Free By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters Page A

afterworld. Not on a computer, of course. I wonder, though, if you’re all-knowing, all-seeing. If you choose to, can you monitor activities here on Earth?
    Not that I’d want to. But if your reasons for leaving are to spite someone, or to hurt someone, it might be useful.
    Mine aren’t. I just want the pain to end.
    There are people who are leaving to get back at others, though. J_Doe111192 wrote on the Final Forum: My bf broke up with me 8 months ago today. Every day it hurts more and more. People tell me time will ease the pain, but it’s not. I found out he’s engaged and his fiancé is pregnant. He got me pregnant and made me get an abortion. I’m only 17. He killed our baby and he killed me. I want him to feel dead inside the way he makes me feel every day of my life.
    How does she know he’ll even care?
    The Final Forum is teeming with people who hate specific individuals. J_Doe122388 wrote how his three older brothers beat on him: They’d call me worthless pig shit and kick and punch me. Two held my arms while the other burned me with a lighter. Our dad hit us too but it hurt worse when my brothers took it out on me.
    I’m glad I don’t have siblings.
    J_Doe060391: In 7th grade I had this bff who I trust with my life. I told her everything all my secrets what happened to me when I was little. See my mom had a drug problem and sometimes she let men take pictures of me. I showed one to my bff and the next day it was on MySpace and everyone’s calling me a whore. She said she couldn’t be friends with a child porn star. IT WASN’T MY FAULT. Why’d she do that? Why’d she tell?
    Because no one can be trusted.
    In one day I count fifteen stories where people are cyberbullied. Like, they’d get texts or IMs harassing them, then telling them they should die. I guess they figured they might as well do it.
    I’ve been there. People trick you by saying, “Let’s IM,” and you’re so desperate to believe they’re serious, you give out your screen name. Words pop up on your screen. “Oinker.” “Jiggle jugs.” Messages like, “Derek is hot for you. He wants to take you out on a date.” You think, Really? Until the next IM: “At the all-u-can-eat buffet.”
    Why are people so cruel? What did I ever do to them?
    I can’t even count the number of stories in the Final Forum about gay people coming out. This one J_Doe wrote that his mother said, I wish you’d never been born. You’ve ruined this family.
    That’ll make you want to die.
    Some kid’s father told him, “I’d rather kill you than have you be gay.”
    He’s saving his father the trouble.
    Kim’s never said anything like that to me—I’d rather kill you than have you be fat. But she never just accepted me for the way I was. She was always, “Let’s try this new diet. We’ll do it together. I could always lose ten pounds.” She was thinking, And you could lose a hundred. Of course, I’d cheat. Or cry at the table. Then Chip would sneak me snacks at night. I don’t blame him for sabotaging my diets; he had to be on them too. Hurting Kim or Chip is not my intent. I have no intent. I have no reason to live, that’s all. When I’m gone, I don’t want to be remembered.
    I’m starting to feel anxious, so I log off. A tap on the door and Chip sticks his head in. “Whatcha doin’ now?”
    If you only knew, Chip.
    He eyes me and the computer. “Working on your story still?”
    I don’t answer. He says, “Mind if I test something?”
    He comes in and I get up out of the chair. I move to the bed. He powers on my PC and goes, “I sent you a message. I just want to make sure you got it.”
    Don’t lie to me, Chip. All men are liars. I hate believing my dad is one of “those men.”
    It’s hard to watch him sitting there, keying into my computer, hoping to key into my brain.
    It’s the one place you have no access to, Chip.
    “Is it a Word file? I won’t read it—unless you want me to.” He swivels his head and smiles.