Aaron is five the first time he sees James.
His foster father's drunk again, and even as young as Aaron is, he knows to get himself out of his house when Shaw starts cursing at everything that moves, eyes glazed and smelling like an overturned bucket of paint thinner.
Aaron kicks at the dirt under his feet, walking in the street just because he knows his foster parents don't care.
He's been living with them for six months, and sometimes his foster mother still forgets his name. He wants to like Tiffany—she's so pretty—but every time he looks at her she looks away, cold and uncaring.
Shaw pays attention, sometimes. Aaron frowns. But not the kind of attention he wants.
Aaron wishes he had real parents, like the other kids in school. They look at him funny. They don't quite know what being a "foster kid" means, but they know he lives in the poor part of town, and they know he doesn't have any parents.
They don't know that the Whites could kick him out whenever they get tired of him, booting him back into the system. But Aaron knows. Shaw reminds him of it nearly every day. Reminds him how "lucky" he is, to have a roof over his head and food on the table.
Aaron doesn't feel lucky.
He sighs, scuffing his shoes in the dirt and knowing it doesn't matter. His clothes are dirty, too.
He wishes he had a brother or sister. Someone to talk to, to hide with when things got bad. But it's just Aaron; there aren't really even any other kids in the neighborhood.
Then Aaron sees him. Sitting on the broken down fence that separates the road from the cow pasture at its side, there's a little kid.
A kid just Aaron's age.
His steps speed up as he squints at the little boy. He's not someone Aaron recognizes from kindergarten, and thank goodness for that. Normally Aaron is pretty quiet around other kids. He's been moved around a lot—three foster homes, and he's only five. He had siblings at the second one, and now they're gone. He's had other kids in the neighborhood, or in his class. They're gone too. Aaron figures it's best not to get attached.
But this kid looks just as sad as Aaron feels, shoulders slumped and little feet kicking at the splintered wood he sits on.
"Hi," Aaron says, coming to a stop right in front of him. The kid doesn't look up, just keeps kicking, his heels drumming on the wood with a steady thump thump.
"Hey!" Aaron says, louder. Is the kid deaf, or something?
The boy looks up, eyes widening in surprise. They're very big, and very blue. "Hi?" he responds tentatively.
Aaron nods, satisfied. "I'm Aaron," he pronounces, dropping down on the fence beside the other boy, looking him over.
He's smaller than Aaron, but Aaron still guesses he must be five or six. His wavy brown hair falls into his eyes, and a burst of freckles partially covers his nose and cheeks. The boy's clothes are nice—much nicer than Aaron's. His trousers are clean and pressed, his shirt glaringly white and neatly tucked in.
The boy still looks surprised to see Aaron, but after a moment, he holds out a small hand. "I'm James."
"Do you live around here?" Aaron asks eagerly, shaking the kid's hand the way he's seen adults do.
The boy just shrugs. "Do you?"
"Just down the road." Aaron makes a face. "With the Whites."
"That's what you call your mom and dad?"
Aaron bites his lip. He hadn't meant to tell James that he was a loser foster kid so soon. Maybe now James won't want to play with him. "My mom and dad are dead," Aaron says after a long moment, looking away. "Now I live with the Whites."
"Oh." One of James small, smooth hands lands on Aaron's arm. "I'm sorry."
When Aaron looks up, James is looking back at him with those big blue eyes, not a hint of mockery in them. Aaron offers him a small smile. "Do you want to play a game?"
"Sure. What game?"
"Hide and seek?"
Alarm crosses James's face. "No, not when I just found you!"
"Oh." Aaron is puzzled. "We could go exploring?" he suggests instead. He wishes he had a ball or a Frisbee or something, but James's eyes light up anyway.
"Okay!"
"Great." Aaron clambers down off the fence, his eyes widening as James hops down beside him and take his hand. His hand is soft and his fingernails are clean, and Aaron wants to pull his own hand away and shove it in his pocket, to hide the dirt and calluses.
James doesn't seem to notice, however, just swings their joined hands between their bodies. "Let's go see what's in the woods over there," he suggests, pointing across the road.
Aaron knows what's over there—a tiny stream and a lot of junk—but he's happy to follow his new friend, marvelling at how pleased James looks to be walking beside him.
"Do you go to school around here?"
"No." James shrugs.
"Oh." Aaron sighs. Too bad. He would have liked to have James in his class. James who doesn't seem to care at all that Aaron doesn't have parents, or nice clothes, or fancy toys.
James who tightens his grip on Aaron's hand as they clamber down the bank to the little stream, who exclaims joyfully over the shallow splash of water, like it's the most wonderful thing he's ever seen.
*~*~*
An hour or two later the sun starts to set, and Aaron reluctantly stands from where he and James have been poking tadpoles in the muddy stream. He doesn't want to leave, but Shaw gets mad if he stays out late, yelling that he'll get in trouble if Aaron gets lost, that he'll lose his check if Aaron winds up dead.
"I have to go home," Aaron sighs.
A frown forms on James's small face.
"Won't your parents be worried about you?" Aaron asks.
James just shrugs.
"Can you come out to play tomorrow?"
At that, James brightens, nodding eagerly. "Sure!"
"Great? In the morning? I don't have anything to do all day, do you?"
"No, the morning is fine," James stands up as well, but Aaron still has to look down on him. It's okay. Aaron likes being the big one. James can't always reach things, and when they crossed the stream, he needed Aaron's hand to help him jump over.
It makes Aaron feel important.
James brushes awkwardly at the mud on his knees, succeeding only in smearing it around, dirtying his fingers further. He's not nearly as clean as when Aaron found him.
"Will your parents be mad that you got so messy?" Aaron worries. Most of the time the Whites don't notice what he looks like, but sometimes Tiffany yells at him when he brings dirt in the house, or when she has to do extra laundry so he has something clean to wear to school.
"No." James shakes his head, his curls flopping into his eyes. Aaron laughs.
"Do you want me to walk you home?"
"No. I can find my way. You'll come find me again tomorrow? Same place?"
"Sure!" Aaron agrees enthusiastically. It's been so long since he had someone to play with.
They part ways at the road, and Aaron's steps back to the Whites' house are much lighter than when he left.
Shaw is passed out on the sofa when he comes in, snoring loudly. Tiffany frowns at him from the kitchen. "Where have you been?"
"Playing with James."
"Who?"
"He lives in the neighborhood."
"Oh." Tiffany frowns, her pretty brow creasing. "I didn't know there were any other kids around."
Aaron shrugs, plopping down at the kitchen table in the hopes that Tiffany will remember to feed him. "Maybe he's new."
"I suppose he must be," she sighs, her eyes darting across the room to her husband's sleeping form. "Ugh," she groans. "Can you find your own dinner? I want to go out."
"I guess?"
"Good." Tiffany's already grabbing her purse and heading for the door. Shaw doesn't often let her take the car—they have a lot of fights about it—so Aaron guesses she wants to take the chance while she has it. He eyes the kitchen cabinets dubiously.
There are a lot of things in cans, but he can't open them by himself, so he snags a bag of potato chips and heads to his room, determined to be out of sight when Shaw wakes up and realizes the car—and Tiffany—are gone.
*~*~*
The next day Aaron leaves the house early, grateful once again that his foster parents don't keep up the sham of weekly church attendance. Aaron knows that he is Jewish—Shaw tends to remind him—but he doesn't precisely know what that means. Only that his foster parents use it as an excuse to sleep late on Sundays, when other children are being wrestled out of bed and into uncomfortable dress clothes.
Despite the early hour, James is sitting on the fence, just where Aaron found him the day before. His little face brightens when he spots Aaron walking up the road.
"I wasn't sure you'd come!" James exclaims, hopping off the fence.
"Why not?"
James gives one of his dismissive shrugs, a gesture with which Aaron is already familiar. "I thought you might forget."
"No way," Aaron denies hotly, in the flush of having his first friend. James's answering grin is just as effusive.
Today they tramp across the large cow pasture, skirting patties as they walk. Aaron notices that James is in an outfit just like the day before—as unsuited as it is to outdoor play. In fact, Aaron would swear he was wearing the same shirt and trousers, except that was impossible, given how muddy James had been when Aaron sent him home the day before. Aaron figures he must just have a lot of the same kind of nice clothes.
Aaron doesn't have a lot of anything, and what he does have certainly isn't nice. But he doesn't mind that James has more than him—and besides, his ripped jeans and t-shirts are better for climbing over fences and shimmying under branches than the shirt and trousers James has on.
"So, what do you do most days?" Aaron asks as they trudge through overgrown grass.
James blinks and looks surprised. "I dunno." He shrugs.
Aaron returns the gesture. He doesn't do a lot of interesting things, either. "Where do you go to school?"
"I don't."
"Don't what?" He hops over a fallen log.
"Go to school," James offers as Aaron helps the other boy scramble after him.
"Really?" Aaron stops to gape. "That's awesome!"
James gives him a little smile. "I guess."
Aaron runs ahead, looking for anything exciting that he could show to his new friend. Eventually, he finds a rabbit's nest and calls James to his side. He picks up a nearby stick and pokes down into the burrow, prodding at the mass of fur curled up inside.
"Don't hurt them!" James says, dropping to his knees. His eyes go wide as he pushes Aaron's stick away from the tiny rabbits.
Aaron frowns, but drops the stick and joins James in the grass.
"Oh, look," James coos, pointing down at the just-visible balls of fluff, gently quivering where they press together. "They're so cute."
"Yeah, I guess," Aaron says sceptically. He peers down into the burrow with James. He guesses they are sort of cute, in a small and furry way. He likes how happy James looks, though, so he smiles down at the little baby rabbits.
He reaches down, intending to pick one of the little creatures up, so James will smile and laugh.
"No, don't!" James exclaims, catching his wrist.
"Why not?" Aaron pouts.
"If you touch them, the mommy bunny won't want them anymore."
Aaron's frown deepens, but his heart clenches a little at the thought. He thinks of the way Shaw and Tiffany look at him, and slowly withdraws his hand.
James smiles, sliding his grip down from Aaron's wrist to join their hands. Aaron smiles back; he likes playing rough and hitting things with sticks and if James hadn't been there he would have stirred up the nest just to see what would happen.
But he's happy to have James as a friend, so he holds himself back, content to just look at the little rabbits, seeing how they snuffle into each other, curling up close in their little nest.
It is pretty cute, he guesses.
*~*~*
Aaron runs through the Whites' door just as the sun dips below the horizon, out of breath from having sprinted the whole way.
He lost track of time, ambling in the woods with James. The other boy was smart, smarter than any kid Aaron knew, and was quick to tell Aaron facts about everything they saw on their walk. It might have been annoying if James wasn't so excited about every piece of information he shared.
He knew the names of all the trees, and the birds, and their flight patterns, and what they ate.
When Aaron asked, he gave his familiar shrug, and said he liked books.
Aaron could read, but only just.
There weren't a lot of books in the Whites' house, and only two with pictures—both ones he had brought with him from his last foster home. He had The Velveteen Rabbit and Goodnight Moon memorized back to front, but it didn't give him a lot of room to practice.
Maybe James could help, he thinks, skidding to halt in the kitchen.
Tiffany stands in front of the oven, looking frazzled. From the smell of it, another dinner had burnt.
"Where have you been?" she huffs.
"Playing with James."
Tiffany frowns. "I ran into Mrs. Sullivan at the store today," she says, eyeing Aaron critically.
Aaron wrinkles his nose. Ryan Sullivan is in his class. Aaron doesn't like him, though; he's much too loud.
"And I asked her about new kids in the neighborhood. She said she hasn't heard of anyone named James."
Aaron frowns. "So? She doesn't know everyone," he says, even though he knows that isn't true. All of Tiffany's gossip comes from Mrs. Sullivan. The woman seemed to know everyone's business, and felt like it was her job to relay it to everyone else in the world.
Tiffany sighs. "I know you've wanted a kid to play with in the neighborhood. And god knows it's good to get you out of the house. But you shouldn't tell lies."
Aaron's brow creases. "I'm not!" he denies hotly.
Tiffany gives him a pitying look. "Having an imaginary friend is like telling a lie. You said you were with someone called 'James' today, but you weren't. You were by yourself, like always."
Aaron doesn't understand. He stomps his foot, annoyed. "I wasn't. I was with James. He's my best friend."
Tiffany rubs her temple, the way she does when she's getting a headache. "You need to make real friends to play with. You should spend tomorrow with Ryan Sullivan."
"I don't like him!" Aaron says angrily. "He's stupid and loud. James is quiet and nice and he knows everything."
"I'm sure he does." Tiffany rolls her eyes. "When you make someone up, they can be perfect, if you want them to be."
"I didn't make him up!" Aaron yells.
"What did he make up?" Shaw asks, coming in through the front door in his ratty coveralls.
"Aaron's telling lies," Tiffany says harshly.
Probably to distract from the burnt dinner, Aaron thinks, unforgiving.
Shaw raises an eyebrow.
"I'm not!"
"He has an imaginary friend."
"James is real!" Aaron insists, eyes stinging with hot, frustrated tears.
"No, honey, he's not."
Shaw gives him a strange look. "He's what—seeing people?"
"He's just lonely," Tiffany says dismissively, turning back to the oven, removing a smoking casserole dish from its midst.
But Shaw's still looking at him funny. Aaron sniffles, trying to hold back the tears. He wishes James were here, so he could point to him and say, "Look, he's real and he's better than all the stupid kids in my class combined."
"If he's crazy, do we have to send him back?" Shaw asks after a long moment.
Aaron freezes.
Tiffany gives him a sharp look. "You know we can't afford to send him back. It could be months before we got another one. Who would pay the electricity and gas in the meantime? Not to mention buy the groceries?"
But Shaw's still giving Aaron a mean, considering look. "I don't want a crazy kid in the house."
"Your pay check barely covers our mortgage since your business dried up." Tiffany narrows her eyes at her husband. "He's fine. Kids have imaginary friends sometimes. I'm pretty sure it's normal."
Shaw snorts. "Yeah, because you're such an expert on kids."
Aaron looks between them, his stomach turning nervously. He doesn't like living with them, but he doesn't want to go back into the system. For all he knows, he'll end up somewhere worse. At least he knows how to deal with Shaw and Tiffany. At least he's found James.
"Please don't send me away," he says a little desperately.
Tiffany sighs. "We're not going to, sugar. But you have to stop telling lies. No more talk of 'James' in this house."
Aaron frantically nods, even as his mind rebels. He knows James is real—he just spent the whole day playing with him!
But he doesn't want to be sent away. He'll just bring James round the next day, and then Tiffany will see that he's telling the truth.
For now, he'll keep his mouth shut.
"Fine," Shaw snaps, sitting down heavily at the table. "But if he goes mental, we're sending him back."
After dinner, Aaron skulks off back to his room. He wonders why Mrs. Sullivan didn't know who James is, when he lives right in the neighborhood. He thinks about it, and realizes he doesn't know exactly where James lives, or with whom. The boy doesn't go to his school and hasn't mentioned any family.
Aaron frowns, crawling into bed. All he knows about his friend is that he's called James.
But that doesn't seem to be enough.
*~*~*
At school the next day, Aaron walks up to Ryan Sullivan, frowning at the kid's bright red hair and flushed face. "There's a new kid in the neighborhood," Aaron says.
"Really?"
"His name is James. Have you seen him around?"
Ryan laughs. "Oh, that. My mamma told me you had an imaginary friend."
The kids around them look over, interested. "My mamma said we're too old for that kind of thing," Ryan continues.
Aaron glares. "He's real!"
Alex, another boy from their class, steps up beside Ryan, laughing meanly. "Aaron's a baby! Aaron's a baby!"
Aaron balls his hands into fists, wanting to lash out, to hit the boy right in the face.
But he's outnumbered, and he knows how mad Shaw would be if he had to be called into Aaron's school. So he just turns away from their laughing faces, sulking until class starts. He can't wait until school is over and he can see James, and can prove once and for all that his friend is real.
At the end of the day Aaron practically runs to the cow field, eyes eagerly seeking out the small form of his only friend.
For a moment he thinks James isn't there, that maybe he isn't coming, and his heart sinks. His eyes skim across the open field as Tiffany and Shaw and Ryan and Alex's harsh words replay in his mind.
Finally, though, he sees him, crouched behind the broken down fence, poking at something on the ground.
"James!" he calls, relief washing over him as his friend looks up, giving him a sunny grin.
"Aaron," James says with a smile, "I found a frog."
Aaron hurries over as fast as his little legs can carry him. "James, you have to come back to my house."
"Oh." James rocks back on his heels, his gaze dropping away from Aaron's. "I don't think I can."
"Why not?"
"I wanted to go back to the stream today," he says instead. "Doesn't that sound like fun?"
"No, I need you to come to my house. My foster mother thinks I made you up just because Mrs. Busybody Sullivan doesn't know who you are, like that matters, and I'm in trouble for telling lies, and all the kids laughed at me in school today and called me a baby."
James bites his lip, looking away.
"You have to come to my house so I can prove to Tiffany that you're real."
"I don't think that's a good idea," James says quietly.
Aaron huffs. "Why not?"
"Because I don't think she'll be able to see me."
Aaron freezes, replaying his friend's words in his head. "What?"
James picks at the grass beneath him. "You're the only one who can see me. Everyone else acts like I'm not there at all."
Aaron drops heavily down onto the fence, his gaze fixed on his friend. Of course he can see James. He's right in front of him, kneeling in the grass and looking miserable. "So you really are imaginary?"
James looks up. "I don't think so. I don't feel imaginary."
Aaron frowns, thinking of all the kids teasing him, calling him a baby. "Well, you wouldn't, would you? Not if I made you up. I guess you'd feel however I say you feel."
James worries at his lip. "Do you think you made me up?"
Aaron crosses his arms, looks away. "I guess I must have." A thought strikes him. "I guess I must be crazy." He gulps. "They're going to send me back, and then no one will want me."
Suddenly James is standing at his side, putting a soft hand on his arm. "I want you."
"Who cares? You're not real."
James's wide eyes fill with hurt and his lip quivered. "Does this mean you're not going to play with me anymore?"
Aaron's stomach sinks. He had been having such fun with James. But he doesn't want to be crazy, and he doesn't want the Whites to send him away. "I can't play with you if you're not real." He stands, determined to go home and never mention James again.
Tears well up in James's eyes. "But I was so lonely before I found you."
Aaron pauses. He was lonely too.
So lonely, Tiffany said, that he had made up a best friend. And yet, he could see James crying, looking at him pleadingly.
"I can't tell anyone else about you," he says finally.
James sniffles. "You're—you're going to stay?"
"Yes," Aaron decides.
James gasps, flinging himself forward, wrapping his arms around Aaron's neck. "Thank you! You're my best friend, Aaron."
James is Aaron's best friend, too. He only wishes he were real.