golden boy

you know, i always thought he had it easy. compared to me, anyway. like, think about it. our parents weren't planning on two kids, they only wanted one, and they had this big dream of the perfect kid. the kind of kid you see on television. good at sports, they probably were planning when mom was pregnant. but the right kind of sports, of course. they should play an instrument. they should be a senator, like your grandpa, carrying the family legacy. they should be smart. they should be sophisticated. they should listen to us because parents are right, of course, and the kid'll know that. 

they got that kid, alright. just came with an unwanted passenger. 

here is the dilemma: if you have two children, and one of them is everything you wished for, and the other is . . . decidedly not, how do you treat them? 

my parents' decision: pretend they don't exist. 

i did, of course, but barely, in that sort of way in the beginning when twins are mistaken for each other, but then my brother started cutting his hair short and people stopped smiling automatically when i came through the doorway. oh, this one's the disappointment. woo-hoo. quick, pretend you're busy or else she'll bother you for ages. i genuinely spent a month believing i was invisible until they started asking why i was missing my tutoring lessons, so that idea was out. they just didn't like the acknowledge me. of course i couldn't be an embarrassment, imagine the damage to their reputation. i just had to be decent. 

being decent in my family is a lot harder than you think. 

it was quite the scandal, the twin sister of the wealthy teenage musical prodigy filing for emancipation. i'd planned for it, relied on it to pressure my parents into signing the dotted line, but my brother hated it. "you always make such a big deal out of things," he'd snapped, cornering me in my bedroom for my last drop-by to pick up my stuff. "what, you couldn't stand the house for a couple more years? for all your drama, mom and dad aren't bad." 

"you'd know, golden boy," i'd snarled right back. it was a nickname picked up in our younger years, when our parents would parade him in front of cameras and cover him in glossy medals. he'd shone bright as gold in every photo. unlike me, whose photos were better off unspoken of. "out of my way, i've got a moving van with my name on it." 

"you're hurting them," he'd continued to insist. "they love you. you know that." 

if they loved me, they would remember my birthday, especially when it was his. if they loved me, they wouldn't drop my C- tests in the trash instead of pinning them up on the refrigerator like they did for him. if they loved me, they wouldn't have had to sign the paperwork to let me go because all i had ever wanted was for them to love me as much as they loved him. 

but he would never understand that.

i'd just pushed by him, ignoring when he stumbled. "have fun at your next concert. everyone'll applaud for you, they always do." 

that was the last thing i said to my brother. 
 

-|-|-

"he left you his unpublished orchestra pieces," the lawyer told me, "as well as a hefty portion of his property and money. almost $100 million in total. it's very generous, considering everything." 

my shoes itched. so did my hair. i already hated wearing a skirt two minutes into it. 

"your brother was quite the philanthropist. everything else goes to the charities he participated most in." 

even when my parents had died, i hadn't had to visit one of these. they'd cut me out of the will under the excuse that legal emancipation meant i didn't want anything from them as parents. it was true, of course. still hurt. 

"i apologize for your loss. something as sudden and tragic as this, especially from someone so beloved, it's just . . . awful." 

would things have been different if i'd tried to talk to him? he'd never quite escaped our parents, not even after their deaths. maybe he wouldn't have felt like he had to resort to this. 

it all felt like some very bad dream. it shouldn't have been him first. not like this. not by his own-- 

"ma'am?" 

"just transfer the check into my bank account," i said briskly. i stood up, smiling at him the polite way i'd seen my brother smile on tv, interviewed for his rising success as one of the youngest-ever individual composers. i should have noticed something was up with that smile. it wasn't his. it wasn't the one i remembered. "when you can, mail me the compositions. now, please, i have a family and a job and you insisted on this without considering my schedule, so i must take my leave." 

but i hadn't known him very well. hated him longer than loved him. wouldn't grieve, really. not for him. not for my brother. 
 

-|-|-

"an' one day, we're gonna be big musicians an' play in one of those stadiums an' everyone'll throw roses like they do in movies!" 

"but i don't know music. mommy says i'm tone-deaf." 

his grin was the brightest thing. "don't worry, i'll teachya. brothers do that, don't we?"