It was a mistake.

But my parents needed time to digest the subtraction of my brother, and the small amount of space I took up in my room, in our house, in their lives, became too much without his consistent addition distracting them from the reality of parenthood. They had an opportunity to disguise their desire and send me here.

And they took it.

They took it with hurried fury as they inked their signatures across papers of utter liability and total outdoor activity allowance. Because apparently white water rafting is dangerous yet perfect for someone who had just lost their sibling and only friend. Because apparently the first thing they needed was another dead kid.

And this place…

This is a place I knew I would hate from the second I saw the brochure conveniently lying on the kitchen table as ironic bait. I don’t believe bait means a “promise” to sane, rational people. An option, a temptation too appealing to resist.

But never a promise.

Never a punishment for still being alive when your brother was not.

There were two smiling girls on the front. One younger. One closer to my age—sixteen. There were lots of visible teeth and hand-holding and more feigned sincerity than should be allowed—even in something as deceitful as a brochure. As glossy as promotional media.

But they insisted, and insistence was the rock to my paper-thin persistence. The car ride had been of the silent variety. Dramatic but empty. Typical but hopelessly pointless. They didn’t even speak to each other, and we all found an interest in a window-shaped scenery that never seemed to change or take on a different shape and remained framed by the metal of a mini-van’s secure door.

“You’re going to like it. I know you will, Spence. But you have to be open, you know? You’ve got to give it a chance.”

My father was always the first to give and speak when the family grew silent like this. He was nervous and awkward, shifting like a child desperately in need of a bathroom break. It was just the way my father had always been. He had always been a man in need of other people’s security.

“I’ll hate it. Come on, you know that. You know I’ll hate it and you don’t care. They call that bad parenting.”