• Where I grew up, everyone went through the gauntlet.
    It’s just one day, the day before you turn eighteen. It’s supposed to toughen you up, make you more ready for the real world. Basically, everyone treats you like crap for a day. Most people treat it like a game. A great, fun, terrific acting game. Stay in character. Never let up on making his life miserable, making him think we hate him. And then later we’ll all laugh about it and have a good time.
    Not everyone is up to the task of pretending to hate someone all day, so there are a lot of people that will just ignore you. It’s actually not that hard to pretend people don’t exist; I’ve done it a couple of times, for some of my older friends. At some point, you get so good at ignoring people, it’s like they really aren’t there.
    Of course, there is no opting out for the victim. The target. We can’t leave the island. It doesn’t occur to leave to most of them. Like I said, they consider it a game. A twenty-four hour game from hell.

    They dragged me out of my bed. I don’t know what I expected. That I’d wake up and my family would have already left, probably. It would be interesting to not exist for a day, I thought. But I was wrong. My family didn’t decide to ignore me. Around midnight, they dragged me out of my bed. Literally dragged. I twisted and tried to get up, yelled at them that I was getting up, but their grip on my ankle never loosened or wavered. They dragged me outside, onto our front lawn, and dropped me by the sidewalk. Then they went back inside and locked the doors.
    I stared after them, dumbstruck. They had left me. I shifted my weight to stand up and get off the grass, damp with dew. Which left me standing on my front lawn, locked out in nothing but my boxers, cold and wet. I just stood there, dazed, unable to comprehend the idea that this was real, that no one was going to open the front door and welcome me back in with a warm smile. I shivered, getting colder, and sighed. This was harsher than I’d expected, but I could deal with it. A friend of mine lived nearby. Turning from my house with a forlorn look, I shambled down the street, hoping they’d be sympathetic to my plight.