Abused and cancerous to adopted by matpat

The secret's out

-next day-

I walked into Spanish class and Alex was already there. Roddy was sitting in the back of the class, arms crossed, pouted lip, and giving us a menacing glare. "The live was so good yesterday! Do you play Roblox?" Alex enthusiastically asked. "Haven't played for a while, want to play sometime?" I asked. "Yeah! My user is AlphaWolfLOLER!" I wrote it down on a little sticky note and shoved it into my jacket pocket. "I will friend you after school." I told him. Just then, Ms. Garny came into class and set her stuff down.

After Spanish class I happened to walk by the drama classroom. There were a few stacks of paper on a wooden table in front of a bulletin board. I viewed the board and skimmed over the papers. The bulletin board was filled with information about Newsies and the papers were audition monologues and song excerpts. I looked through the papers but wasn't quite sure if I wanted to audition for Katherine or Pulitzer. I took both audition pieces so I could decide at home. I would need some time to not only decide but also practice. I looked over the clipboards with audition slots and put my name for 4:00 next Monday.

-after school-

When I got on the bus the soft chatter of the other kids turned into malicious laughter. I thought it was a little odd but didn't think much of it. I sat down on the fifth seat to the right side. As I sat down I felt a kick on the back of the seat. I thought nothing of it but then I felt it again, then a third time. It was getting a bit frustrating at this point so I turned around. "Can you please stop kicking the seat?" I asked. "Okay, BARCODE!" He blurted out before uncontrollably giggling. I turned back around and sleekly rolled up my sleeve so only I could see it. The thin cut marks from my wrist to my lower arm were still visible. How would that kid know? I opened my phone and saw a text from Nora. She was linking a TikTok video. I clicked on it and saw the horror unfold.

During the livestream I naively pulled my sleeves up to my elbows. The video zoomed in on my arm, lined with slits. I shut off my phone. No...no! This couldn't be happening! Now EVERYBODY knew!!! When the bus came to a hissing stop, I bolted off and ran home.

I burst through the door and threw my backpack onto the floor. Steph was petting Skip on the couch. When I came in the door, Skip leaped off her lap and ran upstairs. "Hey y/n, what's the rush?" She asked me. "People know! Everybody knows!" I started to panic. "Everybody knows what?" She followed up. "My sleeves were rolled up on the livestream and my wrist was showing! Everyone watching saw!" My voice cracked. Steph bit her lip at the news. "Okay, first just calm down." I took a few deep breaths. "We can look over the footage and edit it. The mods can take down any comments mentioning it. This is fixable." She assured. "People have made videos about it! And a lot of people have already SEEN it!" My mind started to spiral again. "We can report those videos but there is only so much we can do." I began hyperventilating. Mat came down the stairs.

"What's going on?" He questioned. "Her arm was visible on the livestream yesterday..." Steph explained. "It will be fine, we can just edit the video and no one will find out." He comforted. "People already know! Some kid kept saying "barcode" to me on the bus!" They looked at each other. "We will figure this out." Mat said. I picked up my backpack and went to my room. I closed the door all the way and called Nora. "Are you OKAY?" She said after picking up. "I'm fine, don't worry about that. The thing is...people at my school know." "Are you sure?" "On the bus I was being called barcode." Nora clenched her teeth. "On a better note...I am officially moving to Raleigh! My mom decided that the job offer was way too good to pass up. On Saturday I am going to move there!"

My face brightened. "ACTUALLY!?" I excitedly questioned. "DEAD SERIOUS!" "Thats AWESOME!" "I am going to be attending (your school)" "I GO THERE!!!" "Oh and since you are coming on Saturday, you will be able to audition for Newsies!" "I've always wanted to be in Newsies!!! I am TOTALLY auditioning for Katherine." "If you are auditioning for Katherine, I am going to audition for Pulitzer." I told her. She muted herself for a quick second before saying "I've got to go, talk to you later."

I put my hand in my pocket and felt the sticky note. I had almost forgotten to friend Alex! I opened the Roblox app on my phone and searched "AlphaWolfLOLER" and clicked on "users" expecting him to show up. There were a few results so I just friended the first one. I turned off my phone and opened my school computer. I had a little bit of homework to do. I got halfway through my rough draft for English class and was interrupted by a notification on my phone. I checked it and saw that my friend request was accepted. I went to the personal chat and saw that he was already typing. "This is y/n, right?" He chatted. "Yeah." I responded. Right after that a text from Birdseed popped up. I went to it.

"Are you good?" They asked me. "Yes, I am fine. Is it about the wrist thing?" I replied, a little annoyed. "Yeah, are you SURE you are okay though? Do you want to talk?" "I appreciate the offer but not really." "K" I was so relieved that they weren't pestering me about it. "Do you want to hang out sometime? Maybe this weekend?" They messaged. "Sure, I am free."