He Ruined My Life (#Wattys2015)

Chapter IX

I was awoken by the ringtone of my phone. I sat up in bed slowly and checked the time. 5:46 AM. Who on earth would phone me at this time? I decided to ignore it, but the phone kept ringing. This person was sure desperate. I groaned, moved my shoulder to one side, and picked up the phone.

"Hello?" I said into it blearily.

"Alysse, why in the world didn't you tell me?!" Came Erik's frantic voice from the other side.

"What? Excuse me, I don't get you."

"Alysse, you have to wake up right now. Check the New York Times. Check google. Check yahoo. Just log onto any search engine or any newspaper."

"Okay, why?"

"Stop messing around! JUST FREAKING DO IT NOW!" He yells.

"Fine." I grumble and climb out of bed, my hair in a tangle. I stumble to my computer and log onto the New York Times. I saw a picture of someone's waist with a bunch of scars on them. Probably another attempt from some desperate person at suicide. I open the page.

My eyes widen. My breathing hitches. Oh no. This can't be happening.

"A strange girl, age thirteen, has a rare case. She had been born with various scars on her waist. It is an extremely rare birth defect that sometimes appears. These scars don't occur on any normal human being.

This girl's name is Alyssandra Erins. Her online date, Chase Sunner, has reported her condition online.

'When I first saw them, I was horrified." He had said. "These things were definitely not human. I never bargained for this. When I first met Alyssandra online, I had always thought of her as an interesting, calm and amazing girl. I never knew she had such a serious case.'

However, some other theories have been reported. Some people who responded to Chase's online post had said that they were sure Miss Erins had been lying to Chase.

'Any person could easily tell these were marks of self harm." Aaron Westerfield, Chase's closest friend, had said. 'She was probably trying to hide the fact that she was suicidal from Chase. Of course, it didn't work.' But she was close, definitely close."

I couldn't read on anymore. I couldn't believe that Chase would just turn around and become such a terrible person. I went onto Facebook and quickly wrote an angry message to Chase.

"Chase, you had no right to tell everyone what you said online. You took it well that day. If you were freaked out, you could have just told me. It's really not so hard to tell the truth. What you did there was really, really mean."

The response was immediate.

"Well, Alysse, cheer up. You're not the only one. Trust me, you're only one in a million! Yeah, I wasn't freaked out. I just needed someone to hurt. And you were so clueless and gullible, of course you could never have avoided this! I'm sorry, I couldn't resist playing around with your feelings a bit. Really, life isn't fair, life is mean. Face that."

"So you're expecting me to be forgiving you because life isn't fair?! You expect me not to report you?"

"Oh come on Alysse, stop being naïve. Nobody's going to listen to you. Everyone knows you're a freak now. And besides, if you really even attempt to report me, I've got more pictures and I've also got your secrets. And plus, I know what the most important thing in your household now! I know where you live, and I can easily just kill your dog. Face it Alysse. You lost. You're a total loser!"

I stared at his message with disbelief. Was that person kidding me?! The nerve!

"Well, I may have lost, but you didn't win anything!" I retorted over.

"Well I do win with the satisfaction of destroying your entire life. I consume lives. Like I did with yours."

That was it. I blocked him.

"Oh my gosh, I cannot believe what happened today." I said, as soon as our group assembled.

"We all know, Alysse. Why didn't you tell us? We never, let me repeat, never kept stuff from each other. And plus, you told this "Chase" person more than you told us. No wonder you had been so distracted. You didn't want anything to do with me, didn't you?" Leah said flatly.

"But--"

"You think we are going to help you just because you just encountered an error? Well, an error you never even told us of? Face it Alyssandra. It's over."

"What is over?"

"Everything. Our friendship. Our fun days. I don't think you fit us. You go find your own new group that lies to each other without batting an eye. You may think you don't deserve it, but we don't deserve to be lied to, we don't deserve to live like we do, we don't deserve to get our hearts broken by you." Leah said. She and the group left me.

"No, Leah, please." I say. I pull on her shoulder. She immediately flinched away.

"Don't touch me!" She said. They walked quickly and disappeared. Realization dawned on me. I was not part of their group anymore. I had made a major mistake. I sank down to my knees onto the pavement. I buried my head in them and moaned softly from the inner pain I was feeling. Why should I go to school? My life was worthless now anyways.

People passed me. I heard lots of their whispers: "Is that Alyssandra Erins? The little [insert any insulting word]." "That's definitely her. She deserves to die. She isn't human anyways. She's like swine."

People who recognized me spat at my feet and kicked me, but I was too sad to care. One person kicked me especially hard in the shin, and I moaned into my legs again. It really hurt. I was distracted by my inner pain by the outer pain. When the throbbing subsided, I felt the emotions crashing down on me again. That pain from the kick was painful, but that kind of pain was something light compared to the emotional pain I endured.

Then it dawned on me. I had only one solution. That solution is self harm.