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

There’s, like, terror in his eyes.
    I can’t look at him.
    He turns back. “Everything seems to be working.”
    Except me. I’m broken.
    “Okay. All your files are set to ‘shared.’ I promise not to read them unless you ask me to.”
    I wish I could trust him, my own dad. He’s the one who hacked into my computer and found out I’d been on the suicide boards again. Strictly verboten.
    I wonder how he’d react to Through-the-Light. If he believes a Web site has the power to influence me to kill myself. Would he find the comfort I do in knowing I’m not alone? In feeling acceptance for my decision? No one’s putting thoughts in my head, Chip, that weren’t already there.
    He stands. “How about a bowl of Ben and Jerry’s?”
    That’s his answer to everything. It used to be mine too. Now I have a more permanent solution.
    I get up to follow him.
    I can’t sleep. I know what’s bugging me. I need to choose a method. The last method I chose was absolutely wrong.
    To sit at my desk, I have to strap on the neck brace. It’s a pain.
    I log on to Through-the-Light and select WTG .
    Bullet to the Head
    Effectiveness: 4–5 if done properly.
    Time: If well aimed, instantaneous.
    Availability: Easy in USA; more difficult in countries where guns are illegal, such as UK, China, Australia.
    Pain: 4–5.
    Notes: If you don’t die, you will experience excruciating pain and brain damage. Lots of willpower is needed to fire a gun at yourself. Bullet can miss vital parts in brain or deflect off skull. Preferable to use a shotgun rather than a pistol. For ammunition use .458 Winchester Magnum or soft-point slugs with .44 Magnum. People usually survive single .22 shots to the temple. Extremely messy for people who have to clean up after you.
    No blood this time. Chip and Kim are still recovering from all the blood after the times I slit my wrists. Yeah, I failed more than once trying that method.
    Someone’s coming. I have to power down.
    Lie in bed. Play dead.
    It’s Chip again. I know his breathing. I make sure he hears mine so he’ll leave.
    As I lie there, breathing audibly, I’m thinking, Stupid screen name, hervehotsu. Why’d he have to make it so memorable?
    I haven’t used IM in years. Not since the last time someone wrote, “r u the freak who slit her wrists? Why didnt u die?” That was long before Chip and Kim took my computer away the last time. When I got it back, it was understood: New start. Renewed trust. But we will restrict your usage with parental controls and traces, the way we did before. Please, Daelyn, promise. No suicide chat rooms.
    I want to tell them, Kim, Chip. Computers don’t kill.
    I wait for his footsteps on the stairs.
    All this up and down, bed to desk, is taking it out of me.
    The weakness, the emotional and physical impotence makes me do it. I check my old screen name. It’s there. How weird. People could be history, gone for years, and their IM accounts would still be active. If I’d known, I never would’ve laid tracks.
    I create a new screen name. Random letters and numbers. It makes me flash back to this time an IM popped up on my screen: “I saw you in the shower in gym. Guess what? I took your picture.”
    Immediately I deleted the three people on my buddy list. I’d only created that list because of a group project in history and someone suggested we talk on IM. So we wouldn’t have to meet in person, of course. So they wouldn’t be seen with me.
    As soon as I got that message, my heart beat a hole in my chest. Oh my God, I thought. What if they put that picture on the Internet?
    For weeks and weeks I searched. MySpace. Facebook. Twitter. I got so paranoid I couldn’t go to school. I made myself sick with worry. I cried so much Mom called the doctor.
    Like a doctor could fix me.
    I hate IM. It takes all my willpower to add him to my buddy list. As I key “hervehotsu,” my pulse races. “r u there?”
    No response.
    I let out a relieved breath. He’s not online.