Fire At Their Fingertips: Excerpt Three

I’m not going to elaborate on anymore of the details of the Amanda Todd case: Her family and friends have had more than they could handle without my re-opening still-healing wounds. But after weeks and weeks of investigating, law enforcement was unable to uncover any traces that Natalie had suffered the same fate as Amanda Todd, which was taking her own life. In fact, when police talked to some of Natalie’s friends, they all assured them that Natty would never do anything “naughty.” The humour was lost on Susan. Natalie was dubbed “Bratty Natty” by a disgruntled ex-boyfriend she’d briefly dated back in grade three when they were both eight. Susan did her best to ignore this less-than-stellar moniker, as impossible as it was. Betty Black was another of Natalie’s pals who professed to be Natty’s best buddy, or BBF, according to Internet jargon. (Susan felt as though she was learning a new language and it was eerily intriguing).    Natty referred to her friend as Batty Betty and the two of them had begun a website, entitled “Shame Yourself Perfect.” This made no sense to Natalie’s mother. The only information she had was what the police relayed to her and that was it appeared to be a diet site. “A diet site? What on earth would my slender, beautiful daughter be looking at these silly pages anyway?  Can I have the hard drive back now that you know that nobody had a hand in orchestrating her demise.  There are hundreds of reasons why my little girl is underground at fourteen, so why put so much power in this starving stuff. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that Natalie was a cutter and burned her skin with lit cigarettes was another self-destructive behavior she read about on the Internet.” “Was your daughter into self-harm as well?” The police officer was taking notes of everything Susan was telling him. “Lots of kids are doing it. They called the “New Anorexia.” Why, just last week we had a thirteen-year-old doing that and keeping the scars from her family. So I have to ask---“