Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

By the time she was five, Natalie understood that she had no father, she had a mother who seemed to love her brother a lot more than her, and that her brother was invisible. 

For a while, whenever her mother would speak to “Gabe”, she would try to make her stop. 

“There’s no one there mommy.” 

Diana would get very upset. “Don’t treat your brother that way.” She was so insistent about it that Natalie ultimately concluded that her mysterious brother was simply invisible, and she shouldn’t mention it to her mother anymore.

They celebrated Gabe’s sixth birthday, and when Natalie tried to play with the new toys, her mother strictly told her not to take her brother’s things. When she eventually relented enough to tell Gabe to share with his baby sister, Natalie wondered how she could know if he was sharing if she couldn’t see or hear him. 

Diana would often play with Gabe, but rarely with Natalie.  Sometimes she would leave Natalie alone, telling Gabe to play nice with her. Natalie sat in an empty room, staring into space, as if expecting that the elusive Gabriel might materialise; she even tried speaking out loud once or twice, with a vague hope that if she just believed in Gabe, like her mother did, he would appear, and talk to her, and play with her. But nobody was there, so she just sat in the eerie silence, only ever speaking to Gabe when her mother prompted it.

Starting school was the first time Natalie had been around other children for an extended period. People talked and smiled and played with her, and with each other, no one stared blankly into the distance, or talked to people who weren’t there.

She wasn’t very talkative herself, used to being alone or ignored. The teachers tried to coax her into socialising. After many questions one of them asked her “Do you have any siblings Natalie?” 

That was a question she felt confident in. So she told them “I have a brother, his name is Gabe, he’s two years older than me, and he’s invisible.”

‘The teacher laughed cheerfully, “Invisible? Does your brother have superpowers?”

“No, he’s just invisible.” 

“Oh I see, is he a special, imaginary friend that only you can see?” The teacher didn’t get it. Gabe wasn’t Natalie’s friend, he was her mother’s, only she could see him, Natalie couldn’t. She shook her head.

“Gabe’s real.” That she knew for sure. The teacher just smiled.

“Of course he’s real.”

Natalie enjoyed school. She liked to learn, she especially liked music class, but most of all she liked spending hours away from her mother’s mood swings and her invisible brother. 

She started to talk more, though people still saw her as shy, and she often preferred to play alone. 

One day the teacher told the class that they were going to make family portraits. Natalie drew herself first, carefully colouring inside the lines; then she drew her mother, hesitating before giving her a large happy smile, she thought about the days her mom would smile so much it looked like it hurt. Then Natalie paused, she didn’t know if she should draw her brother, he was invisible, she didn’t know what he looked like. She looked around at her classmates, everyone else seemed to be drawing a mom and a dad, and siblings too. She felt sad looking at her drawing; it had to be her whole family. She drew Gabe slightly taller than her, she gave him curly hair the same colour as her own, she drew him in between her and her mom.

When the teacher came round to look at the drawings she stopped at Natalie and asked her “Who’s this?” Pointing at Gabe.

“My brother.”

“Oh, you mean your invisible brother?” Natalie nodded. She wrote the names under her portrait as she had been instructed. “Mommy”, “Gabriel” and “Natalie”.

At the parent-teacher conference, Diana was pleased to hear that her daughter was doing well. She interrupted the teacher excitedly, exclaiming “I knew she would be a star, just like her brother, he’s top of the class you know, and very popular with the other kids.”

The teacher seemed somewhat taken aback. “Oh, I didn’t know you also had a son.” 

Diana laughed. “Of course I do! Nat, didn’t you mention Gabriel to your teacher.” Her voice was somewhat accusing. 

“Oh Gabriel, yes she’s told me all about him, but she said he was invisible, I admit I thought he was just an imaginary friend.” The teacher laughed awkwardly.

Diana’s face dropped. “He is real.” Her voice was dark and the teacher looked alarmed.

“Of course. I just thought…”

“Natalie! How could you tell your teacher that your brother isn’t real!” People turned to stare at the scene Diana had started making. 

The teacher went to jump in, but Natalie was faster, more experienced.

“I didn’t mean it! I was just saying that because…” her mother never liked Natalie to mention the fact that she was unable to see her brother like her mother could. She thought about what her teacher had said. “Because he‘s special, he has superpowers!” She exclaimed. 

This seemed to be the right thing to say. Diana cooled her expression and turned back to the teacher, “As you can see, my daughter loves her brother very much.” 

From that day on, kids would whisper behind Natalie’s back, talking about her crazy mom. It only got worse after more parent events, it seemed like one could never pass without some sort of incident. 

Her teacher would still ask her about her family, one day she dared to wonder why Gabe had never been seen at the school. Natalie simply answered that “He’s invisible.” The teacher stopped asking after that, and soon the year was over, she started in a new class, but the whispers didn’t stop.