“I hate black people” 2:08 PM

I open my phone in the huddle before we begin discussing the game plan for the upcoming battle against Coginchaug volleyball. My Twitter is blowing up. Different Twitter handles all yell at me. “We hate you too”, “You’re not going to be sleeping tonight, we will find you”, “You’re stupid, you don’t know how to put on eyeliner, and your parents are cousins.” Emotions rush over me. Although I feel extremely faint and anxious, I ask my team what to do and frantically search for answers. I notice, out of the corner of my eye, the principal arriving. Running out to meet her, my face turns quickly from relief into panic. She  heard what happened from hateful emails sent to the school. For all she knew, I was the one who sent the tweet.

Questions poured out of the principal’s and vice principal’s mouths. I had no answers. I did not know how from my Twitter a tweet was sent out saying “I hate black people.” There were about twenty thousand favorites and eleven thousand retweets with many, many more replies, agreeing with me or condemning me to Hell. Some were from my friends, but hundreds were from people I had never met before. After a half an hour of questioning, I realized who tweeted. It was not a hacker or an enemy, but one of my friends. I shared everything that happened since 2:08, the time of the tweet, to the time I arrived in that office with the principal, I repeated the timeline to the vice principal, then my dad, then the police officer, then the police officer again as he wrote a police statement. I opened my phone at 2:07, saw a friend pick it up at 2:08, continued talking at 2:09, heard the bell ring at 2:10. I picked my phone up, put it in my backpack, went to practice at 2:11. From 2:11 to 5:30, while my phone sat in my backpack, my life was changing, and I had no idea.

As I shared the timeline, I shook. The hate in the tweets and emails directed at me scared me. I worried about the safety of my family, who sat at home, vulnerable. While I feared being murdered or not getting into college, this “friend” was at a soccer game, cheering on our school, oblivious to what he had caused. 

I drove home, stunned and confused. I took a shower to clear my head. My family sat in the hallway. They called my friend who agreed to go to the school to admit what he had done. My chest felt lighter. I could finally breathe again. I would be able to go to college. My family was around me, assuring me that I was safe.

When I returned the next day, the principal held an assembly using the events that took place the day before as an example on the effective use of social media. My friends and the teachers were there to support me. A few months later, we re-started our social media accounts, this time on the private setting.