Bullied

Thirteen

At first, I assumed Justin was going to bring the knife down fast and hard and at once so my eyes remained closed. I was still too afraid to open them but my ears started working overtime. I could hear Justin stand up. His footsteps sounded like they were going further away, downstairs. I finally opened my eyes. Less than a foot away, Justin stood in the middle of the stairs but he didn't have his knife with him. His hands were still bloody but otherwise empty.

Justin wasn't even looking at me. He was looking towards the door, waiting for the cops. He slowly turned his head sideways, at me who was just dumbfounded. I tried to stand up and saw the knife. It was lying there on the floor, its job was done. By the time I looked back at Justin, he was all the way down the stairs. Just like that, he walked out of the house.

I could hear the cops telling him to get on his knees and surrender, which he did. Once he was far enough, I got up and despite the shitty situation my curiosity had put me through, I still listened to it.

I walked in Fred's room expecting to see a brutally stabbed, gutted or possibly even a decapitated body. Fred's body was there, but it wasn't headless, or limbless. It had several stab wounds on the chest, some deep enough to make a hole you could see through. Fred's motionless body laid in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor. Alongside him was the notebook, with several new pages filled in.

The one on the top was the rape article. The rest was too hard to read so I didn't bother, but I couldn't help but notice that it wasn't even close to being the last thing on the list. The thing he had written after the rape article was using photoshop to use Justin's pictures from internet and giving him black face that looked like make up and making racist remarks. It was going to be a new twitter account in Justin's name where he was going to troll people. As I read, Fred's blood poured down the bed and came close to my feet.

I couldn't take it anymore and rushed to the sink. Trails of blood leading to the toilet where Fred had left his phone, mixed with his feces. The door was broken, forced open by the knife and his foot. Fred hadn't even finished taking his shit. His fear was carved onto his face when he died.

I threw up in the sink and cried. I cried harder as my tears mixed in with some of the blood on the sink. Did Justin bash Fred's head in here before using his knife? I shook the thought off. The bloodied mirror showed me a man's reflection standing behind me.

The cops escorted me out of the house, which was good because at the moment, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the house and as far away as possible.

On my way to the cop car, I saw Jake. Justin's father was there; his eyes wide open in disbelief. I looked away. The cops sat me down and I told them everything I knew about the situation, from the fake Amy to everything before it. From the time he got rusticated to the notebook, to the article.

The large hole on Fred's chest kept recurring in my mind. I will never be able to forget that. The cops took care of the rest. They told me to go home. They warned me that if I ever found myself in a similar situation in the future, wait for the help to arrive first. I nodded as I realized I was almost considered a partner in crime. Maybe in a way I was.

As for Fred, his body was taken to the morgue. A few days after the postmortem, I received a call from his uncle, asking me to attend the funeral. I didn't get to meet the real Amy in person and I was glad. I looked her up online.

Amy starred in a TV show, but not for long. She was fired from some teen TV show for sabotaging her co-star's dress, and attacking her with scissors. Birds of a feather flock together. I couldn't find much on what happened to her after that but I know what happened to her fake counterpart.

Justin remains in prison and will be kept there until his psychiatric evaluation. The cops found the notebook and Fred's laptop. Soon after that, it got to the media and internet. In Fred's laptop, the record was even older. They found Fred had also been spreading rumors so that he won't be taken in any of the schools his dad tried to get him to.

While some defended Fred in chats as just another crazy kid who didn't know his limits. Most were agreeing that regardless of his antics, Justin should not have gone all berserk like that. Then there were others who defended Justin, calling Fred the bully, a sociopath even. That he was playing psychological games to anger him and was basically asking to be punished.

I didn't know which side I was all this time, nor do I want to know. I just want to forget all of it even happened and move on.

Since Justin was 18, there's also a chance he will be charged as an adult and stay in prison for years to come. Justin handled it the only way he could, just like in school, by fighting back Fred's words with his fists. Justin was the one everyone looked at, from classmates to teachers and Fred liked it. He loved pushing Justin's buttons.

The real bully was never found, until it was too late.

THE END