I own nothing.

Jenny Brown was six years old, and she was very lonely. But unfortunately, this was not the sort of loneliness we would chalk up to a child exaggerating just how bad her situation was. Jenny Brown was quite genuinely without a single other person in the world.

Her parents didn't have time for her. Her dad worked from early in the morning until late at night. When he was at home, he was sleeping, and even if he was awake, as he repeatedly told his daughter: "Not now, Jenny. I don't want to talk to you right now." Jenny couldn't remember the last time she'd had a conversation with her dad. And her mom wasn't any better. Her mom's work hours were shorter, but whenever she got off work she went to have drinks with her friends and wasn't back until even later than Jenny's dad, and didn't want to talk to Jenny any more than her dad did. Jenny lived on takeout and microwaveable dinners; she couldn't remember the last time either one of her parents had cooked a meal or taken her to a restaurant. The rest of Jenny's family lived scattered up and down the East and West coasts; she only saw them once or twice a year.

Jenny didn't have any better luck at school. This was partly her own fault; Jenny's personality when she entered school was far from what anyone would call winning. On account of that, none of Jenny's classmates had wanted to be her friend, but realizing that she had been acting like a brat and behaving more nicely was unfortunately insufficient to get her some friends. Even when Jenny had become a nicer girl, they remembered with a mix of fear and disgust her behavior from before, and were too afraid that she might slide back into those ways to befriend her. For much the same reasons, the teachers didn't like her; they only saw the bratty child she had been. It was not enough merely to say that she had changed.

Well naturally, Jenny would come up with an imaginary friend. The circumstances were ideal for it.

They say that when a child creates an imaginary friend, they project some part of themselves onto their creation. Oftentimes, that 'part' ends up being some aspect of themselves that the child doesn't like. If a little boy is mostly nice but is sometimes a jerk, his imaginary friend might be a huge jerk so he doesn't have to act like one.

What Jenny projected on her new imaginary friend was her deep-seated feeling of being unloved. By her parents, by her school—by everyone.

Her new friend was small and pink. The friend was feminine in appearance and voice and personality. She was the perfect friend for a little girl who didn't have anyone else in the world, because Jenny's imaginary friend was never happy unless she had someone else to love, and she didn't like to share.

Jenny named her Berry.

And Jenny and Berry were very happy together for nearly two years. Jenny had Berry, someone who was always kind and attentive to her, someone who always paid attention to her and would never think of not being her friend anymore. Berry had Jenny, and as long as no one else tried to get in the way, she would always have Jenny. It was a small world, but it was a happy one.

"Best friends?"

"We'll always be best friends."

Unfortunately, small worlds were all the more fragile for their size.

Eventually, someone, Jenny didn't know who, looked at her home life and became concerned. They didn't like the fact that both of her parents kept such late hours, they didn't like how messy the house was, and they didn't like the fact that Jenny was living on takeout, microwaveable dinners, and nothing else. Whoever it was who didn't like this, they called Child Services.

Long story short, Jenny's parents lost custody of their daughter, and Jenny went to live with her maternal grandparents on the West coast. Berry went with her, and everything was okay. At first.

For the first few weeks, when everything was still very awkward and Jenny was settling into life with people who were little better than strangers to her, everything was still okay between her and Berry. Berry was the only person whom Jenny really felt comfortable around her, and Berry felt secure in the knowledge that she would always be the one who was the most important to Jenny.

"No one will ever take you away from me."

But things changed. Jenny warmed up to her grandparents, who were very kind and loving to her and wanted to make a home for her. She was attending a new school where no one knew of her past as a bratty, whiny kid. At that school, Jenny could make friends in a way she had never been able to do before, and she did make friends. In fact, Jenny discovered that she was actually a pretty popular kid, having come all the way from the East coast to live in California with her grandparents. Everybody wanted her to tell them what it had been like living in Maryland, how different it must have been. Her popularity could at first be attributed to the novelty of her existence in her new elementary school, but as time wore on and the newness wore off, those kids still wanted to be friend with her.

She didn't have as much time for Berry.

"No one will ever take you away from me."

And Berry didn't like that.

Jenny… Jenny loved her, right? Jenny loved her, didn't she? So why was she spending so much time with all of these other people? Why would she do that if she loved Berry?

Why?

Why?

Why?

It was realized soon after that her feelings of being unloved weren't the only thing Jenny had projected on to Berry. There was that impulse, that impulse deep down that had come from her time as a bratty kid. That longing to hurt people, to hurt the people who had no time for her even when she was supposed to be important to them. But more than that, it was the longing to hurt the people who had kept her parents away from her that Jenny had projected on to Berry. The longing to hurt the competition.

One sometimes questions the full extent of an imaginary friend's free will. They are the creation of their child's, and they are doomed to love their child, no matter how their child treats them. They are doomed to be the way their child made them.

One questions how much free will Berry had. One questions whether it was her fault that she was made the way she was, that she acted the way she was. But above all else, one thing was clear. The people Berry hurt, she chose to hurt. She chose to hurt them even though she loved Jenny and she knew Jenny loved them. She hurt them because they were getting in the way. She hurt them because they had come between her and Jenny. Jenny would forgive her, right? Jenny would understand how much Berry loved her and needed her, right?

Wrong.

"Jenny…"

"Go away! They're my friends and you can't hurt them! You can't hurt Grandma or Grandpa either! I don't want to see you ever again! Go away!"

Berry loved her child. Ultimately, she obeyed.

Berry wandered through many towns and states, stayed in many halfway houses and homeless shelters and foster homes for imaginary friends over the years. Sometimes she was adopted, but it didn't last long. Inevitably her child's parents started to notice Berry's, ahem, special brand of possessiveness, began to notice her animosity, began to notice the dangers that suddenly sprang up around their homes.

But she was just looking for someone to love. She was just looking for someone who needed her. And when she found that someone, she would be the only person they ever needed. That made it all okay. Right?

Right?