Reader fiction: Behind the smile

Tori Shores at 16 years of age - on the outside bright and bubbly. Great looks, top in her class at school.  A young girl many young guys her age would love to be dating, Tori had it all going on but to the unseeing eye there was a young girl deeply troubled. Having many issues happening, feeling very insecure about herself, coming home every day from school locking herself away in her room. Spending hours reading books, jumping from website to website, hoping to find answers to the many questions currently on her mind. Questions that were pushing her on  a dark cold, lonely, scary journey that seemed to her there might be no way back from. All the tutoring she had recently been receiving in class on emotional changes during puberty and all that came with it right now seemed meaningless, a waste of time. As she tried to think it through, kept coming up with  just one solution. If all that she had being taught recently had any kind of meaning, then why was it not being of any help to her right now,  only confusing her young mind more.     

Not helping Tori either was back over time she had  created a reputation  for playing with guy’s minds. Going on one or two dates, a second date meant the guy was maybe lucky, that she liked him, but it never went further than two dates with the one guy. This in turn put a lot of guys off as they didn't want to be the ones that seemed to have been strung along by her. This in turn led to Tori receiving text messages, then the odd note stuck on her school locker, the texts and the notes carrying the same message, saying she had no friends, nobody wanted to be seen with her. Friends one by one stopped  calling her,  sending e-mails, Face Time with them. Every kind of contact with those she thought were friends was being closed to her.        

As the days passed it was becoming all too much for Tori that her parents started to notice changes with their daughter. Changes that were showing Tori as not the same bright and bubbly girl that they knew their  daughter to be. When they sat Tori down to see if there was something, anything that might be troubling Tori, upset as she was, she managed to hide what was troubling her from her parents, knowing she couldn't hide her problems from them forever. The conversation brought about a bad night for Tori that on going to bed she cried uncontrollably for hours and not helping her was her laptop informing her she was getting e-mails constantly reminding her she was alone. All this driving Tori to the edge of despair, pushing  her towards wishing she was not here anymore. 

Awake to another day Tori stood in front of the mirror in her room not liking the image she was portraying she realised this has got to stop, seeing someone in the mirror that was not Tori Shores, it gave her the will to stand up, fight back, silence those that reigned all that torment down on her these past few months. No more being a victim to her tormentors. She knew now she had to be strong, stronger than ever before, realising it was not just her,  its can be anyone no matter who they might be, young or old we are all vulnerable.  

                                  Never

                                    Let 

                                Somone

                                  Bully

                                    You 

                                    Into

                                Submission.

Tomorrow it could be someone close to you