My Brother Is Living My Life.

Chapter 1: "Bitter Leo"

"Yeah girl, I mean...I make a good bit of money. I can't really complain or nothing, but enough about me. Tell me what it is that I can do to take you home with me tonight?"

I stared at my reflection in the mirror thinking I could never be him. I removed the leather trench coat that took shelter in my closet for the last 4 years and reached for my glasses that I sat on the bathroom sink.

Why couldn't I be him? Why couldn't I be my brother?

I studied myself in the mirror as my reflection taunted me. I don't have anything! I work at a grocery store as a night Stocker. I live in a one bedroom apartment on the worst side of the world. I drive a beat up old 96 Volvo that sound like it's beatboxing before it even cranks. I weigh no more then 187 pounds with a pair of glasses that damn near covers my entire face! Not to mention the thickness that cascades around the rim of the lens and the clear Scotch tape I have right in the center to hold them together.

Meanwhile, my brother Ronoh lives it up in the beautiful city of Los Angeles. He promises me all the time that he'll send for me to show me things I've never seen before and yet, here I was still waiting after 2 years.

I lift my arms to try and flex in multiple poses but the only thing I could see is the long vein protruding out of my forehead. Sigh. Life sucks! And 87% percent of the time I'm wishing to be someone else. I think I've probably been popular once in my whole 29 years of living and that's only because in the 10th grade I won a Chess Tournament which my entire class was rewarded a free week of recess... and because I was partially bullied into winning.

Nonetheless my popularity still counted, for that one week.

My brother on the other hand never had to try with anything. The ugliest thing about him is probably his feet but when you're perfect that seems to go out the window. That was always my go to jokes when we would roast each other in front of a crowd, but when everyone turned to look at his feet all they saw were a $795 dollar pair of Giuseppe Loafers. And when they turned to look at mine they saw two mix matched socks and a pair of run down Adidda slippers with a drawn on Nike check in the middle.

Fuck me.

The good thing about Ronoh is no matter how lavish he lives, he's always treated me the same. But whenever he comes around I have this anger in the pit of my chest. I believe its called 'Jealousy'. 'Envy'. I mean come on, I'm the one with the brains and education! He's just this 6'4 darkskinned guy who inherited our grandfather's player tendency's and has a nice set of teeth, who just oh so happens to fall into a pit of success. Geez, give me a break.

So just because I'm ugly means that his life should been better then mine?

I shut off the bathroom light and headed to the cramped living room and reached for the remote.

"Well lets see what's in store for me tonight."

I started flipping through channels.

"No... No... Definitely no."

I came across, 'The Wendy Williams Show' and stared for a moment.

"I still believe he's a man."

I kept flicking through channels until I came across 'Two And A Half Men'.

Now this is a show that I can relate to all too well. My brother is Charlie, the brother who has everything I could dream of and didn't have to really lift a finger to get it. While on the other hand I am Alan. The sap who has nothing and tried everything to not be a failure but it was obviously inevitable.

I looked at the digital clock on my stove to see that I only had 2 hours left before I had to get ready to got to work. My head fell back on the couch as I stared up at the ceiling wondering how come it seem like the only things I had time for anymore was work and sleep? It was like that's all my life consisted of and regular panic and asthma attacks. I can't have any animal companions because I will have a terrible reaction with my allergies. 

My life is just all fucked up.

My phone began to ring and I saw from the caller I.d that it was my friend Grant. I debated on rather I wanted to answer or just try and get these last 2 hours in before the graveyard shift began. I let the machine pick up.

"Uh, hi this is Leo. Uh, I'm not here right now or either I'm away. Well, I mean asleep or something so you could leave your name and everything else people leave on these machines. Uh, I'll most definitely try my best to contact you back if I can but if I don't then uh, it could be because I'm-" (Beep)

"Dude, you really have to change your answering machine because it's too damn long. I almost hung up. I know you're there Leo so you minus well pick up the phone, it's not like you're  doing anything else man."

I glanced at the receiver. How does he know? I could have company...or something. I hate when people do that shit!

"Anyways John and I were going to hit up a bar and attempt to find a girl drunk enough to...you know, have sex with us and we wanted to know of you were interested? You never knooow one us may get luuucky."

I let my hand hoover over the phone but then I remembered the graveyard shift I have to pull.

Shit.

I let my hand drop on the couch hard which somehow caused me to hit the talk button on the receiver.

Great. Time to pretend like I was asleep to get out of another sad and pathetic attempt at trying to converse with the opposite sex.

"Yeah hello? Whos this?" I said in a raspy tired tone.

"Dude come on its me, Grant and I know you're not asleep. You do this shit all the time."

I pretended to stifle a yawn and groan to make it seem like I was sitting up,

"What are you talking about? What time is it anyways I have to work tonight and I_"

I hung up the phone to make it seem like we got disconnected and unplugged the line. I didn't need another drink thrown in my face because I didn't know how to talk to females and most of them were stuck up anyways.

Maybe if I was dripping in Giuseppe shoes and diamonds I would get some type of attention. And if that's the case then I don't even want it.

Maybe.

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