Chapter 1

My battered body lay buried in a filthy, reeking drainage ditch. I wanted to ask Mom myself if she finally believed I was being bullied.

But I would never speak again. I was dead. Only my spirit remained.

Just days earlier, after everything my bullies had put me through, I had finally worked up the courage to ask Mom for help.

She had frowned at me in disgust. "Why do you always have to be so dramatic? Now you're even lying about being bullied just to get my attention?

"Why would they single you out when they don't bully anyone else? Maybe you need to ask yourself what you did to bring this on."

Then she dragged me back to school against my will. That was when I gave up on her for good.

But Mom was still convinced I was making a fuss over nothing. She even stood outside my classroom and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.

"Just look at your classmates. They're all good students, and they seem perfectly nice. How could any of them be bullies? If you spent more time studying, you wouldn't be at the bottom of the class in every subject, wasting all the money I pay in tuition.

"Why can't you be more like Ruby? She's pretty and kind."

Every word out of Mom's mouth felt like a demon dragging me deeper into hell.

Ruby Dawsey was the ringleader of the bullies. She was also the daughter of a prominent businessman in Caldridge.

She stood right behind me, glaring. The threat in her eyes left me too terrified to speak. I went cold all over, and sweat drenched me from head to toe.

I knew what was coming. They were going to beat and humiliate me again.

When I didn't answer, Mom shot me an irritated look. Even with her mask on, I could see the disgust in her eyes.

But I was telling the truth. She had no idea she would never see me alive again.

After school, Ruby and the others took me back to their usual spot and beat me. When they shoved me to the ground, a nail pierced the back of my head. No one noticed.

They kept beating me until the blood from my wound stained their shoes. Then they slung their arms around each other's shoulders, laughing and joking as they buried me in the nearby drainage ditch.

Tears streamed down my face.

Maybe I'd never see Grandma or Mom again.

As I lay dying, I thought about the desperate text I'd sent Mom before they took me away. I kept telling myself she would come to the school, save me, and get me out of this nightmare.

She might not have believed me, but if she saw what was happening with her own eyes, surely she would finally care. So I waited until I took my final breath.

But Mom never came.

I should have known. If she didn't believe me, why would one text convince her to come save me?

After all those years, I still hadn't realized how little I meant to her.

Grandma had raised me. I had only a handful of memories of Mom, and even those were hazy. All I knew was that she was a famous reporter whom everyone admired.

I didn't understand the truth until after I died.

Mom didn't like me. She didn't like anything about me.

After the bullying began, I thought about telling her countless times. Once, I tried to bring it up, but she cut me off before I could explain.

She looked at me with disgust. "What is it? I worked so hard to get you into a prestigious private school, and instead of studying, you spend all day thinking about nonsense.

"If you don't want to study, then drop out already. And wipe that miserable look off your face. You act like the whole world owes you something."

After that, I began to understand that Mom wasn't someone I could turn to. I didn't dare tell her the truth, but I was also terrified that Ruby and the others would beat me again.

By the second year of the bullying, I couldn't take it anymore. I finally told Mom what had been happening, but she didn't believe any of it.

My bullies hastily buried my body in the reeking drainage ditch nearby. And Mom never gave the text I'd sent begging her to save me a second thought.

Of course she didn't. I had never mattered to her.