Page 42 of My Rules for Revenge
“No.”
“Heather, tell me the truth.”
“Alright, fine. Yes, they are my pictures,” I confessed.
My mom let out a heavy sigh and pinched her nose in frustration.
“Why would you ever do something like that?” she asked.
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“Why would you take nude photos of yourself? There’s no need for something like that. What boy were you sending them to?”
“What? I wasn’t sending them to anyone. I took them because I wanted to. They were supposed to stay private.”
“Heather, how did they go public, then? You’re not telling me the whole truth, are you?”
“Some asshole kid from school hacked into my Cloud account and leaked them. They were never supposed to be spread around. Why would I do that to myself? I have had thousands of people degrade me online and call me obscene insults. It’s been horrible,” I scoffed.
“What? Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
“It’s fine. I’m handling it myself.”
“Heather, we have to inform the school’s administration. If he hacked into your phone and released your pictures without your consent, that is a crime. We can press charges,” she explained.
“I already told Principal Newman and looked into all that. He can’t do anything because there’s zero proof. Also, he’s pretty much useless anyway,” I assured her.
“My god, Heather. Do you realize how crazy this is?”
“Obviously. I’m living through it, Mom. If I didn’t find it crazy, I’d be crazy.”
“Why did you take those pictures in the first place? The minute you took them, you opened yourself up to cyberbullying. You made yourself a target,” she scolded.
“Mom, no oneactuallycalls it that.”
“I always tell you to keep a low profile and to stay out of trouble. Now, look at what has happened to you. This is a mess.”
“Mom, just stop. What’s wrong with you? The person who leaked my private pictures is the one at fault here, not me. I didn’t do anything bad or evil. You should be lecturing Jacob Boruta, not me. That’s the name of the twerp who leaked my pictures. You didn’t bother to ask who did it,” I said in frustration.
“You should've thought about your father in that moment.”
“What moment?”
“The moment you decided to expose yourself like that. I’m sure he would have been unhappy about this.”
“He’s not here, so you don’t know that. I don’t know what he would have thought. He’s my dad, so he probably would have been horrified. But he would have been proud of me for standing up for myself. The problem isn’t me taking nude pictures of myself. The problem is the fact that assholes like Jacob exist.”
My mom scoffed and remained quiet for a couple of minutes. I felt an immense surge of heat in my stomach after I went off. It wasn’t a feeling I particularly enjoyed, but what my mom said enraged me to the point of no return. I was her daughter, and she should've been on my side no matter what.
“You know what the real problem is? What has been the real problem with you all along? The fact that you hold a grudge for every single little thing in the world means that one day, you’re going to end up hating everyone and everything.”
“You’re wrong,” I furiously asserted.
I stomped off and decided to take the long trek back home.
The next day at school, I watched the scathing video I made of Jacob to cheer myself up. As I walked through the hallway, I approached the corner and heard two very familiar voices. Eddy and Frankie were fiercely discussing something. I wanted to be nosy and find out exactly what the tea was. Usually, I didn’t care about this sort of thing, but it seemed to involve a girl and Eddy. I edged my way to the corner lockers and quietly slid down with my headphones still on. They couldn’t see me from the other side, and there’s no way they would have noticed me.
“Please tell me what to do,” Eddy requested.
