childhood

I was never a normal kid, not like my perfect brother and sister. I’m the middle kid. My brother is two years older than me, my sister is two years younger. My brother, Ben, was an highschool sports star. It dosen’t matter what he does, hes good at it. He’s now studying to be a doctor. And I don’t give a damn. He gave me hell from when we were little, he always picked on me for being smaller, slower and weaker. He’d push me over and laugh, for no reason. Simply because he could. My sister Marie was born two years after me, she was what my mother wanted. Two years old, ignored by my dad who was playing catch with my four year old brother, ignored by my mother who was fussing with my new sister. As we got older it all got worse. Once I started school, I had my big brothers over-sized shoes to fill, in more ways than you’d imagine.

I always got his hand-me-down clothes, and they were always too big. Even now I’m a lot smaller than him. Everyone expected me to be just like him. He played sport, I fell over, dropped the ball, and nearly drowned in the pool. I read comics, didn’t say much, didn’t eat much and didn’t grow much. It’s like I was afraid to grow. I got picked on by bens friends for being his weedy little brother. And I hated it. No one wanted to be my friend. Dad was always at me “why cant you be more like Ben?”. But I don’t wanna be like him.

Then my sister Marie started school. Everyone liked her. She’s pretty, smart, popular. She could read and write before she even started school. Not me. No, I had to struggle trough, I never got help with homework or projects.

Life is shit when you feel unimportant and in the way.

Not long after my thirteenth birthday, I was walking home from school when I saw a bunch of my brothers friends picking on a kid. It was the kind of thing they did. Catch some kid out on their own and beat the crap out of them. For fun. They saw me.

“It’s your turn tomorrow, weedy boy!” one of them yelled at me.

Good luck finding me. I thought. I would go home the long way for the next month. I didn’t want to get beatenup agin.

The kid was still lying on the ground. I asked if he was ok, and helped him to his feet. He said he was fine and offered me a ciggie. I was kinda shocked, he looked a lot younger than me. He wasn’t though, once we started talking I found out he was older than me and had just moved to town. His name was David. We agreed to meet at the mall the next day. When we said goodbye he leaned in and kissed my cheek. Strange kid.