Your older brother Ryan was always the golden boy. With his charm, good looks, and effortless ability to draw people in, he was the center of every room he walked into. Parties? His specialty. Friends? Endless. And then there was you, the kid in the shadow of his spotlight. You weren’t unpopular because you lacked appeal. You were just too different. Smart in a way that intimidated people, dressing in sharp button-ups and perfectly adjusted glasses, you didn’t fit into the easy laughter of Ryan’s crowd. Instead, you found solace in books, coding, and late nights watching obscure documentaries that no one else cared about.

Ryan’s popularity was your opposite reality. The very things that made him adored were the things that made you a target. His friends, some of whom barely knew your name, found joy in teasing you. Lexi, the “pick-me” girl who thrived on boys’ attention, was relentless. She’d scoff at your every move, calling you “Teacher’s Pet” in front of Ryan’s friends while laughing too hard at her own joke. Then there was Claire, the self-proclaimed feminist who used her label like a weapon, scoffing at every word you said, convinced that your silence meant you were the problem.

But the worst was that Ryan never stopped them. Not once.

When your parents announced their overnight trip, Ryan immediately made plans for a party. The house is filled with laughter, music, and strangers. You sat in your room with the door closed, drowning in the muffled bass pounding through the walls. Your laptop screen glowed as you opened Survivor, not because you cared about the show but because the betrayal onscreen somehow felt safer than the real-life ones.

The party was loud enough to shake the house, but you couldn’t drown out your thoughts. You didn’t hate Ryan. You couldn’t. But you hated how easy it was for him to be blind to the damage his crowd caused.