It’s funny how differently people will treat you when you become the dead kid’s brother.  I don’t think the kids at my school really disliked me; I don’t think they noticed me at all, but the memories of stuttering, sweaty-palmed, elementary school Taylor Massett – pre-medication, pre-therapy – led them to develop a habitual distance from me.  I was a senior when Wade died, and he had been telling me for months “how much better” I was doing.  He had walked me through everything from the first appointment to my current doctor, Lydia.  Over those seven years, I had gotten similar diagnoses from most of the doctors I’d seen:  something to the tune of severe social anxiety, usually combined with a range of other factors.  So starting in the fifth grade, a dozen psychiatrists agreed to strip me from my low rung on the social ladder and stick me somewhere between special ed and a passing teenage stress disorder.  Not bad enough for benefit checks but bad enough to live in isolation from the rest of the high school population.  So I was stuck somewhere in the middle, usually hidden in Wade’s shadow.  I didn’t mind this; it was preferable to the alternative of being left to fend for myself.  Wade did the talking; I’d stand behind him, tall and awkward behind his athletic frame, and I’d listen in on his conversations.  He never forgot me; growing up with me his whole life, he had discovered the perfect combination of cautious and inclusive, allowing me to participate gently in his conversations and still stay safe in his shadow.  Naturally, when we lost him, I wasn’t prepared for my constant, garish awareness of my own presence everywhere I went, thrust into the loud world without my social guide.

At first, Wade wasn’t dead.  He was missing.  Mom and I guessed he had probably gone home with Keaton after his football practice that Tuesday night, as this was a common practice of Wade’s and his friend’s.  However, uncommon was Wade’s failure to communicate plans to me or our mom.  Around 12:00 that night, she and I realized his absence.  My mom then called Keaton’s mom who called Keaton who said he hadn’t seen Wade since school got out.  This led to Mom calling the football coach and finding that Wade had been missing from the last ten minutes of practice without seeming explanation.  And the next morning, when Gabe Garduno opened the doors to the locker room at 6:40, he was greeted by the rotting stench of Ellis High School’s 17-year-old varsity sweetheart.

Stuffed in the equipment locker. It took Gabe a while to find the source of the reek, and several boys had already joined him when he did.  He opened up the locker to the sight of a colorless, vacant face and an unmoving chest.  There was a rope around his neck and marks where he’d been strangled.  Surely, they thought, surely this couldn’t have been a suicide … it wasn’t.  The police ruled it out quickly: Wade couldn’t have hanged himself and then still managed to get into the locker.

So Wade wasn’t dead now.  He was murdered.  And what was worse, there’s no reason he should’ve been.  Sure, no one should go like that, but a guy like Wade Massett – he was like a high school superhero.  The weird kid’s cool little brother.  Only a junior and already a varsity star. He was an 11th grade representative for the student council and high school sweethearts with the vice president, this well-rounded, straight-A girl who he’d been dating for a year.  Wade was the type of guy who could turn a group into a team and a team into a family. And this isn’t brotherly bias, either – this is basic fact any Ellis student would tell you. If anyone in the world should be spared from such a brutal fate, it was Wade Massett.

And yet, there we were. The whole student body crammed into the gym on bleachers and listening to Isabel, the well-rounded, straight-A student council vice president, speak on behalf of the student body in memory of her late boyfriend.  I was sitting in a chair just off the front row next to my mom. She reached over to me to take my hand several times throughout the service, as she had done at Wade’s funeral as well.  And just like she did at Wade’s funeral, she grazed my hand, caught herself, and returned it to her lap.  Sensory sensitivity.  That’s what Lydia called it.  My nerves couldn’t handle unexpected physical contact; it had something to do with the illnesses. This was a misfortune to a touchy-feely mother.  She could always expect a hand squeeze or a hug from Wade when she was feeling uneasy.  Now, I could see her longing for his touch again.  It didn’t come, and I could offer no substitute.

It’s funny how differently people will treat you when you become the dead-kid’s brother.  From Tuesday morning to the Friday of the memorial, I went from a football star’s charity act, the cloud that trailed behind him as he fearlessly led his group of promising young students throughout high school, to a shadow unattached to an owner.  A million eyes watching my every move, almost as if on accident, like they were searching for this fearless leader and only finding the socially impaired familial remnants he left behind.  I was offered so many words at once.  “Sorry” and “in our prayers” lost their meaning by the end of that week.  I didn’t want the pitying glances or the altered treatment in wake of my mourning.  I had never asked for those things; all I’d ever wanted were answers.  Yet there were still none.  And when I set out to find them, I came upon a destruction that no hand squeeze or tear-filled memorial could repair.

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