“I got a scholarship!” she said.

“Oh please tell me it is not for your awful artwork. Okay I’ll admit it isn’t terrible, it has risen up to bottom 11%, but that’s not scholarship worthy.”

“Jerk. And no. It is for a volleyball scholarship.”

“Well that’s good. And you are the jerk!”

“Thank you Azimia,” she said.

“...you are welcome Angela,” I said. I reached out my hand to shake hers.

“Oh no, you get a hug,” she said and hugged me. I’m ancient. I’m evil. I’m…enjoying this hug.

“So does this mean I’m out of my contract?” I said.

“Nope! Lifetime friend means lifetime friend!” she laughed. “You can go back now. I’ll call you if I need you, as always. ♪ Thank you for being a friend… ♪ she said.

“NO. NO GOLDEN GIRLS,” I shouted as I warped back to my realm.

The following year, she called me only twice. Once to show me her new dorm room. And the second when she was about to debut on her team. She was nervous and was afraid of letting her mom down. I told her to just aim for the tallest girl’s face and she’ll do fine.

Two years went by without a call.

Then, in the middle of the night, I heard my name.

“What is it child. Why have you summoned me,” I said.

She was crying. She was sitting in the corner and crying.

I looked at her. Her face was bruised. Her lip was bleeding.

“...who did this to you?” I said.

“I…”

“WHO?” I again demanded to know.

Silence for about 15 minutes.

“…can you just sit here and be my friend?” her voice was trembling. “I need a friend. I don’t need anything else right now. Just a friend.”

I sat on the foot of her bed.

She told me she found him cheating on her. And when she confronted him, he hit her twice. And his friends just stood there laughing.

“I know you want to go there and scare them and maybe even hurt them,” she said. “But I didn’t let you do it when Kaitlyn and Meghan bullied me. I’ll talk to the police tomorrow. I just want to feel safe tonight.”

Angela called me once again, this time, when she graduated. We discussed her plans for the future. She said she won’t need me for a while.

The next time, it was her wedding day. She looked radiant.

“I don’t think I’ll need you anymore,” she said.

“A lifetime is a lifetime,” I said.

“Fair enough.”Years went by. I was given longer contracts to deal with. I apologized to the secretary for my behavior and we briefly dated. And by briefly I mean dated for 15 years. In demon years, that’s a blink of an eye.Then, a familiar feeling hit me one night. I was transported back to Angela.She was lying on a hospital bed. Her long blonde hair was now short and white. She had a lot of tubes hooked up to her. Her once youthful face was covered in wrinkles. She lived a lifetime without me.

“Azimia, it looks like your contract will soon be over,” she said and gave out a small laugh, followed by a cough.

“Hrmph,” I said. I looked at her chart. Stage 4 cancer.

“Oh, don’t look at that. My time is up. I’ve lived a great life. I have a wonderful husband. Three children. Seven grandchildren. And a lifetime friend,” she said. “Thank you.”

I put my hand over my chest and gave her a slight bow.

“Will I see you? You know, down there? Since I sold my soul” she said.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Your contract said a lifetime friend. I’m still alive and you are sitting here dying? That’s not a lifetime friend.”

I took out the contract and a pen. She looked at me confused.“Let’s see, you never asked how I was. You never invited me for dinner. You never complimented my hair style or shoes or anything. That doesn’t sound like you were a friend to me,” I snapped.

“What are you saying?” she said. She looked hurt.

“I’m saying you voided the contract. I’m sorry Angela. Your soul is yours again,” I said and tore up the contract.

She started to cry. She mouthed “thank you” as the monitors started beeping and buzzing.

My bosses weren’t happy with my decision. I caught heat for it for a few months. Then they finally called me into their office. “You want a job? Here’s one I know you’ll enjoy. Since you loved the last one so much,” they said, laughing at me. “Hannah, age 6, she wants a lifetime friend,” they said.

I sighed. I knew this would happen

Hannah called me the next day. I appeared in her room, she held my hand.

“My nana told me about you,” she said. I was confused. She handed me a picture. “That’s her, Nana Angie holding me when I was a baby. She got sick and died. She’s in Heaven now. That’s what mommy told me. Will you be my friend?”

Split into 2 parts due to length.

​

I stormed into the office of my superior and demanded an explanation. He simply said the contract is valid and I am to honor it. I asked for a new client. He said no, my name came up in the rotation, and everything this child wrote seems legit, and that I need to be her “friend”. I asked if it was a typo, maybe she meant fiend. I can be her fiend quite easily. I’m a great friend. My boss said if I were to dishonor this contract, I would be dealt with. I’m already on thin “ice”, whatever that means. I was to report to be this child’s friend whenever they summoned me.

This tiny human had somehow written up a contract and it was actually signed and submitted for approval by those in charge. I think this is payback for the last contract I was locked into. It isn’t my fault the humans aren’t precise in their contracts. They need to learn how to read the fine print. The contract stated Mr. Garcia wanted to fly. So I bought him a round trip ticket to Columbus, Ohio.

But this contract. This was just cruel towards me. I know this was payback. They said I ruined the company’s reputation. And to leave the “literal wish fulfillment” to the monkey paw department. I should have given him the ability to fly. Most humans die in the first flight. They fly fast and suddenly run into a branch or fly so high up they faint due to lack of oxygen.

It simply said I would like a lifetime friend. And they sent me to entertain this little girl. This child called Angela. Even her name hurts me when I read it. At first, we played tag. I won 50-0. She said there is no score in Tag. But I tagged her 50 times and she tagged me 0.

She showed me her drawings. In my nine-hundred years of doing this, these drawings were in the bottom 5% of “artwork” if you want to call it that. I worked with the greatest artists during the Renaissance age and now I’m working with this child in a house in the suburbs of Chicago or something. I didn’t even bother to look. I kept looking for ways out of this. I tried to be mean to this child and scare her away. But she wasn’t afraid. I tried to call her art terrible and she said “I know but you have to practice at something to get better” and that six-year olds have fun while drawing. She even tried to get me to paint something with her. And I did. A cursed image so terrifying it made Pope Clement XI call for an exorcism and almost declared painting a sin. But she just laughed and called it silly. And that I should use more colors than just black and red and white. She drew a rainbow on it. I almost burned the dwelling down in a fit of rage.

A lifetime of this positivity is going to age me terribly.

At first, our “playdates” (even saying that word hurts my bones) lasted several hours. She would get tired and fall asleep and I’d go back to my realm and start dreading the next summon. They would first be a day or two apart. She said she made a friend at her new school and that she wouldn’t need me as much.

Days became weeks. She told me she didn’t want to introduce me to her new friends because I might scare them off. That…was probably the cruelest thing anyone has ever said to me.

“She has a friend! She doesn’t need me anymore,” I shouted at the secretary.

“The contract says a life time friend. She is still alive, so you are still her friend. And whenever she calls you, you are to answer,” the secretary calmly told me. “They are orders from high above. Or down below. Whatever you want to call it.”

“So as long as this child is alive, I’m her servant?”

“No, you are her friend. There is a difference. And before you ask, you cannot harm ‘Angela’. Friends don’t hurt friends.”

I grunted and stormed out of the office. I made sure my tail knocked over a cup of pens on her desk.

At age 12, she moved again, and needed a new friend because the girls in her school were being mean to her.

“Do you want me to terrify them as payback!?” I said. I already began to imagine all the horrors I can do onto this Kaitlyn and Meghan.

“No, they are mean because their parents are probably mean towards them. It is okay. I’m tougher than I look,” she said.

“...do you want me to scare their parents? Because that’s the only thing I’m good at.”

“No. I just need a friend to talk to right now. Can I talk to you?”

“....fine. BUT DO NOT DISCARD IT AS AN OPTION.”

We talked for a few hours about how hard it is for her mom now that her dad left. She talked about how moving to a new school is like being an explorer finding a new land. You are an outcast. People spread rumors about you because you have no one to fight for you. And before I said anything, she said “No, please don’t fight my classmates”

And like before, the summons started to get fewer and far between. She had a new group of friends, from her art class (she improved from bottom 5% of all art I’ve seen to…maybe bottom 9.3%). The bullies were still there, but she kept being kind towards them. And after a while, the summons stopped altogether. My work put me on short term contracts. They were fulfilling as I was able to do what I loved: Making people miserable.

A few years later, I felt the familiar tug as I was whisked away back into Angela’s room. She was a young woman now. She said she got accepted into a place called “Stanford University” and she just wanted to share the good news.

“Mike, thank you for sharing. I want you to follow Mike’s lead and spend this week writing in your journals about one positive thing that has happened each of the 7 days. It can be something as simple as getting a good night’s…or good morning’s rest, to something major like starting to accept who you are. Next week we will share one positive thing with the group. We need to try and push out the negatives like Mike. Be like Mike. Mike has spent three years with us, and each time, he would introduce himself as a “bi-clops” but today, he finally had the courage to see that he is a Cyclops, despite him having two eyes,” I told everyone.

Some of them nodded.

“But Dr. Rose…,” Gary shyly said.

“Oh, I would like to apologize. I’m sorry to Gary and others who may be incorporeal and unable to physically lift up a writing tool to write something down. I need to be more inclusive in my wording and the way I speak. You can ask a friend or someone to write it down for you, or if you don’t want to share something personal, just be sure to remember it. Repeat it three times to yourself in the morning, afternoon and night so it really sticks in your head…er…in your thoughts.”

“We have time for one more speaker. Do any of our new participants want to share for the first time?”

Ashley slowly raised her hand.

“Yes, Ashley?”

“I would…like to talk about my situation,” she said.

“Okay, first introduce yourself, tell us a little about yourself, then open up as much, or as little, as you want.”

“Okay. My name is Ashley of the Baltic Sea. as you can see, I’m a mermaid,” she said. Her tail lifted up and splashed down in the pool we set up for her.

“Hello Ashley,” the group all said in unison.

“This is my…fifth or sixth week coming here, but my first time talking. I know some people are talking and wondering what my whole issue is and it is embarrassing to talk about and…”

“Ashley, I’m going to jump in right now and say everyone here has felt that way once upon a time. But I assure you, while there may be some natural curiosity about who you are, it comes from a positive place, one where people want to help you instead of ridicule you,” I told her.

“I…I can’t swim,” she said. She winced, anticipating laughter or shock or something. But the group was silent.

After a moment of bracing for the worst and not getting the reaction she thought, she opened up a little bit more.

“Mermaids are like birds, in a way. We have to learn how to swim. We leave our little caves and jump in the current and try to swim…but the times I did it, I just couldn’t do it. I would flop my fin back and forth but I wouldn’t go anywhere. I had to be rescued several times by my siblings, all of which are younger than me. Each time they would take me back to the cave and I’d sit there. And I’ve sat there for sixteen years now. I can’t swim. I know other mermaids talk about me. I know they laugh and I’m an embarrassment to my family. And I wish I could swim. But I just can’t…” she said.

She waited for someone to speak up and jump in with their own trauma, but again, the group was silent.

“My dad used to tell me he can’t wait to go out for our first swim, and I was so excited whenever we talked about it. He never pushed me, nor did my mom, they told me when it is time, it is time. So when I began to swim a little on my own in the little cave we lived in, I thought it would be just a matter of days before I’m in the big ocean with my dad and family and friends. But days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and months turned into 16 years. I’ve been stuck in that damn cave for 16 years. I tried, I really did. I tried every day. I still do sometimes, when no one is around. But it just…it just doesn’t work for me,” she continued.

“I don’t know what is wrong with me. Am I broken? Am I a defect?” she said, tears now welling up in her eyes. “Why me? What did I do? I just want to swim with my dad. I just want him to be happy. I know he is embarrassed that I’m never at family gatherings or functions. I know he is embarrassed when he introduces his five children, then has to explain where the sixth one, his oldest, is. I don’t want to be like this. But I just don’t know what is happening or why I can’t swim. I’d give anything to be out there in the ocean with them. I know my mom wanted to see me date and get married and start a family of my own. Who wants to get married to a defect? Who wants to get married to a mermaid who can’t swim?” her tone was getting angrier and louder.

“Ashley, I want to stop you right there. You are as you are. You are not a defect. You aren’t broken. I know it is a huge ask of me, but I want you to stop referring to yourself as one. And your feelings are normal. Everyone here, every single one, has felt the same thing you felt one time or another. Everyone here felt out of place. Everyone here felt like they didn’t belong. But slowly, we realize we are the ones that put up the walls that separated us because of the way we think. You are still a mermaid. We have a lot to work on, a lot of trauma to unpack, and I want to have a few private sessions with you in the meantime. I think you made a tremendous breakthrough today. But this is the first step in a long and difficult journey. But we are here with you,” I said.

She nodded and patted her eyes dry. “Thank you Dr. Rose.”

“Thank you Ashley for sharing,” I said. “It looks like we are out of time. But I just want to let you know we will be saying goodbye to Hector tomorrow. He isn’t here with us, he went back to his family to tell them the good news, but we will have a going away party tomorrow for him. When Hector came to us, he was a lost gnome who had really bad allergies and couldn’t stand, literally, in a garden. But! We worked with him and while we weren’t able to solve his allergies, we did find a place where Hector can live a full and happy life. He is going to intern and possibly become a gargoyle! So that’s big exciting news for him. Instead of standing guard in a garden, he will be high up in the clouds on top of the largest buildings in the world. Hopefully he’s not scared of heights,” I said, jokingly.

The group laughed a little. “And in his place, we will have a new face. My sheet tells me her name is Sonya and she's a harpy," I said.