THE UNTOLD HORIZONS / ORIGINAL CONTENT

VII - STAR-STUDDED SON .

i'm slowly starting to learn more and more as time goes on; you see, ever since my brother died, i've learned a lot of things. the most apparent thing being that, even now as the only child, i wasn't ever the favorite. can't say that i didn't see that coming. josh was so star-studded in their eyes, being the oldest, and being a boy? he had it made. as for me, i think even when i didn't know, i knew that their love for me wasn't ever going to be on the same level as the love they had for josh. he was everything they ever could have asked for; he played football, he was good at school, never got less than a one-hundred on anything. he was personable, charming, the type of guy you couldn't ever harbor any bad feelings toward. even me. i was his sister, i should be the person who harbors everything against him, but not even i could. that's just who he was. but i guess in return, he treated me the same. he used to tell me that, he could never stay really mad at me, even when i did the stupid things i did. he said, he still loved me. i lived with that idea, okay with the idea that yeah, maybe my parents wouldn't love me the same way they loved josh. at least my brother loved me enough to make up for that. i feel ungrateful when i think about it now. i think more and more about the fact that it's much more apparent that my parents preferred josh. but now, i'm doing this alone, without the reassurance i became so accustomed to.

the three of us can sit in a room and it could be completely quiet, while my parents engage in distant glances. most of the time my mom's distant looks are towards josh's pictures, thinking i don't notice when the tears fill her eyes; as if she's the only one who misses him. while my dad loses himself in mindless television, his eyes become glassy, reflecting internally, maybe following with a sigh. the two of the gaining another set of miles between us, edging me away as they thought, possibly in the very depths of their mind, with this question on the tip of their tongues; "why not nicole?" they'd never say it, and i'm sure they'd be so baffled if i ever asked if that's how they felt. but i'm sure it's been thought between the two of them. it wouldn't be such a loss for them, i played the flute for two years, but gave it up my freshman year. i was smart, i got decent grades, but my b average didn't really compare. i wasn't star studded, i was just the other kid on the yun family christmas card. all the phone calls that used to come in to ask about josh, how football was going, if he was dating a girl /she was so lucky/ if not, it was something how the girls were going to be banging his door down soon. even talking about his grades, how they fawned over the idea of him becoming valedictorian. questions about me were asking about how was school, did i have a boyfriend, was i getting into trouble? the difference was everyone couldn't believe that josh was apart of our family, it felt like i was asked or talked about just because i was his sister, i was just another person who was lucky enough to be related to him.

why was i not good enough for these people, why wasn't i good enough for my own family? i used to ask myself this all the time. i used to scream and cry over this, over why i couldn't be their star-studded child. i remember once that i got so upset that i broke my flute. i had taken it out of its case about twenty minutes before i started to break down to practice. i can't remember what exactly set me off, i think it had something to do with my autumn recital being scheduled the same day as one of josh's games. everything josh did was more important. my parents didn't even need to talk more than five minutes to decide that josh needed his family there for the big game. in which case, fourteen year old me had easily decided what was the point of practicing if they didn't even want to go? so, i grabbed the silvery instrument by the base, as if it were the handle to a hammer; slamming it against my hardwood floor until i decided it was damaged enough. i think there is even a chip still in the floor from it to be honest. i think the funniest part of this entire story is that my parents didn't really seem to care about the damage to the flute, it was like, "no more concerts, and now we can go watch josh all the time without having to pretend we cared about missing the recitals." promptly to unconsciously help this request, i quit band when i started high school.

the only person who seemed to really care about the fact that i quit band was alex; he's been my closest friend since the fourth grade, and actively joined band because i did. except he became a french hornist, who sat closer to the trombonists as well as the saxophonists, in the third row. while as a flutist, i sat in the front with the oboe and clarinet players. it was fine with the two of us, because in that span of tine, we could endure different sets of gossip to share with each other and then promptly complain about our band instructor, miss kaye. she had a lot of expectations for a group of fourteen year olds, and then would complain about the fact that we were nothing like her group of band kids at the high school. alex and i would laugh about it after class, he would even do some dumb impression of her, and over exaggerate her nasally voice. i wasn't ever as funny as him, but he had a talent of being able to be funny enough for the both of us. needless to say, he didn't take it so well when i told him i was quitting.

i had, of course, left the fact that i destroyed my flute out of it. but rather, i said i had dropped it too many times, and my parents didn't want to pay for the damages. he quickly was thinking of solutions to keep me in band, like; renting or borrowing from the school, looking for any flutes for sale online, or even saving up money to get it repaired myself. ultimately, i wanted to just tell alex the truth, but, he would then ask why i did it, and i just didn't feel like going into that conversation with him. i told him that i was starting to not really like band all that much anymore anyway, and this was really all i needed to convince me to quit. i remember he started to pout, asking who was he going to complain to about anymore, it wouldn't be the same if i wasn't there to experience it with him. he gave a really lengthy and dramatic sigh, asking me, "are you seriously going to just /leave/ me?" but i followed his question with just an eye roll, and then said that just because i wasn't going to be in band anymore didn't mean i still wouldn't be there for him to bitch about miss kaye with, and it wasn't like i wasn't still going to try to go to those recitals to see him play. it took a little while for him to really come to terms with this, but a part of me sort of thrived in the fact that he cared so much, and was even upset that i was leaving. sounds a little desperate when i put it into words.

07/27/20: so hey it's been awhile, but i'm sort of back, i finished my second semester of school, and have some time in between before the fall semester begins. i'm going to try and do some updates to asphalt capital because tbh i really miss it! anyway yeah!