Read Online By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters - Free Book Online
Authors: Julie Anne Peters
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult
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couldn’t quit. My parents wouldn’t let me.
I’m still back there, dying inside.
* * *
If I prop up two pillows I can lie down in bed without my brace. I wish I had a laptop. My head can turn without too much trauma if I’m at a forty-five-degree angle. I see the wedge of paper. It can sit there for the rest of my life.
15 days. Occupy my mind. How many hours is that? I break down the equation in my head:
15 days X 24 hours in a day = ?
15 is the sum of 10 and 5.
10 X 24 = 240
5 X 20 = 100
5 X 4 = 20
240 + 100 + 20 = 360
360 is the circumference of a circle. I will have come full circle.
In how many minutes? 360 X 60 minutes. Too many to calculate in my head. More than a few. My focus wanes and my eyes flicker over it. I’m not opening the note.
Self-control. He got that right.
I gaze up at the ceiling. Through it. Past Kim and Chip’s room on the second floor into the sky, space, heaven, hell. Who says hell is down? It could be up. It could be next door to heaven. Hell could be a subset of heaven, like a ghetto in the middle of a glass city.
How long will it take for me to get to where I’m going? It will be instantaneous, I hope. Do you actually walk through the light? Of course you don’t walk, because you’re no longer a physical presence. Do you feel it, though? Do you know you’ve passed to the other side? On TV you do.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark. I’m more afraid of the day, of people. I love the night. The solitude. Well, I don’t love it. I don’t feel love. I hate people, so I hope when I get there it isn’t crowded. I hope the light is a momentary phenomenon and the other side is completely black.
And silent.
My throat feels like it’s closing, so I roll over onto my side. Secret note from Hervé. I’m so sure.
It worries me that Chip might see what I write in the Final Forum. I didn’t tell Chip or Kim what was happening at school. Not the later stuff, after the closet incident. I don’t want to go there yet.
They had to hear my incessant plea: “I don’t want to go to school. Please don’t make me.” Day after day.
Year after year. “Please don’t make me go.”
“You have to go,” Kim would say. “It’s a new school. Make a new start.”
“Sticks and stones,” from Chip. Words will only kill you.
I gave up pleading with them. I just gave up.
I return to the desk and delete my entries from the forum.
I’m not going to open that damn note. Or that closet door.
— 14 DAYS —
I don’t sleep. All night long I’m wide awake, thinking, Secrets, secrets, secrets. There are secrets in my past no one needs to know. Secrets in my present that might kill Kim and Chip. I don’t want to take my secrets with me when I go. When I pass through the light, I want to be free of everything and everyone.
Through-the-Light.
I’m addicted.
Welcome, J_Doe071894. You have 14 days left. Will you be prepared? Yes No
I touch Yes .
It’s dim in my room; the sun isn’t up. There’s no stirring overhead and no one’s come to check on me for an hour. Maybe, finally, they’re trusting me to make it through the night.
The sad truth is, they should never trust me.
I need to know how secure I am online. In the menu I find the privacy policy and read it all the way through.
Through-the-Light collects no personal information about its members. Your activities, while monitored by system administrators, are transparent to networks and central servers. Our patented Enigma encryption software completely cloaks access, usage, and online transactions. URL crawls to and from Through-the-Light are undetectable even for authorized users.
Really? It seems too good to be true. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust anyone.
Another line catches my eye. Once you delete your account, you can never reenter Through-the-Light .
One chance. No turning back.
My stomach churns. This is my final opportunity to get it right.
I check the DOD list. Only three names. Wait. It’s
I’m still back there, dying inside.
* * *
If I prop up two pillows I can lie down in bed without my brace. I wish I had a laptop. My head can turn without too much trauma if I’m at a forty-five-degree angle. I see the wedge of paper. It can sit there for the rest of my life.
15 days. Occupy my mind. How many hours is that? I break down the equation in my head:
15 days X 24 hours in a day = ?
15 is the sum of 10 and 5.
10 X 24 = 240
5 X 20 = 100
5 X 4 = 20
240 + 100 + 20 = 360
360 is the circumference of a circle. I will have come full circle.
In how many minutes? 360 X 60 minutes. Too many to calculate in my head. More than a few. My focus wanes and my eyes flicker over it. I’m not opening the note.
Self-control. He got that right.
I gaze up at the ceiling. Through it. Past Kim and Chip’s room on the second floor into the sky, space, heaven, hell. Who says hell is down? It could be up. It could be next door to heaven. Hell could be a subset of heaven, like a ghetto in the middle of a glass city.
How long will it take for me to get to where I’m going? It will be instantaneous, I hope. Do you actually walk through the light? Of course you don’t walk, because you’re no longer a physical presence. Do you feel it, though? Do you know you’ve passed to the other side? On TV you do.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark. I’m more afraid of the day, of people. I love the night. The solitude. Well, I don’t love it. I don’t feel love. I hate people, so I hope when I get there it isn’t crowded. I hope the light is a momentary phenomenon and the other side is completely black.
And silent.
My throat feels like it’s closing, so I roll over onto my side. Secret note from Hervé. I’m so sure.
It worries me that Chip might see what I write in the Final Forum. I didn’t tell Chip or Kim what was happening at school. Not the later stuff, after the closet incident. I don’t want to go there yet.
They had to hear my incessant plea: “I don’t want to go to school. Please don’t make me.” Day after day.
Year after year. “Please don’t make me go.”
“You have to go,” Kim would say. “It’s a new school. Make a new start.”
“Sticks and stones,” from Chip. Words will only kill you.
I gave up pleading with them. I just gave up.
I return to the desk and delete my entries from the forum.
I’m not going to open that damn note. Or that closet door.
— 14 DAYS —
I don’t sleep. All night long I’m wide awake, thinking, Secrets, secrets, secrets. There are secrets in my past no one needs to know. Secrets in my present that might kill Kim and Chip. I don’t want to take my secrets with me when I go. When I pass through the light, I want to be free of everything and everyone.
Through-the-Light.
I’m addicted.
Welcome, J_Doe071894. You have 14 days left. Will you be prepared? Yes No
I touch Yes .
It’s dim in my room; the sun isn’t up. There’s no stirring overhead and no one’s come to check on me for an hour. Maybe, finally, they’re trusting me to make it through the night.
The sad truth is, they should never trust me.
I need to know how secure I am online. In the menu I find the privacy policy and read it all the way through.
Through-the-Light collects no personal information about its members. Your activities, while monitored by system administrators, are transparent to networks and central servers. Our patented Enigma encryption software completely cloaks access, usage, and online transactions. URL crawls to and from Through-the-Light are undetectable even for authorized users.
Really? It seems too good to be true. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust anyone.
Another line catches my eye. Once you delete your account, you can never reenter Through-the-Light .
One chance. No turning back.
My stomach churns. This is my final opportunity to get it right.
I check the DOD list. Only three names. Wait. It’s
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