Good evening, it’s Spooky Boo Rhodes from the KSND radio waves in Sandcastle, California. Tonight is a sad story about a teen girl who takes the only way out of her curious dilemma. The only problem is that no one believes her and she won’t confide in her best friend or even her elusive stalker!
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Now let’s begin…
Tiffany
by SpaceySirens
I feel like a lot of girls my age want to make themselves stand out. They go to extreme lengths to show off how unique they are and to express their individuality. Whether it’s by showing off their talents, adopting a flashy and interesting sense of style, or putting other girls down to make themselves feel better, most teen girls really want to be noticed and seen as special. There are some girls who are like me and claim that we don’t care about that kind of attention or that we don’t want to be seen as different or special. We hang out in the background, away from the spotlight. We don’t bother talking to people or making friends because we say that we don’t want to stand out. But… maybe that’s just our own way of trying to stand out and be unique?
No girl at my school stood out more than my best friend, Tiffany Queens. She was by far the most popular person in the whole school, and she pretty much checked off all the boxes of the stereotypical popular girl that you’d see in a high school movie. She was the cheer captain, rich, fashionable, and she had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfect body. Even her name sounds like it would be the name of the main rival in a teen movie. She was the queen of the school; she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and everyone worshiped the ground she walked on. So when our senior prom was announced, we all knew that Tiff would win the title of prom queen. Personally, I was excited for her. She’s always been a charismatic and kind girl, and, in my eyes, she deserved that title more than anyone else. which is why I was so surprised to hear that she won’t be able to be at prom.
Because Tiffany was found dead in her bedroom yesterday.
Apparently, her mom found her hanging from the ceiling fan. She found a suicide note in Tiffany’s diary, which talked about how, even though Tiff seemingly had a perfect life and seemed like a really happy person, she had secretly been suffering a lot and felt like no one ever got to know the real her. I mean, it’s the type of story we’ve all heard before, but it still has me in shock. The week before Tiffany had killed herself, everything felt so normal—at least, it seemed normal to me. She had seemed a bit more standoffish than usual, and she had started feeling sick more often, but none of it stuck out to me as out of the ordinary. I never would have guessed that she had been feeling that way, and I can’t help but feel guilty about it. I was her best friend, and I feel like I should have done something to help her. I feel like maybe I could have been able to save her. but now it’s too late.
I have a box full of all of her old stuff. According to Tiffany’s mom, her suicide note said that she wanted all of her old things to go to me, even her diary. I will admit, I found it a little strange that her mom was so willing to just give me a bunch of her old stuff. If I were her, I would have kept everything so that I had some way to remember my child. But her mom just told me that it’s what Tiffany would have wanted.
Still, as I look through the box and take out a bunch of Tiffany’s old dresses, sweaters, blouses, and a bunch of other clothes that I would kill to wear but are just a few sizes too small for me, I can’t stop myself from wanting to puke. Just the other day, I was hanging out with Tiffany at school, talking about weird dreams we had had, new books we had read, or people who had annoyed us. She seemed so happy that day, sitting right next to me. But now she’s gone. Just like that, she’s gone. Just as easily as she came, she left. She disappeared so effortlessly.
As I pick up Tiff’s diary, I contemplate reading it for a moment. On the one hand, it feels pretty disrespectful to read her diary like this, especially now that she’s dead and can’t even stand up for herself. But… part of me can’t help but wonder who the “real her” was. Her suicide note said that she wanted people to get to know that side of her, and there seems to be no better way to do that than to read her diary. Still, it just feels so morally wrong…
Finally, with guilt flowing through me, I opened her diary and read the first page. Her diary has no lock on it; I guess she kept people out by hiding it somewhere where no one would look. She wrote in blue pen; her handwriting was very neat cursive; and she dotted all of her lowercase i’s and j’s with little hearts. Since she was right-handed, the ink never got smudged when she was writing, which is something I had always envied as a left-handed person.
There’s nothing out of the ordinary about the first few entries; it’s mostly just her talking about what she had done that day. She wrote about how much she disliked someone on her cheer team, a really cute pair of shoes she bought at the mall, which I vividly remember feeling envious of when I saw her wearing them, a dog she saw at the park that she could have sworn was a bear, just your normal, everyday things. Still, I can’t help but think that maybe, if I just keep reading, I can find something. Answers, a sense of comfort, a feeling of closeness to her—I don’t really know what I want from Tiffany’s diary. But I just keep hoping that if I continue reading, I’ll be able to find whatever it is that I’m wanting right now. I turn to the next entry.
Again, it’s just her talking about what she did at school that day. There’s something that disturbs me about how mundane all these entries are so far. Her life seemed so normal, so perfect—nothing seemed to be wrong at all. Why would she kill herself now, when it seemed like everything was going her way?
…
Hold on, this part at the end of the entry mentions me.
“I am sick and tired of my so-called “best friend” always hanging out with me, wasting my time, and being just a huge bother! I’d love to yell in her face that I never liked her and that I want her to leave me alone already, but there’s no way people would ever forgive me if they saw me hurt my best friend like that! It would be horrible for my reputation, so I have no choice but to stay with her and pretend that I enjoy her company. Ugh, I’m so done with her!”
…
I don’t even know what to say. Is this really how Tiffany felt about me…? This entire time, the one who I’ve been calling my best friend, the one who I’ve always confided in, the one who I’ve been with ever since high school started, secretly hated my guts… And the only reason she never told me was because she didn’t want to lose her reputation…
If I had known that this was how she felt about me, I probably would not have tried to talk to her. I probably would have asked the teacher if I could switch partners for our science project. I know I probably shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, it’s another typical story: a spoiled girl who gets everything she wants is rude and ungrateful towards her friends. God, my head is spinning. I don’t know how to feel anymore. I’m practically reading the diary of a total stranger who has been posing as my friend for four years. It almost feels like I’m stalking her now. I guess she was right; I never got to know the real her.
I should probably just close this book, put it back in the box, and move on with my life, never thinking about any of this again. But how could I just be expected to move on from something like this? I feel like I’m in too deep now to just pretend that all of this never happened. This all feels so wrong, but I can’t stop myself from wanting to read more. I don’t know if it’s morbid curiosity or what, but I feel like I have no choice but to finish reading everything.
I feel overwhelmingly sick as I remember all the kind and empathetic messages I had gotten from classmates, saying how sorry they were that I had lost my best friend. How am I going to show my face at school while people are still showing support for me, knowing that I hadn’t lost my best friend at all? I feel like a total fraud.
Most of the diary entries are still pretty normal, though I quickly skim through all the ones that mention my name. Details of expensive clothes she got, confessions of love from attractive boys at our school—aside from her disdain towards me, there seems to be nothing wrong with her life at all. I still can’t find any reason why Tiff would kill herself. Was there really a reason? Am I actually going to find answers, or am I just hopelessly flipping through pages that are going to get me nowhere? I feel like I’m underwater; this is all so confusing. Why would you do this, Tiffany? Am I ever gonna find out…?
I flip to an entry that looks a bit different than the others. The handwriting is slightly shaky, and there’s not a single heart in sight. Intrigued, I read through it.
“I swear I saw someone standing outside of my window last night. I thought I was just being paranoid, or maybe I was dreaming, but it just felt too vivid. I told my mom, but she said I was probably just seeing things. I don’t know, maybe it really was just my imagination, but I swear I saw someone last night.”
My heart skipped a beat when I read that. One of my biggest fears is someone seeing me without my knowledge, so the thought of someone standing outside of Tiffany’s window disturbed me. That, combined with the sudden serious tone of this entry, made me feel uneasy.
The next few entries seem to be normal, but just by reading them, I can tell that Tiffany is still unsettled by the possibility of someone standing outside of her window. She stopped dotting her i’s and j’s with hearts, and she went into slightly less detail about what she did that day, though she did still go through the effort of naming all the expensive clothing brands that she had bought from.
“I definitely saw someone outside of my window again. I’m not crazy, but nobody will believe me. They stood so much closer this time that I didn’t want to move too much because I was scared of what they would do. I’m being watched by someone, but nobody believes me. I wish I could just take a picture and show it to someone, but it’s too dark for my phone camera to pick up, and I’m scared that if this person sees me trying to take a picture, they’ll do something worse than just watch me. What do I do?”
I can’t stop picturing Tiffany laying helplessly in her lavish bedroom, all wrapped up in her silk bedsheets, as someone stands outside of her window. The mental image is so clear to me, I should have done something to help her. I feel just as helpless now as she did when she was writing these entries. Finding out that she killed herself, finding out that she never saw me as a friend, finding out that someone was stalking her—I feel like the more I look into the situation, the more disturbing everything becomes. But I also feel like there’s nothing I can do other than keep reading.
“I think my stalker might be Mary. Every time I see that person standing outside of my window, I swear I can see the outline of her jacket. Every time I go to my locker at school, Mary finds some way to end up running into me. Every time I lose one of my pens or lipglosses, Mary has the exact same one the next day. I’ve talked about other people who are seemingly obsessed with me before, people who have pretended that they were dating me, that they were best friends with me, or stuff like that. But none of those people ever reached the level of obsession that Mary did. I know I sound crazy right now; everyone thinks I’m crazy, but I swear I’m not crazy. Mary is stalking me; I just know she is. Why can’t I find anyone who believes me?”
It’s probably just my imagination, but I feel like Tiffany sounds more and more frantic every time she talks about this stalker. It sounds like a horrifying experience to have, no matter how many colorful pens and flavored lip glosses Tiffany would bring with her to school in the morning. It’s probably just because I’m desperate for answers, but the fact that she seems to have been stalked by someone, the fact that nobody believed her, and the overall hopelessness of the situation suddenly made her suicide make a lot more sense.
“Mary came to my house this morning. My mom let her come over because she thinks that we’re friends. I told her I wasn’t feeling well to get her to leave, and thankfully that seemed to work. But I know I’m just going to see her outside my window tonight. I’m trapped no matter what I do.”
“I finally snapped. I lashed out at Mary during lunch. She broke down crying, and I got into huge trouble for it. I tried to tell everyone that she had been stalking me and watching me outside of my window, but they all thought I was insane. My mom was really upset at me when she found out. I tried to tell her why I did it, but she didn’t believe me either. Everyone seems to hate me now for something that’s not even my fault. I don’t know why I even try anymore.”
“I haven’t slept much ever since I realized it was Mary standing outside of my window. I’m scared that she’ll do something to me if I fall asleep. I don’t know what I’m scared of her doing; if she ends up hurting me, maybe that would be the proof I need for people to believe that she’s stalking me. Maybe I should risk it and try going to sleep tomorrow night. If anything happens to me, at least everyone will know that I wasn’t crazy after all.”
“Today’s the day I plan on sleeping to see if Mary actually plans on hurting me. I know it’s probably a terrible idea, but honestly, what have I got to lose at this point? And, hey, if she ends up killing me, at least people will be able to tell it was her just by reading through my diary. I’m just so done with everything at this point.”
That entry was the last one before her suicide note. I basically spent the last few hours looking through the life of a perfect girl whose story had to be suddenly cut short. Is it bad that I feel slightly underwhelmed by what I saw? I feel like I would have been happier if I had never read any of this stuff and just left Tiffany’s life up to my imagination. I guess all I can do now is finish the book. So, here we go. It’s time for me to read Tiff’s final message.
“Hi, mom. I’m sorry that you had to find me like this, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve just been unhappy with my life for so long. Everyone always thought that I had it easy, but I’ve been secretly going through so much. I’m sorry that nobody ever got to know the real me. There are only two things that I ask of you now that I’m dead: 1. Please don’t read the rest of my diary. I know it may be tempting, but I’m begging you: please respect my privacy. 2: Please give all of my things to my best friend. My clothes, my jewelry, and my makeup—please give them all to her. She’s the only one whom I trust with my belongings now. I love you, and again, I’m sorry.”
Tiffany’s mom had mentioned to me that Tiff seemed incredibly sad and desperate when she wrote that last entry. I guess she was referring to the messy handwriting, because otherwise, I felt that the entry had been way too brief and vague to convey any emotion. I would have expected her mom to find the note—which was written in smudged, black ink—suspicious, but I guess she just really wanted to make her daughter happy and respect her privacy.
Well, now that I’ve finished reading her diary, I guess I could try on some of her clothes. I had to admit—they were drop-dead gorgeous.
“Mary, dinner’s ready!” I heard my mom call from downstairs.
Ah, nevermind. I guess I’ll just try them on tomorrow. It’s a shame that the only things her mom didn’t give me were those pretty pink blankets and bedsheets that she would sleep with.
I would have killed to have those.
—
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