All By Myself

Perfect Elliot

Overshadowing one child above the other makes them feel unappreciated and hurt

I went into my room. It was every teenager's room. LED lights were fixed on the ceiling, a queen-sized bed, a messy table and an unorganized closet. I changed into my cozy pajamas and got to my top priority, my homework. There's nothing else I do except for coming home with piles of homework. I really want to do other things but with 5 subjects piles of homework, projects to balance and tests now and then, I could only dream of going on a vacation or even reading a book with a relaxed mind. There's just a little space in my brain that keeps thinking about school and grades. It lives in my head rent free as well. I opened my laptop to the home page of my Google Classroom and saw that there were 3 assignments due at midnight. Let's forget about dinner time now.

I cleared a space on my table and started to do my homework. No, I don't procrastinate because I have a motivation and that motivation is worrying about the expectations my parents have for me. They expect that I should be even smarter than Elliot and expect me to ace every single test I have which is impossible. Other children are out there exploring the world while I am stuck with my laptop in my room, stressing over an A. I had no choice though, if I don't get an A overall, I'll be grounded and even lonelier. I wish I was perfect like Elliot. I think my parents completely forgotten about me. I feel invisible. I am only known as "Elliot's older sister" or "The chess king's sister" without him, I am nothing.

I started to go through all of my assignments. Every time I hit submit, it feels like I won the lottery. I felt a wave of relief.

Knock Knock Knock. Mum and Dad and Elliot are finally home. I sprint downstairs and unlocked the door. Elliot came in with a great beam on his face carrying a foot long trophy. It was silver, with a golden based and a chess piece built on top off it.

"See Estella, your brother has done it again!" Dad exclaimed.

That statement hit me. I pretended to smile but deep inside of me I was hurt. My heart was broken. My parents never believed in me on who I really am. I loved to code and I made tons of video games on Roblox. Yeah, it's not very impressive but my games had many visits. I built a game once called "The IQ Obby" where I made parkours that tricks your mind. It was simple to make, it wasn't much codes but many people played it, including Elliot.

Despite being jealous of him, my brother and I are really close. We do all sorts of things together. We played games, watch movies and shared the love of Harry Potter together. My brother and I are very fond of the series. I read all of the books but Elliot is still on the fourth one. We watched some of the movies together as well and once we dressed up as Harry Potter characters on Halloween night along with Charmaine.

Elliot was remarkably gifted. He's the golden child. Every family member would ask about him even before they mention my name. He's good at everything. Mostly math and chess. His mind is like a computer. He could think very quickly and solve problems easily too. He has an IQ of 146 but couldn't beat my IQ game though. Maybe the test is rigged, I don't know. All I know is I am Elliot Oliver Davids' older sister.