The life of one is the life of many(Josh Verduzco) I sit down on a warm park bench laughing with my beautiful girlfriend Hailie. she was the most gorgeous girl on the planet. She had long blonde hair, oceanic blue eyes and shiny bright white teeth, and soft moist lips and irresistibly smooth skin.

I remember when I finally made the brilliant decision on making her my princess. It was two years four months three weeks and two days ago. I remember that amazing day clearly.
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Me and Hailie were outside and it was 3:25pm with beautiful sunny weather. I looked in her eyes and put my hands on her hips. After two long years of getting to know her and falling in love with her, and being her best friend, I was finally ready to make this beauty mine. I knew she was the one for me, she's my princess, and my angel. My schizophrenic mother was at a check up with my dad, my brother was in his room playing his Xbox 360, he loved video games so much it was like his life.

She gives me a cute giggle and I swallow fear and shyness and tell her "Hailie lee Johnson...I've been waiting for a perfect moment to do this, but I would like to take this moment and make it perfect, will you be my girlfriend?" I ask nervously, it felt like my life was on the line.
She looks into my eyes, smiles and wraps her arms around me replying "James Steven Jacobson, I've always wanted to." with that she makes my life one hundred percent better by giving me a glorious kiss.
"Stick it in!" My goofball brother yells. we both laugh and I chased him around the house.
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After a wonderful day I walk Hailie home and give her a kiss on the forehead as she walks in the house. My brother was sitting on the couch with my dad and mom.
"So is she pregnant yet?" he teases and dad gives him a tap on the wrist laughing. For a 14 year old he was a very dirty minded kid.
"Don't worry Dylan you'll have a girlfriend of your own one of these days." Hailie replies.
"Pfft, I got five." he jokes.
Hailie lives with us because her mother killed herself when Hailie was nine and her father got arrested last year for murder, he stabbed a man in the throat in a bar fight.

I get a phone call from my manager. I have a rock band with three of my friends, I'm the lead singer of it, we are well known around the state but we're still looking for our big break to go national.
"Dude get down here now!!" he orders.
"What? why what happened!?" I asked him worried.
"We're all here some guy says he wants to sign us to his record label! now get down here quick!" My eyes pop and I smile and laugh in excitement.
"What happened baby?" Hailie asks.
"That was Tony!, and he said someone wants to sign us to a record label, so I got to go!" I announce and my dad smiles and stands up.
"Wow, so my little boy is finally growing up...you're turning 18 next week and soon you're leaving...I hope this works out for you son, I've always believed in you....go kick some ass." he smiles and I leave kissing Hailie.
Through everything Hailie has been there for me and loved me, she's always believed in me and even when I quit writing songs she inspired me to start again, and after all our relationship she never asked for anything, and now I can give her everything.

I walk in the address he sent me and my band were all in a recording room. my manager and friend Tony tells me the guy wants to hear a song. I walk in the booth with my band Kyle, Craig and Jose.

We agree on a song I wrote called 'A day to remember.' it was our most popular song, it's gotten thousands of views and likes on youtube and now we might just be on T.V!

After our song the tall bald white hazel-eyed man with a soul patch and a suit smiles and says. "Do one more, so far so good." he says and we decide on doing a song I wrote called "My girl." It was a song I wrote for Hailie but it's also very popular and liked.

After we finish we discuss the terms and what the contract said, and it said that he would cover us for a year, and if that year goes good we will be signed completely to his label. the signing bonus was a thousand each. we sign it excited and overjoyed. I couldn't wait to tell my family about this. I can imagine my life now. Full of money and fame living in a giant house with Hailie and our kids living happily ever after just like a fairy tale, but real...I can finally make my girl proud of me.

We walk out hyperactive and juiced up laughing and jumping ready to conquer the world. I get in my dads car when Kyle and the guys jump in and tell me about some party.
"No thanks, I'm gonna go spend some time with Hailie." I tell them.
"You whipped coward, let's just go, you're always with her!" Craig argues.
"I'm not whipped! I love my girl, that's all. if I wanted to I'd go but I don't." I insist.
"You liar!, you're just scared of getting in trouble!" he taunts in a baby tone.
"Fine I'll go!. god!" I cave into their peer pressure.

We arrive at the party and brag about what happened to us. They brag about it to girls and I talk to some friends and we laugh and joke and play around for an hour or two.

I get outside and get in the car and drive back home. "This was the best day ever! what can go wrong!" I say aloud in the car.

I'm stunned to see the bright flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. I run out of my car as I see the unthinkable. A body bag covered in blood. I run into the scene but a cop pulls me out, but not before I can see the horrifying blood stain on the carpet.
The cop yanks me as I turn to see Hailie, my mom and my dad in the police car crying. They were all there except... "NO!!!, DYLAN!!!, NO!!" I burst, wailing, slamming my fists into the grass. the cop pulls me up and I push him back, raged and furious. another cop runs to me and I punch him in the cheek and then five to six police men try to grab me as I twist and turn.
(BZZZT!!)
I completely freeze as the electric pain of the tazzer blasts my ribs. They handcuffed me and my eyesight began to disappear. I heard an annoying buzzing sound over my crying and suddenly everything goes black.


I wake up in a hospital. I keep my eyes closed. my energy was completely gone, knowing my brother is dead....I didn't want to get up. Not now not ever. He was so smart! he was nice, funny, handsome, he had such a bright future...now he's gone....all the blood...oh god the blood! I begin crying picturing all the blood that was on the carpet. I begin shaking and the nurses inject medicine in me.

The cops say they're not pressing charges, they say that I had a panic attack and that it wasn't my fault.

The truth is I didn't care. they could have put me to death and I wouldn't give a damn. He was my brother! My only brother! His laugh kept creeping in my head as I cried.

I arrive home alone. I freeze at the door, not wanting to open it. I burst into more tears and Craig, Kyle and Jose approach me.

"Hey James....I'm so sorry." Craig says and anger infests my mind.

"This is your fault!" I yell standing up "If you hadn't made me go to that stupid party I could have saved him!!" I scream tackling him to the ground, punching him hard in the face.
(JAB!, JAB!, JAB!)
I punch him until the guys begin pulling me off. I kick Craig in the gut and then slam both Kyle and Jose to the ground and I fall down crying.
I could have saved him! If I hadn't gone he'd still be alive!

They all run off, and I charge into my dads room and pull out a handgun he had. I loaded it and walked in the living room. I sit down crying on the floor when I hear a familiar voice crying as well.
"Baby?" Hailie cries, hugging me "I have to tell you something...it was- it was" she chokes up crying.
"IT WAS HER!!" I hear my mom yell. "SHE KILLED HIM!!" my mother yells.
I burst out of the seat and they both see the gun.
"What!?, No James no!!" Hailie begs. "It was her!! I swear!" Hailie yells.
I cry even more knowing one of them could do something like this. Why! why would someone kill a 14 year old boy!
"NO! she's lying James it was her!, he was my son I loved him!, it's in the family!, her dad was a killer now she is too!!" My mom insists.
"Baby?" I ask confused and scared.
"That's a lie!, you know me James!, I loved him like he was my brother! she's schizophrenic, she could have killed him and not know it! it was her, I promise, I saw!!!" she begs crying.
"It's true James, it was her!" My dad says walking in pointing at my mom and crying.
It's true?....my own mother killed her son!
I point the gun at her. Struggling and crying.
I couldn't do it. She was my mother! and no matter what I loved her.
"I love you guys so much!, I'm coming Dylan!" I yell as I point the gun to my head.
"NO!!!" everyone yells as I pull the trigger.


(3rd person)

James's dead body was laying in the same spot as his beloved brother, and the cops showed up once again and arrested Britney Jacobson (James's mom) for the murder of Dylan Jacobson. A week after the incident Hailie Lee Johnson committed suicide by hanging herself. James's father killed himself the day before by a gun shot to the head.
The band failed, got fired and separated. Craig died of an overdose a month after the death of James. Kyle and Jose died in a car accident the same week, both were drunk and drove off a bridge and drowned.

Hailie's best friend Maria tried suicide by slitting her wrists but was saved just in time. She grew up and has two kids, Hailie and James, named after her best friends. Her husband is a detective and she herself is a doctor at a mental institution. The same one Britney is locked up in. Maria and Britney are still in contact. Britney suffered a panic attack after she got a phone call that her daughter (from another father, James nor Dylan had any idea she existed) had committed suicide from bullying. She started crying and yelling, and when Dylan tried to stop her she stabbed him in reflex and not knowing what was going on. Hailie and James's father didn't tell the police till after the death of James.

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In this short story bullying unintentionally ended the lives of nine people. So be careful how you treat people even, if you think they deserve it, the others that get affected by it don't. The life of one affects the life of many - remember that.

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