Dear Meg,

fifteen

[ November 7 2015 ]

Dear Meg,

I was looking for my knee pads and rummaging through my drawers when I found a birthday card that you gave me.

"Happy Birthday baby! You're turning 19 today and I wish this day will be as unforgettable as I am. (I'm not as good of a writer as you are).
And to make up for this shitty birthday card, here's one ticket pass for a great night. (if you know what I mean)"

I couldn't fight the smile on my face when I read what you've written. There were still faint traces of alphabets on the card, like you had written and erased the words and sentences over and over again until you finally felt like they were decent enough.

You'd always told me that I'm a good writer and that I'm practically the poster boy of one of those young, hot, and rich authors of the 21st century (your words, not mine), because I often liked to use such poetic words and got an A for creative writing class.

But, you know how dad is like about these sort of stuff. All he has ever wanted at least one of his sons to do is football. The pressure on me wasn't as bad before, when Mark was still with us.

But now, football is all I've been doing. Dad had even contacted universities and asked them about football scouting, and signed me up for a bunch of tryouts.

Dad's too immersed in his own head and his own dream of me that he didn't even acknowledge how much I want to focus on literature instead. I don't hate football, I like it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I would want to do it for the rest of my life.

Someone needs to knock some sense into dad's head that I'm not Mark. I'm not Mark who did football. I can't ever be Mark Robert Shaw.

Love, Dylan