Teenage Revenge @TeenageRevenge
thinking of suicide? you may not be alone! Come visit us on our blog #suicide #TeenageSuicide #StandUpForYourself #retweet #follow
~How many tweets are you going to write?~
"As many as it takes to get the word out. I'm attaching the link to our blog Luke gave me. He said it's finished. We have to see this."
~I think you're getting the word out all right. Look at your feed. It's going to crash the site.~
"I wish."
~Me too. Can you imagine the news story?~
"Now that'd be a story worth posting. TeenageRevenge Twitter Feed Crashes the Official Twitter Site."
~Look, MJ! It's growing again! You've got 60,000 followers now! We need to see the blog.~
"Sure, in a minute. Look, Luke and Angelica are tweeting on TeenageRevenge too."
~Can I do my own tweet? Please?~
"Go ahead."
Teenage Revenge @TeenageRevenge
I refuse to be choked by endless rules, I refuse to be bullied, I refuse to be told who I am! Changing the rules of the Choking Game!
"Where are your famous hashtags?"
~Honestly, I don't give a damn. We have more followers than we could have ever dreamed of. Now it's time for me to be heard! Finally, I have a real voice! I'm not just some creepy, crazy little voice that sounds off in your stubborn head. My Twitter platform is huge, and I can type tweets to hundreds of thousands of followers who will read and retweet. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy.~
"Am I officially insane?"
~What? You're not happy for me?~
"Should I be happy for you? I mean, you're my inner voice! And now you're going completely rogue on me and tweeting like a maniac!"
~Are you suggesting you don't like it?~
"What? The tweets?"
~Both. My tweets and my newly found freedom to vent my opinions.~
"I like it. I think it's cool."
~Gosh, I dig your blog!~
"You dig it? That's a first for you. I think you're reading too many tweets."
~Luke did a great job. And you guys already have like twelve thousand members. What's up with that? How many kids are dealing with bullies these days?~
"You'd be surprised. I think we'll have a huge following here too. Kids like to share stories."
~Life is full of them. All you have to do is open your eyes and your heart. Like I said before, even bad things can make good stories.~
"MJ! Did you see our YouTube account?" Luke turned from his locker.
"I checked it yesterday. We had a lot of likes."
~We sure did!~
"It's going freaking viral!" Luke slammed his locker shut and pulled out his cell phone to search YouTube.
"Let me see."
~No way!~
"I'm shocked!" Angelica dropped her brand new phone when she saw the number of likes on their video.
"Am I so shockingly good-looking that you're dropping your phone?" Ethan's startled everyone.
Angelica quickly picked up her phone. "Ethan! Can I take your picture?"
"Sure, sweetheart!" Ethan smirked.
"Here we go," Angelica snapped the picture and motioned Ethan to look at her phone. "Take a good look at this site. It's a place for kids to share their stories of bullies and assholes and people like you. Now look at how many members this site already has. Twelve thousand and growing. If you ever bother me or anyone else in this school again, I will make sure your picture is on this site and on every Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or Snapchat these twelve thousand kids share. Trust me, you'll never recover from this one. Do we understand each other?"
Ethan's panicked face turned ghost white as he turned around and walked away as quickly as he could.
"Guys, I really think we're onto something," Luke said. "I mean, our blog can barely handle all the new registrations, Angelica just scared the living daylights out of a big ass bully, and our video's going viral. Guys, we have so much work to do, it's freaking me out!"
"I hope you're not going to check out on us anytime soon, MJ," Angelica said. "You have like a hundred songs to write and who knows how many posts for the blog. Luke and I can't do it all. We have a purpose. Maybe it's not the real, big purpose of life itself, but it's big and important enough for now. This is a chance of a lifetime. We can really nail this."
"I hear you. Happy?"
~I'd be happier if you'd make a commitment, but it'll have to do for now.~
"Where's your phone, MJ?" Angelica said. "I see Brenna sauntering down the hallway. Snap a good one and have fun chatting with her." Angelica winked, picked up her backpack and hurried to catch up with Luke.
Teenage Revenge @TeenageRevenge
stay true to yourself; never worry about what other people think − why would you give anyone that kind of power over you?
~I thought it was neat how you handled Brenna.~
"I wish I’d done it when she first put me down."
~At least you're done, just like Angelica. You can move on now.~
"By the way, I really like your tweet. I think it's going to get a lot of retweets even though it has no hashtags. And, for what it's worth, I don't mind listening to you anymore."
~Since we're kind of making up here, I was wondering why you never called me by a name.~
"Because you don't have a name."
~Why don't you give me a name?~
"Uhm..."
~Is that so hard? Don't think about it. What's the first thing that comes to your mind?~
"Uhm, Junior?"
~Like MJ, Junior?~
"Why not?"
~Are you suggesting we're finally one? Wait, don't answer that. I'll settle for we're getting there...~
"You just can't help your psychobabble, can you?"
~You love it! Admit it!~
"No, I don't, but don't worry, I won't end your bliss so quickly."
~You're hurting my feelings.~
"You have no feelings for crying out loud! You're nothing! You're an annoying inner voice that only exists because I let you."
~This is where you're wrong, my friend. I do exist, like it or not. There are some things you can't prove or touch but there's no doubt they exist. Take a thought, for example. Where does a thought come from? Where is it? You can't touch it but you know it exists. Well, the same goes for me. Where does a soul come from? Where is it? You can't touch me, but you know I exist because I speak, scream and nag at you every single day. Deep down, you know I exist.
~We've come a long way, my dear. We started so far apart, I worried we'd never find the way back. And then a couple of angels crossed our path and together we made new stories. I know life isn't always bright and perfect, but it's the balance you should be looking for. I wonder, what color do you think balance is?~
"White."
~White?~
"It's clean. Even. There's no heavy black or light pink. You can make up your own good and bad piles because white will let you start on an even playing field."
~That's good. Now close your eyes and imagine yourself standing in the middle of white. It's everywhere, it’s covered everything that has happened before up until now.~
"Okay. I did."
~Good. This is your new life, MJ. You don't need to carry the burden of the past because the past is gone; you can't bring it back. What you have is now. You said so yourself in your song— white is timeless now. It's even, as both of your piles are empty. The best way to make sure the bad pile never grows higher than the good one is to love yourself because that's the kind of love nothing can ever top.~
"And how do you suggest I do that?"
~That's simple. I already love you. All you have to do is love me back.~
AUTHOR'S NOTE
This book was inspired by the tragic death of a young boy who made the mistake of playing the dangerous choking game. For months, I witnessed the outpouring of sadness, confusion, and genuine heartbreak his friends and schoolmates confessed on Facebook. I knew back
then that I’d write a book about teenage suicide, even though this boy’s death was entirely accidental. I paid a lot of attention to my own children and their friends, and I researched everything I could to identify reasons for this growing phenomenon. In the end, I came to an alarming conclusion that despite all of the material “things” teens have these days, their world is far more difficult to deal with than the teenage world previous generations had lived in.
I deliberately did not mention whether MJ is a teenage girl or a boy in the book. I wanted to allow readers to see the character for themselves, to feel MJ’s struggle based on some of their own experiences. MJ has several reasons to be depressed and even suicidal; some are unique, some may be surprisingly common among today's teens. I tried my best to write this story as an inner journey of a young character into the depth of his/her soul and the world we live in.
Please let me know what you think on my website www.yvetagermano.com
*******
I would like to thank Nick Wale, the book marketing genius, for the hard work on my behalf; and his wife Lori Wale, my clever and very competent editor. A special 'thank you' goes to Petr Šrutka for creating the electronic format of this book.
I'm also very thankful to Leona Nováková for the amazing book cover art and the drawings inside the book. I would not have been able to create the cover without the help of my daughter, Veronica Germano, who painted the book background and carefully burned the edges of the paper I placed under the cover art.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yveta Germano was born in the Czech Republic where she spent her teenage years goofing off, singing in a band, studying several foreign languages, dreaming about faraway places, and writing stories and book ideas in a journal no one had ever seen. In her early twenties, she moved to the United States and has worked hard ever since to fulfill every dream she had as a teen. One of those dreams was to write until all of the stories worth telling made it to their readers. She is still keeping her journal, which is why she will never stop writing.
A graduate of Bentley University, she lives with her family in Atlanta, Georgia.
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