All Chapters of Excluded and Uninvited: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

9 Chapters

Chapter 1

Seeing me still crouched on the ground, bruised all over, Diane Raynor laughed and ruffled my hair."Have you gone dumb from all the excitement? That's real progress. You actually managed some almost-clear sounds this time."She wasn't wrong. My voice was the one thing that had carried me through thousands of other applicants back when I auditioned for the music academy.So when I first realized I'd lost it, the sense that every hour of work had collapsed overnight nearly broke me completely.It drove me to self-harm, to the edge of ending things more than once.Everyone had watched it happen. And every single time, without exception, they'd taken photos of me at my most desperate to cheer my brother, Andrew Remick, up.I ignored the stabbing pain in my chest, braced a hand against the wall, and pushed myself up to gather what had scattered across the ground.Diane froze for a second when she realized I was ignoring her, then let out a short scoff.She probably thought I was su

Chapter 2

The familiar click of a camera shutter went off. I turned around, unable to believe it.Michael's voice dropped low, though he couldn't quite hide how thrilled he sounded."The fake death-row guys you hired were completely unconvincing. Mine's the funniest shot, hands down.""Please. You think hiring someone to dump a basin of dirty bathwater on him beats what I got? I say mine's funnier. Let's send them both to Andrew and let him be the judge."The two of them were so absorbed in arguing over whose footage of my humiliation was funnier that they'd forgotten to keep their voices down.Tears I couldn't hold back anymore spilled over, and my legs gave out from under me. I sank to my knees on the ground.It took a long while before my hands steadied enough to pull out my phone and send two messages.Me: [I'm not coming back to this family.]Me: [And Diane, let's break up.]The instant Diane saw the messages, her breath caught audibly.She started toward me, flustered, but Michae

Chapter 3

Once everything was packed, I decided that before I left, I'd go to the hospital and say goodbye to Lloyd Raynor, Diane's father, in person.Marrying Diane had always been the thing he most wanted for me, and after he fell ill, he'd come to depend on me more with each passing month. I'd long since come to think of him as my own father.I was just about to knock on his hospital room door when a familiar voice from inside stopped me cold."You're a fantastic actor. Even faking an illness, you make it look completely real."Brad still has no idea. Every time you had a flare-up, it was always right before one of his big competitions, just to get him out of the way so Andrew had a shot at winning."Lloyd's voice carried a laugh."Brad is a fool, indeed. I don't know who in your family he takes after. I only ever mentioned once that I'd like to see him marry Diane, and after that he started treating me like his future father-in-law."My illness cleared up ages ago, honestly, but fakin

Chapter 4

Three minutes before boarding closed, an airline staff member stopped me at the gate."Sir, I'm sorry, but this passport is a fake."I froze, my mind going blank with a ringing static.My hands shook as I turned my phone back on. Diane's call came through almost immediately."Brad, that thing with Andrew, it was just a misunderstanding. Don't make a scene over something this small."Get back here now. You upset Andrew so badly he passed out. He needs a blood transfusion. His blood is extremely rare, and you're one of the few compatible donors they could reach in time"Dad's voice broke in, nearly shouting into the phone."You know your brother's heart is weak and you still went and provoked him. Are you trying to kill him?"Michael was practically shouting too, the whole call dissolving into chaos.Then Diane's voice cut through it, low and steady."Just wait him out. I already planned for a day like this, so I swapped Brad's passport in advance. He's not going anywhere. He'l

Chapter 5

The hospital room had been cleaned spotless, which only made the jacket sitting in the trash can stand out more.It was Diane's jacket. She'd know it anywhere.She'd draped it over Brad that day because she knew he had a fear of needles.But Andrew's condition had genuinely been more urgent that day, and she hadn't been able to pull herself away.So without really thinking, she'd left the jacket with Brad, meaning to come get him once his blood draw was done.In the end, she'd simply forgotten.Now she stood rooted to the spot, staring at the jacket in the trash, her knuckles white, her expression unreadable.A strange bitterness rose in her mouth, one she couldn't quite name.Dad blinked, caught off guard too."When did he just up and leave without telling anyone?"He picked up his phone as he spoke, and the first thing he saw was Brad's last message in the family group chat.[From this day forward, I have no connection to this family.]Dad's temper snapped, and he threw h

Chapter 6

No one who knew Brad had ever doubted how much he valued family.The year his father was misdiagnosed with kidney failure, the doctors said they needed to find a matching donor as fast as possible.Brad had gone to the hospital alone and quietly gotten himself tested for a match. The day the results came back, he'd grinned, showing all his teeth."Dad, I'm a match. Use mine. What's there to cry about? You're my dad."Back in middle school, someone had once played a cruel prank on him, sending an anonymous message claiming they'd kidnapped Andrew and that if he wanted his brother back alive, he'd have to come trade himself for him.Brad had gone straight to the abandoned warehouse alone, without a word to anyone.Afterward, all he'd said was, "He's my brother. If I don't save him, who will?"Even when Lloyd's condition had turned critical and the hospital had no beds free, not even in the ER, it was Brad who'd knelt outside the emergency room clutching the medical file, begging f

Chapter 7

They hurriedly returned home from the hospital.But Brad never came home, and he hadn't taken a single thing of his with him.Right as everyone was starting to debate whether to call the police, Andrew pushed the door open and walked in.He bit down on his iced latte straw, his tone dripping with barely concealed impatience."Tch. What are you all so worked up about? Brad's really upping his game these days. A letter of renunciation, seriously? At a glance, it almost looks legit."He gave a short, mocking laugh. "He's just staging some big disappearing act so everyone runs around looking for him and paying him attention, isn't he?"Looks like it's working. Go find him, then. He's probably hiding somewhere gloating to himself right now."The moment he said it, the confusion and worry that had just started to surface on everyone's faces vanished instantly.Dad let out a sigh. "That's probably it. It's not the first time he's pulled the vanishing act. Give it a couple of days, and

Chapter 8

Three months after I landed abroad, my voice had recovered completely.Life at school went far more smoothly than I'd expected.My professors couldn't stop praising my talent, and my name had quietly started making the rounds in the industry.The voice that had been suppressed for so long finally broke through, like a seed pushing up through soil. Clear, bright, every note carrying a kind of freedom I'd never had before.Getting a call from Diane was a fluke.I'd blocked unknown numbers ages ago, so I picked up without thinking twice.Her voice was urgent and hoarse, and I frowned the moment I heard it."Brad, I finally got through. Don't hang up, please. Listen to me, everything back then, it was all a misunderstanding."Andrew has a heart condition, you know that. We had to go along with him. I didn't have a choice."But you're the only one I ever wanted to marry. I just handled things badly and let everyone misunderstand."I've already explained everything to everyone. You

Chapter 9

Right before winter break, I'd started building a small reputation through a handful of local performances.People on the school forum had started talking about "the boy whose voice sounds like it was kissed by an angel."Word traveled faster than I expected, and it wasn't long before Diane and Michael tracked down the city I was in through news of my shows.It was snowing lightly the day I walked out of the rehearsal hall and felt Michael grab my wrist.The second he saw me, he shot to his feet, his eyes rimmed red, his words tumbling out of order. "Brad... I, I've been looking for you for so long."He closed the distance in a few strides and gripped my wrist, like he was afraid I'd turn and walk away."Something happened back at home. Andrew, he... he fell in with a bad crowd and started using illegal drugs. The police took him in."Your dad got so upset he's been sick ever since. He threw out all of Andrew's things and said he's not part of the family anymore."For the past

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP