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It was nothing more than an innocent joke between friends, Taylor knew that. Aiden had been trying to rile up Tyler all morning at school, from asking uncomfortably personal questions to whispering random song lyrics in his ear when the teachers weren’t looking. At lunchtime, however, Aiden grew a little too bold. By the end of a playful chase around their lunch table, he stopped a little too close to Taylor. And his hands rested on her shoulders for a little too long, as he pretended to hide behind her. It felt like a switch was flipped in her mind as her muscles tensed, a sharp gasp of air filling her lungs, until the dread in her stomach spread throughout her body like frost. Even after two years, she remembered the utter helplessness from that day.
It was the end of her first week as a freshman when they approached her locker, but she easily recognized them as seniors; tall, broad-shouldered, they could have passed for school faculty if not for the varsity jackets they sported.
“Hey, you’re Tyler Hernández’s sister, right?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah, that’s me!” she beamed, “My name’s Taylor.”
“I’m Jack. Me and the guys were looking to ask you something, if you’re not busy?”
The giddy look in his eyes made her fiddle with the straps of her backpack. She was busy, actually, about to head upstairs to her introductory meeting with the mechanics club that she had been looking forward to all week, but his excitement for whatever favor he had hoped to ask made her hesitate.
“Well, kind of? But, if it’s something quick and easy, I have time to spare! What’s up?”
Jack smiled wider, “So, every year at the beginning of the season, the senior players pull little pranks on the freshmen, and I wanted to see if you’d wanna help with one we have planned for your brother.”
“Oh my God, he’ll be so mad!” she giggled, “Sure, I can help! What are you going to do?”
“Come on, we’ll show you,” he said, shutting her locker door behind her before ushering her further into the school as students filed out of the front entrance in the opposite direction. She tried to wave to a few of her new classmates in the hallway, but his large hands weighing down on her small shoulders restricted the movement of her arms. Despite that, she eagerly walked alongside them, happy to know that Tyler was being included in whatever shenanigans the rest of the baseball team had in store for one another. As much as she enjoyed the time he spent with her, she hoped that he would start hanging out with friends on his own like he used to, before their father got sick. Before Tyler took it upon himself to pick up the pieces left behind when he died. Near the gymnasium, they slipped out of the building through a pair of metal doors she had yet to notice, and she squinted from the sunlight glaring in her eyes.
One of the other seniors brushed her backpack straps down her arms, “Almost forgot, we need this for the joke. You don’t mind, right?”
“Um, uh, my phone is in there, so-”
“Don’t worry, we won’t lose it or anything. We just need to make sure Tyler finds it by your locker. Be right back, guys.”
Watching him run off with her personal belongings gave Taylor a weird feeling that she couldn’t quite identify. She didn’t know any of the boys she was surrounded by, and it suddenly dawned on her that she didn’t even know what their so-called prank was meant to be. She was too caught up in her own head to think rationally about the situation, she was so used to having Tyler with her that she didn’t even consider the possibility of what could happen if she were alone. Being led to a dark minivan parked in front of the baseball field was the final red flag that made alarm bells ring in her head.
“Are you-You’re not taking me somewhere, are you?” she stuttered, “Because I’m not-I don’t want to-I don’t know you guys!”
Jack’s hand crept lower to rub her back, and while his facial expression told her he was trying to be comforting, she only felt sick. She didn’t want him touching her anymore.
“Relax, I promise we won’t drive you anywhere. All we need you to do is sit in the back and let us take a picture.”
“Why?” she asked, cringing at how meek her own voice sounded to her ears.
“It’s part of the prank. Come on, it’ll be quick,” with a firm grasp around her wrists, he pulled her towards the van, and held them together while his friend tore off a long strip of duct tape from a roll that was stashed in the glove box. She instinctively turned her head as a second piece of tape was held up to her face, but did nothing more to resist once it was pressed over her mouth. Everything was escalating too quickly for her to process. She wanted to kick and flail when one of them lifted her into the backseat, she wanted to scream and sob the moment her eyes laid on the camera lens of the phone in Jack’s hands.
“Perfect,” he laughed, “Okay, now I’ll send it to the group chat, and we’ll wait for his reaction. This is going to be hilarious.”
Taylor was already embarrassed in front of four strangers, but hearing that her image was going to spread mortified her. She squeezed her eyes shut and shrunk into her seat, waiting for the humiliation to pass as their voices droned on in the background of her own heartbeat.
“Colby’s back! Hey, did he find it?”
“Yeah. God, I wish I caught it on film! He was on his knees just holding her bag like some edgy anime character. I don’t think he even checked his phone yet.”
“Shit, how long are we going to have to wait?” Jack groaned, tossing his head back to glare up at the sky, “Wish we grabbed her phone, we’d have a response from him by now if we called him on it.”
One of his other friends fished out his cell phone from his jacket pocket and tapped it awake, “Here, let me try something.”
Taylor’s heart raced when he climbed into the seat beside her, and she was almost certain she could feel her body trembling as he mussed up her hair to make her appearance more disheveled on camera. The mechanics club meeting had left her mind entirely, she just wanted them to stop touching her. The man–at least, he looked like a grown man to her–swiped at his phone until he heard a faint, echoing beep, and pointed it at her.
“Hey, freshman, look what we got!” he jeered, repositioning the device in one hand while his other cupped her face to keep her staring back at him, “So much for being the big, scary older brother, huh? You still think you’re tough?”
The grip around her jaw tightened painfully, and she couldn’t hold back a pathetic whimper from the back of her throat. Pathetic, she thought, was the perfect word to describe her. That was all she was to these guys. She was stupid to have even followed them outside, and then she was too passive to stop any of them until it was too late. Now, she was too weak to escape.
“If you ever want to see her alive-”
“Dude, no,” Jack cut him off from the other side of the van, “That’s too far. We’re not pretending we’re going to kill her.”
“I thought that was the whole point!”
“No, we just want to scare Tyler. We aren’t threatening the girl, you idiot, now she’s scared out of her mind.”
Although she had been afraid ever since they bound her with tape, the actual acknowledgement of her fear somehow made her feel even smaller. If harming her was never their intention, then she had no reason to be scared in the first place. They only wanted to play a practical joke, albeit one in poor taste, and instead of either refusing or happily committing to her part in it, she failed on both ends. Her eyes welled up, and shied away from the group of boys to stifle a sniffle into her shoulder. Crying was going to make the situation worse, she knew, but once the first tear rolled down her cheek, she broke.
“Aaaaaand now she’s crying,” someone said, “Nice going, dumbass.”
“Me? You’re the one who thought of the tape! Don’t act like I’m the only one who-”
“Where is she?!” Tyler screamed from afar, before a stampede of sneakers pounded against the asphalt. His voice was strained and raspy, but she recognized his tone. He was the only person she knew who somehow added more inflection into every word he spoke whenever he was angry, as though he could never decide which part of his sentence to emphasize.
Taylor watched as her brother slammed his shoulder into the senior, Colby, who was trying to slink away from the van undetected, and furiously kicked him in the side when he doubled over in the fetal position before setting his sights on the next person. Incoherent shouting erupted on either side of her, with new voices fading in and out as she struggled to make sense of what she heard. Jack’s face slammed into the front windshield, a stream of blood gushing from his nose that streaked across the glass as he was dragged out of her line of sight by another baseball player. She was too distracted by the violence outside to notice someone throwing open the back door, and she choked on a muffled scream when more hands reached out to grab her.
Her eyes sprung open. She was in the school cafeteria.
“It’s alright, Tay,” Tyler said, his arms squeezing her tighter as she clawed chunks of his shirt in her fists to hug him back, “Nothing like that is ever going to happen again.”
Aiden peeled himself off of the cafeteria floor, having been shoved onto his back by his friend. Still in his seat, Ben leaned back and hauled his cousin to his feet, before gesturing to the seat next to him that Aiden had abandoned as soon as the group claimed the table, his food untouched in its tray. Logan curled into himself as he watched the scene unfold in front of him, and quickly averted his eyes back to his book when Taylor peeked over her brother’s shoulder to meet his worried gaze.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the person who’s ‘it’ in tag can’t access the ‘save point’,” Aiden said, piercing a clump of cold tater tots with his fork and stuffing them into his mouth with a cheery grin.
“Shut up,” Tyler growled, “And if you ever touch my sister like that again, I’ll bury you under the floor instead. Got that?”
“Please, don’t threaten him for it. It’s not his fault,” she argued, her small voice muffled by his clothing, “He didn’t do it on purpose.”
From across the lunch table, Ashlyn looked up from Aiden to the twins, “Uh, I think the rest of us are missing some context to the situation here.”
“Yeah, and it’s none of your business, carrot top.”
Taylor pulled away from his touch, “I can tell them, it’s okay.”
“You don’t owe them an explanation. He just needs to keep his hands to himself.”
“But they’re our friends, and I at least want them to understand my boundaries.”
Sinking back onto the bench, she slowly exhaled a long breath and waited for the tightness in her chest to weaken. Her eyes flickered to the window, where the parking lot next to the baseball field was nearly full. No dark vans in sight. She didn’t know why she expected to see one, considering the seniors involved were either expelled from school after that incident, or avoided her like the plague throughout the rest of the year until they graduated. All the while, her brother worried for her even more. The guilt continued to eat away at her, and she licked her lips to ease the dryness in her mouth.
“A couple years ago, there was a prank that some upperclassmen pulled on Tyler, and I was part of it. I’d rather not get into any details, but… I don’t like people touching me because of that. Especially from behind, it makes me really nervous. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything until now, I wish I told you before you got hurt, Aiden.”
Before Aiden could reply, Ben quickly shook his head and scribbled on a fresh page in his notepad. ‘Don’t apologize’, it read, ‘but thank you for trusting us.’
Logan nodded, “Yeah, you don’t have to be sorry for that. It’s not your fault.”
Taylor chewed her lip to keep her mouth closed, wanting to argue but unable to prepare for the bout of crying she was sure would follow if she tried. She glanced back at Tyler, and for a moment, she felt like she was still in the back of that minivan, silently begging him to take her home while another of his teammates cut her arms free with a dinky little Swiss Army knife. She was still surprised he never blamed her, even after she admitted to agreeing to participate in the stunt they pulled on him.
“Hey,” Tyler whispered, “It’s not. I promise.”
“I know,” she lied, placating him with a small smile, “It’s not yours, either.”
Aiden interrupted with a loud sigh, “Well, looks like I’ll need a new ‘save point’ for our future games. Ash, do you-”
“No. Don’t touch me, either,” she quickly said, her tone devoid of malice as she sipped her water. Taylor could have sworn the other girl’s lips were curled in a smirk around the rim of her cup.
“Ben?”
The half-hearted shrug he received in response was enough to make him cheer in victory, before goading Tyler into resuming their chase. Taylor picked at the food on her plate, content to fade into the background while Aiden absorbed all of the attention off of her, until a notebook bumped into her elbow.
‘If you ever want to talk about it, I’m we’re here for you.’
She had grown used to her brother’s protective side, but the look in Ben’s eyes offered her a sense of safety she was unfamiliar with. He wasn’t one of Tyler’s teammates that was threatened into being nice to her, he was as much her friend as he was her twin’s. He was as genuine as the smile that spread across her teary face.
“Thanks.”