I go to my room and pace, energy pumping through me. It’s Dee. She’s whispering, elbowing her way in, pushing me to be bolder. Every time I get images in my head from the party, whenever I think of all the assholes, all the bitches, the people who said they were friends, the liars and lions and wolves, whenever I just want to stay home, whenever I doubt, she boosts me up: Think of tomorrow. You can do this.

I’m ready.

The last thing I need to do, before I go to bed, is test it. I leave the house and walk quietly in the dark to the woods and the creek nearby. It’s so silent here, so peaceful. It will help to set me free. I consider how different I am from everyone. I hang my head. But she’s here: Dee pushes me to see through the detritus and sadness, to recognize opportunities for real justice and change, or at the very least have the balls to do something. I know, deep in my heart, that this is necessary, that everyone else is just too scared to take a stand.

I set up the perfect target—my phone. But before I destroy it, I open it one last time. Notifications adding up, more and more and more. So many texts, so many images of me, of my body.

No. Enough.

I lay it against a tree and walk back a small distance. I can barely see it, that tiny little pocket bomb that has haunted me for so long. It’s there, though. Shiny pink case glinting in the moonlight. I can almost see its beating heart. I can nearly hear it. Pulsing, throbbing. Trying, dying to draw me in. I know who’s in there, who’s out there.

I stand firm. I place a firecracker inside it. I light the wick. I take aim.

My shoulder kicks, something small hits me in the face, but it works. It works! I quickly put in another one, and do it again, ready for the power this time. My heart racing, and ears ringing with the noise, the thrill of this cold, shocking, real deliverance from evil, the bold potential I have created out of nothing, I take the charred and tiny pieces that are left of that little phone bomb and throw them in my bag. No one can contact me now. No one can follow or comment on me anymore. And for that, I give myself a million likes.

Chapter 30

30

Monday morning.

I’m not like those other guys. I’m not going to get decked out in camo and wear a bullet belt and do a YouTube video proclaiming that this is the Reckoning and everyone is going to pay for my misfortune.