Receiving your diploma at your high school graduation. Going to your first college party. Meeting the love of your life. Landing that coveted internship. Walking down the aisle. Holding your baby girl in your arms for the first time. Dancing with her at her wedding.

All are defining, pivotal moments in life that Rebecca Sedwick and Jordan Lewis will never experience.

It’s the now the norm to be slapped across the face by a story about a teen committing suicide when turning on the five o’clock news, yet we aren’t doing anything about it. Bullying is a serious topic that is never addressed until it’s too late—don’t you think we’d have learned by now?

Rebecca and Jordan both fell victim to bullying in school. Rebecca would have been thirteen Oct. 21, but she killed herself after being tormented by schoolmates. She suffered for months—girls berated her through hateful text messages, telling her she “seriously deserves to die.” Her teachers and parents were aware of the bullying; Rebecca would break down in tears during class and was hospitalized last December for slitting her wrists.

She reported the abuse to the school, and after they continued to do nothing about it, Rebecca’s mother transferred her to another school. However, she couldn’t escape: cyber-bullying followed her.

Rebecca was suffering, and she was suffering out in the open, but no one helped her, so she did the only thing she could think to do. Rebecca hurled herself to her death on Sept. 6.

Fifteen-year-old Jordan Lewis killed himself with a shotgun blast to the chest, Oct. 17, after leaving a note for his father explaining that bullying led to his unhappiness. “You just wouldn’t understand, dad,” Jordan said in his note.

Jordan gave clear warning signs—he quit his football team after his first practice, and when his father questioned his decision, he told him it was because he was being picked on at school.

No one has the right to tell another person they don’t deserve to live. Rebecca and Jordan chose to listen to those hateful words thrown at them, but they are not at fault for their actions. Rebecca and Jordan had a chance to live—really live—but because of the words of others, they chose not to take that chance.

Bullies are your insecurities personified—they know where your weaknesses lie and they jump at any opportunity to let you know. Some people can wade through it, but others get overwhelmed by the negativity and drown.

According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people, resulting in over 4,000 deaths a year. According to research gathered by the Jason Foundation, four out of five teens that attempt suicide have given clear warning signs of suicidal behavior. So why do we continue to ignore them?

This world isn’t a happy place—something that’s become increasingly clearer each time a 15-year-old boy commits suicide because of bullying, and it’s time to stop pretending it is. Parents turn their cheek to bullying, refusing to accept the sad reality that their child is being tormented at school. Teachers brush it off with the excuse that children will be children.

Children may be children, but when a 12-year-old takes her life and her tormentor posts on social media not even two weeks later, “Yes IK I bullied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDGAF,” those children are forced to grow up real fast, and are forced to lose their innocence.

I wish we didn’t live in a world where bullying was taken lightly. Teenagers take their lives because they literally feel like they have no way out—they’re trapped in a world filled with hate and despair and can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Every time another young person with a bright future takes his or her own life, the response is tumultuous. Everyone agrees it was a terrible loss and push for preventative measures to be taken to lower the ever increasing suicide rates.

But then weeks and months pass and everyone gets back to his or her own lives, forgetting all about the problem at hand. And then it happens again and the cycle continues.

Let’s put an end to this once and for all before another person puts their life to an end.