Excluded and Uninvited

When a gang of men posing as death-row escapees dragged me into the alley, my girlfriend and my best friend fell into a familiar rhythm and started playing freeze tag. I struggled ten feet away, desperate. They stood at the mouth of the alley without moving an inch. After I was finally rescued, Michael Sykes bounced up to me, grinning. "Brad, you're a champ. You actually managed a few syllables. A couple more scares like this, and you'll be talking again in no time." As he said it, he shot Diane Raynor a look, and the two of them fought to keep straight faces. I didn't need to look to know they'd already sent a video of me falling apart to the family group chat. Ever since I'd lost my voice, the two of them had turned it into a game they called "recovery therapy," staging one dangerous scenario after another and freezing in place to watch. Sometimes they hid my inhaler and stood by, stone-faced, while I gasped through an asthma attack. Other times they left me stranded on the highway and silently watched me chase the car down the shoulder. I used to think they just cared too much and went about it the wrong way. Then, this morning, I found a family group chat on Diane's phone. One I wasn't in. Buried in a wall of humiliating photos of me, my father's reply cut the deepest. [Andrew cracked up so hard at the photo he almost couldn't breathe. God, Brad looked ridiculous.] [Andrew's not even mad anymore about Brad stealing his music academy spot. He's moved on.] [Oh, and you can stop giving Brad that drug that took his voice.] I stared at the familiar profile pictures in that chat until the blood in my veins ran cold. All those months of nightmares I'd lived through, it turned out, had just been a game to keep my little brother, Andrew Remick, entertained. Everyone had been in on it together. I was the only one who'd been played the whole time.