate level of imagination necessary to have imagined a friend. I don't bother asking them Question B.

As I leave the store, Mike watches me as unerringly and unblinkingly as an Alaskan huskie. Before the glass door closes behind me, I hear Jess say in what she probably deems her sexy voice, "I'll go body boarding. I just bought a white bikini."

I hurry gratefully away and continue on my mission. In my quest, I talk to many of my fellow juniors. I talk to seniors. I talk to fifth graders. I talk to toddlers. I do more talking in a single week than I've done in my entire life.

I even try talking to Yorkie, Forks High's resident stoner. My final stop in the search for fresh meat is school itself, where I know the underachievers will be spending what would normally have been their free time repeating an activity they could have avoided by merely…trying the first time around.

Diagram that sentence for me.

My opinion of summer school is not improved when I walk into a classroom to find that the teacher has apparently wandered off. The resident underachievers aren't even pretending to complete the assignment that is written on the board. Instead, they're grouped in circles, sitting on their desks, or lounging on the floor. They're talking, break-dancing, and smoking the occasional cigarette.

I walk up to the only dude I recognize, and I recognize him only because Yorkie's kind of hard to forget. He's the only guy at school who wears guyliner and black fingernail polish and has pink-tipped hair.

"So," I say.

"So," he responds, giving me the once-over and immediately losing the little interest he'd mustered. I stand awkwardly for a moment and watch some guy in a beanie spinning on his head.

Then I press on. "I'm doing this survey about imaginary friends."

Immediately, Yorkie's bleary eye widens (neon-pink hair obscures the other one, which I assume is also red, bleary, and wider). He puts a finger of caution over his lips.

"We can't talk here," he says and turns on the heels of his Vans.

I blink five times and then scurry to keep up. Yorkie walks out of the classroom, through the nearest exit, and toward the tree line bordering the school. As I stand propping open the exit, I watch his retreating back for a second and note from the way that his collar is turned up and his hands are lodged in the front pockets of his coat that his posture isn't exactly welcoming.

Yorkie is hardly the type of person you want to follow alone into the woods. But I obviously don't have a choice. I really need to hear what he has to say. So I let the exit door swing closed and follow Yorkie's stiff back all the way through the tree line and past a rather alarming number of trees.

I jump when he whirls to face me. He looks around to make sure that no one is listening. I look around, too, and confirm that we are, indeed, alone in the middle of the woods.

"What's this about imaginary friends?" he demands.

"I'd like to know if you have one."

"Oh," he says. "I don't."

Uh…

"Then why did you make me follow you all the way out here?"

He looks around again and lowers his voice. "Because I have a friend of the non-imaginary persuasion."

Despite the doubt I know I should feel about the source in question, I'm elated. I'm elated because this is the first positive response that I've received all week. I'm elated because I haven't even had to ask him my questions. And I'm elated because he used the exact same term that I do.

"You do?"

"Absolutely. I feel like I'm being watched all the time. I feel the prickling on the back of my neck, you know, like when there's someone standing right behind you."

The skin on the back of my neck prickles as he speaks. I wonder if he can tell that his friend is here, watching, the way that I can tell mine is. I wonder if he's whispering in hopes that his friend won't hear. I'm so glad I decided it was safe to follow him out into the deserted woods.

Then he goes somewhere I can never follow.

"It's the aliens," he says. "They implanted a monitor in my brain when they abducted me into their mother ship."

Oh.

Of course they did.

"Well," he backpedals, a crease in his brow, "it's either the aliens or that government cell that infiltrated Forks last year."

"Right." Would you look at the time? I do, on the imaginary watch on my wrist. "Let me know if…the aliens start doing anything besides watching," I say. "I think they might be planning an invasion."

My motto: When in doubt, play along.

Yorkie nods seriously, as if he's suspected as much about those sneaky aliens.

I can't get away from there fast enough. It would have been just like me to follow a psycho into the woods and get killed.

At the end of that week, I'm sitting back on Alice's bed, scowling down at my little red notebook, which contains the less-than-helpful results of all that talking.

"What was your cover story?" Alice asks, inspecting her nails. She's painted them each a different animal. The finger she's currently eyeballing is a ladybug.

"Pre-semester extra credit paper for Ms. Hardy."

Alice nods as if to say "Of course." Ms. Hardy is famous for giving extra credit opportunities. I'm famous for using them to get well over a perfect average in every one of her classes.

"And your findings?"

I hold my notebook up officially and clear my throat. "Of the thirty-five people under twenty who I talked to, twenty-two had imaginary friends when they were (or are) younger."

"Sixty-five percent," Alice muses. "That's about right."

Looks like I'm not the only one who's done her research.

I continue, "Thirty-four of the thirty-five gave me blank stares when I asked about any non-imaginary yet still non-invisible friends. Eleven of them under the age of six still have imaginary friends. Yet all eleven of the same are aware that their friends are imaginary."

Alice hums noncommittally.

"Oh, and Yorkie thinks that his non-imaginary friends are aliens and/or government agents." It was supposed to be an anonymous poll, but Alice deserves to know this little fact. You know, in case he ever asks her to follow him alone into the woods.

Alice merely nods thoughtfully, as though she's giving Yorkie's theories careful consideration. I throw both myself and the notebook down on the bed with a sigh.

"Alice, I'm beginning to think you're right."

Alice flashes me the blue bird on her middle finger. I translate the gesture to mean duh, she's always right and don't doubt her again.

"The question is," I continue, sitting up quickly enough to give myself a head rush. "What are we going to do about it? How are we going to prove that Jasper and Edward are real?"

I look expectantly at my friend, who also happens to be a genius when it comes to coming up with things for us to do.

Alice taps a finger (a turtle) against the side of her mouth. Then, "Yeah, I got nothing."

I had been doing my own thinking during that time, just in case.

"I think what we need to do is pool our resources," I say.

"What do you mean?"

"I think you need to tell me all about Jasper. And I'll tell you all about Edward. Let's see if there are any similarities, any unusual patterns that would point to some method behind this, well, madness."

It's a good plan.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

As it turns out, there aren't any particular patterns that we can discern in our respective experiences. For one, Alice doesn't really feel like Jasper is watching her. She doesn't feel like he's the source of unexplained events in her life, like I do Edward.

But the most important difference is that Alice has seen Jasper. Not clearly, mind you, and usually not when she's been awake. But she knows that he has blond hair and lips that curl up funny when he speaks in that Southern accent of his.

"He speaks to you?"

"Well." Alice shifts uncomfortably. "Again, I wouldn't call it speaking any more than I would call it seeing. Sometimes, when I'm dreaming, I can hear him say stuff."

I stare at her.

"What stuff?"

"Words, phrases, sometimes sentences."

Had I been Superman, my gaze would have melted her to slag. She grins at me, all cheek, and holds up her ring finger, a puppy with contrite eyes.

"Unfortunately," she says with a sigh, "he's never said anything particularly interesting. Comments on the weather. Talks a lot about deer. I think maybe he's a hunter."

At this point, I'm picturing Jasper as a gallon hat-wearing, shotgun-totin', spur-jinglin' hick. But that's probably because I'm jealous that I can picture him at all.

I wonder what Edward looks like. I wonder what Edward sounds like. I'll bet he looks and sounds nice. I'll bet he doesn't look or sound like a cowboy. Oddly enough, I always picture him British. But that could be because of the source of his name.

"And sometimes," Alice adds, "I dream of Jasper when I'm awake."

Yeah, I wouldn't say that there are similarities between our situations. Except, of course, for the fact that we both know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our respective friends exist.

"So that was Edward in Port Angeles?" Alice says idly, snaking her pinky finger along the floor.

"Yes." At least, I hope it was.

"Huh." She makes her snake-finger eat the baby blue bird that was rude to me.

Serves it right.

"All this time," she says, "I thought you merely had an adrenaline rush."

The day of my appointment with the "someone" looms, and I'm no closer to gathering relevant data that will allow me to have my usual level of intelligent conversation with the man. Alice sympathizes, but she's not bringing her A game on this one. I guess I can understand why. It sounds like that three-month Italian vacation was less than rejuvenating.

Unfortunately, I'm distracted from further attempts at research by the fanfare of Renee's arrival in Forks. She zooms up to our house in a yellow rental two days before my appointment. We weren't expecting her until tomorrow, but that's Renee, reliable as the weather.

Usually, though, she's late. In fact, this might be the first time in her life that she's been early to anything. She must really be excited about this whole psychiatry thing. I don't think she's ever had an excuse to go to a real, live psychiatrist before.

When Charlie gruffs something about her being welcome to stay with us, she informs him that she's already got a reservation at a bed and breakfast in Port Angeles. She says that PA has more things for us to do while she's here. Charlie and I both understand the backhanded implication of her statement, but we also both let it slide.

"Bella," she says, turning her exuberance on me. "Would you like to come with me for a sleepover tonight?"

I don't really want to.

Before I can answer, she says, "We could paint the town red tomorrow. Port Angeles won't know what hit it."

Well, when you put it that way…

On the drive to PA, Renee gives me the skinny on the psychiatrist that she's having me see. "He's well-known in Washington, lives in a mansion on the Port Angeles waterfront, and comes into Forks three days a week for appointments."

She's giving me his credentials as animatedly as if I'm going out on a blind date. I can tell from the excitement on her face that psychiatry is going to be her fad of the week. I'm determined, of course, that she will only need to be here a week. Once I talk to this renowned psychiatrist and explain myself, I'm sure everything will be fine.

Over the next two days, Renee and I paint Port Angeles red—if by paint you mean douse it in the blood from my feet. I exaggerate, but I do follow Renee up and down the city streets for so many hours each day that my feet, unaccustomed to this torture, produce blood blisters. If they had popped and if I had been barefoot, they might have doused (okay, dotted) the streets.

We must have walked into every little touristy shop, gone to every remotely appealing cultural event, and eaten a smorgasbord of food. Through it all, I can feel Renee's eyes on me more than usual, watching, appraising. She knows that being out and about among my fellow man isn't exactly the way I'd choose to spend my days. She knows that I need my alone time. She's probably waiting to see if I'll start to crack under the pressure.

I notice that, through it all, she doesn't say a word about Edward.

We've settled on a park bench to eat ice cream cones purchased from a street vendor when Renee finally asks the question that has likely been on her mind since she arrived.

"So, have you seen Edward lately?"

What is it with my parents and initiating tough conversations over ice cream? To buy time, I take a languid lick of vanilla goodness.

Of all the questions that Renee could have asked, she goes and asks one that she already knows the answer to. I was quite clear on the phone earlier that I've never actually seen Edward.

"No, I haven't," I answer honestly.

She lowers her voice and leans closer, eyes shifty. "Do you think he's around, right now?" She's smiling, but it's a fake smile, all teeth.

"No." I don't even look up from my ice cream. I rarely sense Edward when I'm around a lot of people. Not to say that he's not here, it's merely a lot harder for me to tell. And right now, I don't want to be able to tell.

She frowns, and I can see that she's gearing up for another lightning round of twenty questions, likely questions that I'll have a much harder time answering honestly. I need to distract her. Now.

"Mom," I say, "are you really going to talk to me about Edward?" I pitch my voice just right to make talking about Edward sound like the most ludicrous idea ever. "Becausse I was hoping this would be a girls' night."

She looks at me knowingly, like she sees right through my tone and the fact that I'm talking about a girls' night like it's a good thing.

But she rolls with it.

"You're right. You'll have plenty of time to tell your psychiatrist all about Edward." She swivels and chucks her half-full cone into a nearby garbage can. She's never liked having to work for that last bit stuck in the bottom. "Wanna go check out that band playing down in the square tonight? From those posters we've been seeing, they look hot!"

I don't point out that they also look two decades younger than she is. Renee has no problem embracing her inner cougar.

She's bounding through the park now, motioning for me to come with. I get up and follow, pausing only to send my own half-full cone into the chasm.

Too soon (and yet not), Renee is chauffeuring me back to Forks for my appointment.

I say it's too soon because I don't want P-Day (Psychiatry Day) to have arrived. I say it's not too soon because, after two days of living at Renee's frenetic pace, I'm practically catatonic—I can barely talk or move the entire drive home. I certainly don't have the energy to go explain to some dude why there's no possible way that I'm crazy.

Nevertheless, I must go and do just that.

Ready or not, here I come.

We make a pit stop at home so that I can drop off my overnight bag and change into something nice, at Renee's request. Apparently, jeans and sneakers are not appropriate attire to wear to my first session (a.k.a. date) with this psychiatrist.

I find the idea of a psychiatrist caring what I'm wearing a bit creepy. And I'm strangely satisfied when Renee marches me up to the office of a man who is wearing one of the dowdiest outfits I've seen, a hodge-podge of rumpled layers in various shades of blah.

"Hello, Bella, Renee," the man says, extending his hand, "I'm Dr. Kaczmarczyk."

Um, what? The name that he's provided sounds as clear to me as someone trying to say "fluffy bunny" through a mouthful of marshmallows. As I shake his hand, my eyes shift to the name plate on his door. Unfortunately, I can't even decipher his name in writing.

"Do you go by Dr. K?"

His startled blinks are magnified by the thick lenses of his glasses. Although his eyes are saying that he doesn't, his mouth says that he does.

Well, he does now.

I don't like him already.

Honesty, you see, is a critical part of the doctor/patient dynamic.

Despite his atypical name, Dr. K looks exactly like how I've imagined a typical psychiatrist would look—balding hair; full beard with the first distinguished hints of gray; an academic's soft body; the aforementioned eyewear.

Renee is disappointed when he asks her to wait outside in the lobby.

"Well, Bella," Dr. K says, peering at me earnestly over his glasses. I've situated myself in the plush leather armchair across from his. "Tell me about yourself."

Perfect. The one person who I'm supposed to talk to about Edward doesn't want to talk about Edward. He wants to talk about me.

Not my favorite subject.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to bring my little red notebook. As he writes down stuff about me, I write down stuff about him. For example, I write down the fact that he's sitting with one leg crossed over the other like a girl. I write down the fact that said leg is facing away from me, which I feel is a decidedly anti-social position for it to be in.

My note-taking makes it a particularly productive hour. Apparently, Dr. K thinks so as well because he asks to see me the next day.

And the next.

I really don't know what I was worried about. This whole psychiatry thing? It's not so hard.

Despite the general monotony of his voice and appearance, Dr. K is a good listener. By the end of our third session, we've talked about all kinds of irrelevant details about my life, including my lack of friends, my single-minded focus on getting good grades, and my complete distaste for the color green. I notice, however, that we have not yet talked about Edward.

Nevertheless, Dr. K has a preliminary diagnosis.

When he gives us his professional opinion, Renee and I stare at him. Renee's staring at him because, if he's correct, she thinks her life will be over. I'm staring because, if he's correct, my life as I know it really will be over.

"I want a second opinion," Renee says. I'm sure she's always wanted to say that.

No surprise, when psychiatrist number two also diagnoses me with the same thing, Renee wants yet another opinion. How very coincidental that there are three psychiatrists on staff at Forks Medical Center and Renee wants three opinions.

Me? I'm learning a lot through this process. More than I want to know, actually. For example, I've always wondered why we have three—three!—psychiatrists at a hospital that boasts only one general physician. I've always wondered if every town has an Old Man Jenks whose front lawn is filled with squatty yard gnomes that he lectures to every night. I've always wondered if every town boasts a lady who solemnly directs non-existent traffic on Main Street wearing a single, prim white glove.

The answer is that most towns don't.

Apparently, Forks is a Petri dish of crazy. Something about the average distance between homesteads being higher than the national average. Something about the overwhelming solitude and the pressing crush of decade-old trees. Something about that mind-bending adage about the tree falling in the forest that may or may not cause a sound. Surrounded by all these trees that might potentially fall, it's no wonder a large percentage of the general Forks populace is a little touched in the head.

Myself included, apparently.

For according to not one but three psychiatrists, I have a slight problem.

"Mrs. Dwyer," they had each said solemnly, "your daughter has schizophrenia."

Just FYI, I received the following review from Mike Newton: This story is almost as riveting as Face Punch. But I'm not in it enough.