He Ruined My Life (#Wattys2015)

Afterword

Alysse: Even though she says she won't, Alysse lives her entire life relying on the blade. She has no choice. Kent told her to be brave, and she kept that strong face all the way until her death of natural causes. But her life wasn't easy. She emo-phased. Most people forgot about the scars after a few years, but that memory made her permanently scarred. I know usually living would be a good choice for depressed people, but not on the case of Alysse. There wasn't anything anyone could do for her, and she took the harder choice: living.

Erik: Erik had been devastated when he heard about what Alysse had done. He never stopped caring about her, and he never married or got a girlfriend. In the end, he killed himself.

Chase: a few years after, Chase ran out of people to torture and had tried to target Leah. But Leah, already knowing what the outcome was based on Alysse's experience, reported him quickly and Chase went to Juvenile Detention for a while. His parents and brother got in a lot of trouble, so did a lot of bystanders and conspirators like his friend, Aaron Westerfield. It was also revealed that he had been addicted to heroin, and consumed large amounts of alcohol since he was in seventh grade. The first time he got drunk was in eighth grade. It was on his permanent record and he had been placed in a troubled kids academy.

Leah: even though she didn't show it, Leah had always cared about Alysse. She was her only best friend who was a girl. When Leah saw Chase online, she immediately reported him and got back at him. She had also seen him on the streets with some of his friends and she started fighting him because of what he had done. This resulted in a broken spine, and she was handicapped for the rest of her life.

Cameron and Nick: they were both very, very angry at Alysse. They were so angry that they didn't even pretend to care about her. This resulted with the group breaking up completely, and each person found their new group eventually.

Kent: he had always been the supportive big brother of Alysse, and he never stopped trying to help her.

Arabella: she was given the opportunity to be team captain, but she declined it. She didn't feel like she deserved it since Alysse was still a better player than her. Which really meant a lot, since Arabella had dreamt of being team captain for a long time.

This work is entirely fictional. Don't worry, there Alysse isn't an actual real life person, and all the others are fictional too. Sadly, even if Alysse was real, she would be one in a thousand. Many people are cyberbullied daily, and they might not show it. However, if you know someone who is bullied like that, you should report it and try to help them even if they deny that they need help, because NEWSFLASH! They do!

Cyberbullying, in my opinion, is the worst kind of bullying. This causes you humiliation not only in a small area, but from people all over the world. Besides, cyberbullying is a lot harsher since it's obvious that it is intended to hurt you, whereas normal bullying is sometimes unintentional.

I actually have a real life story to relate to this. There is an app called Quizup, and you do a bunch of quizzes with an opponent on different categories. The person who wins gets a bunch of points. So I was competing in "The Fault in Our Stars" category, and I ended up rematching this guy a bazillion times, and we ended up chatting on the messages. Then, one day, in a sleepover, I checked Quizup with my friend, and I saw he had written me this message:

"Hi. Um, I love you."

So I sent back:

"I'm sorry, what?"

The next day, I checked his messages again, and this was what he wrote:

"Yeah, I luv you so much babe, wanna get married?"

And I'm just barely a teenager, so I freaked out and I just blocked him. I told best friends about it, and they told me that I may have hurt his feelings a lot. I said, "What would you have done if some random dude you found online asked to be engaged to you?!"

But now that I think of it, I did it to protect myself. I didn't want a fate like Alysse's. I mean, I didn't know how old he was, I didn't know where he was from, I didn't know a thing about him apart from the fact that he has read the Fault in Our Stars and is literate in English. But I couldn't help thinking that I maybe should have sent him a message saying I'm only a girl and I don't know a thing about him so no before blocking him. But it's too late now. I forgot his account and everything.

But yeah. I recently joined the #NoMoreBullying challenge, and I think it's a great program since it creates awareness of bullying and spreads the word. I know Wattpad is a very popular website and lots of people are on it. I had a bunch of books with the #NoMoreBullying flag on them even before I actually knew about the challenge. It's a popular program, and I hope that it can expand to make sure everyone is aware. Bullying is one of the many evils that plague the teenage (or non-teenage) world today, and I hope we can stop it.

I have noticed that there is a lot of bullying on Wattpad too, with people saying that xxxx story sucks on the comments or "your story sucks so much I'm going to ask my friend who works for Wattpad to delete your account". Of course, Wattpad wouldn't delete an account just because the story isn't good enough, Wattpad has their reasons for deleting accounts, and they are good reasons. I think we should report this to Wattpad if we see it, and if you are a victim of this, I suggest you tell Wattpad IMMEDIATELY.

The main purpose for this story is to tell people about cyberbullying and increase awareness. I, as a former Girl Scout, feel the responsibility to do this.

So STOP CYBERBULLYING.

Thanks to all of you who bothered to read the long and probably pretty boring essay on bullying.

And thanks to all of you who made it to the end of the book! I was really into writing this story, and I'm pretty sad it has to end :-(. But now I have more time to write my others.

Eugeniax.

The End