Imaginary friends

Little Lacey woke up, her Parents were hovering over her. But, Why? What happened? Why was her Mommy crying? There they were on either side of her bed. Her Daddy smiled down on her and she smiled back.
“It hurts, Daddy.” She whispered.
He chuckled and told his little girl that everything would be all right. She'd just woke up after a  surgery to correct a problem the 3 year old had with her heart. It had seemed like forever, waiting for the Doctors to finish the task. And even longer for their little girl to wake up once they finally brought her out of recovery.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lacey noticed 2 little girls peeking at her from her hospital room door. One of them had long brown hair that was pulled into two loose ponytails. The other had shorter and straighter hair. She was a bit smaller than her friend though. The two of them giggled from behind  their tiny little hands covering their mouths. Lacey sat up a little bit and smiled at them right before they disappeared.
                                   
A few days later Lacey was up and running around. Pestering the nurses and causing general havoc on the floor with her new friends. They had so much fun together. Peeking at the other patients lying in their beds, giggling and running away when they'd open their eyes and either wink at the girls or shake a fist at them. The 3 of them were inseparable.
Soon it would be time for Lacey to go home. She was better now and had more energy than she'd ever had before in her short, little life. But, she was sad because she'd have to say goodbye to her new friends.
“I don't wanna go home. I wanna stay here with you.” Lacey said to them that last morning in the hospital room. Her Mother had gone down the hall to the nurse's station to sign some papers leaving her alone with her friends.
“We'll come with you.” They both said with a smile. And it was done. They were coming home with Lacey. She thought to herself, Daddy was right. Everything was going to be alright.

Months went by and Lacey started growing. She was getting taller and her speech was getting better. Soon she would be old enough to go off to school. But until then her days were filled with watching cartoons and playing with her 2 best friends. She'd spent many afternoons with the girls, playing with dolls or coloring pictures in her coloring books. They were always perfectly happy to do whatever Lacey wanted to do and go where ever Lacey went. They never fought with her, They were never mean to her. They were always the best friends a little girl could want. Late at night, after her Mom and Dad had put her to bed. Her friends would come and they'd all sit talking on the bedroom floor until one of her parents would yell for her to go to sleep. But, they'd just curl up and play with dolls under the covers.
Lacey's older sister liked to pick on her, for some reason it made her sister happy to tease and torment her. She was always saying mean things that hurt Lacey's feelings. She couldn't figure out why her sister didn't like her. 
“Whatcha doin' Brat?”, her sister would ask.
“Playin dolls.” she'd tell her.
“Who ya talkin to? Your imaginary friends?”, her sister would tease.
Lacey didn't know what 'imaginary' meant. But she could tell by the way her sister laughed at her when she said it, that it wasn't good. Her friends would always shy away and go hide whenever her big sister came around. They were afraid of her. They didn't like Lacey's Big sister.

Everyone made fun of Lacey's 'Imaginary friends', and she didn't understand why. The few times Lacey talked about her friends everybody would laugh at her and tell her that they didn't exist. They tried to tell her that they couldn't see them. Why couldn't they see them? They were right there! Two little girls. One with pony tails and one with short, straight hair. Just like they've always been. Every day!
“You just can't see them cuz they hides from you.” Lacey explained one day.
“No, nobody can see them because you made them up! They're not real! They don't exist!”, her sister would yell. Many times as they played outside with the neighborhood kids, Lacey's big sister would tease her in front of the other kids making Lacey cry. It made her sad when people would make fun of her. Soon, Lacey wouldn't even talk about her friends and people slowly forgot about them. They stopped teasing her too and as school started Lacey was distracted by new friends and school work. Her friends didn't come around to play very much any more.
As time went by, Lacey barely noticed as her friends starting slowly fading from her young memory. They would live in a tiny little room in the back of her mind, quietly waiting to be remembered. Every once in a while someone would bring them up, laughing about them again. Lacey would just smile and take ribbing she's get and the push the memory of her two friends further and further into the back of her mind until after a while she'd nearly forgotten them entirely.
Years later, Lacey had grown into a young woman with children of her own. One day, she was watching a television program about hauntings. A little girl had made friends with the spirits who haunted their New England home, one of which was the ghost of a little girl who had died in the area from Small pox hundreds of years before.
From that day on, Lacey knew the truth about her childhood friends. It didn't bother her so much anymore when people teased her about her “imaginary friends”. Now, Lacey just smiles and quietly thanks those two little girls who blessed her in her early years with the best friends a little girl could ask for.