Alec Smith was never anyone’s first choice. Always in his older brother’s shadow, their parents would favour him more than Alec as his brother, Alexander, was much more mature, responsible, hardworking and was their firstborn child.
No matter how much effort he puts in his studies and soccer, it was never enough for Alec’s parents.
On the night of Alec’s final high school soccer game, they won, but Alec could not find his brother anywhere. Alexander would always attend his game to support him when none of his family members bothered about it.
Alec called him multiple times before giving up and left a voicemail telling him to call him back when he is free as he thought Alexander might be busy at the moment.
Alec was disappointed that his brother did not at least try to contact him to tell him he could not attend his final game. But, he did not put any more thought into it and followed his best friend, Hunter, to the after-party to celebrate.
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After partying and celebrating their win for 6 hours after the game, Alec reached home, half-drunk, at around 3 am. He was too tired and drunk to take a shower and went straight to sleep once his head touched the pillow. He did not even realise Alexander’s bedroom was open and was emptier than usual.
A few hours into his sleep, Alec woke up, hearing his parents shouting frantically at each other right outside his brother's door, which was 2 meters away from his room. He looked out the window and saw it was still dark out and, because of that, went back to sleep with his head pounding.
He finally woke up at noon, with a massive headache, and sloppily crawled out of his bed and went straight into the bathroom to do his business and went on with his daily morning routine.
He finally came out of his room an hour later, fully dressed, and went straight to the kitchen to look for Advil to calm down his headache.
When he got to the kitchen, he saw his caregiver, Maria, who had been taking care of both Alexander and Alec since they were little. Maria got hired to take care of them as their parents were always not home. They either were on a business trip or were too busy with work.
Maria felt more than a mother to Alec as she has been there for him more than his parents themselves. She knows how their parents treat Alexander much better than Alec when they are around and, because of that, she decided to become a mother figure to him.
“Morning, mijo! You slept in a lot longer today. Did you come back home late again?” Maria, who knows Alec came back home in the middle of night drunk as she saw he left his shoe at the bottom of the stairs when she woke up in the morning.
“Morning Mamá,” Alec who sloppily went to the medicine cabinet to find Advil, “yeah, I came back at around 3 am, I think, I don’t know. Why did you ask?”.
“Well, I found something at the bottom of the stairs that was not there when I went to bed last night.” Maria, who was staring at Alec struggling to look for Advil, said.
“Oh… so that’s where my shoes went…” Alec, who turned around looking frustrated, said.
He was about to ask her where the Advils were. But, Maria beats him to it and points at a counter behind her. A bottle of Advils and a glass of water that she prepared was on it.
Alec went over and kissed her cheek before popping two pills in his mouth and drank the entire glass of water.
“Did you win last night’s game by the way?” Maria, who was cooking lunch for the family, said.
“Oh yeah, we won!” I scored five goals last night, which was amazing! I have never scored that many goals in my life before!” Alec continues talking on and on about it.
“I’m glad that we won our last game. If we didn’t, we would have been so disappointed in ourselves. We trained so hard for the competition, and our coach would have screamed his head off at us if we would have thrown the game,” Alec, who wouldn’t stop blabbering about last night’s game.
“Alright, alright, I get it.” Maria chuckled at Alec, who you can clearly tell loves soccer more than anything. “Head on to the dining room lunch is ready in fifteen minutes,” Maria said while adding the final touches to the dishes.
“Alright, love you,” Alec said and was starting to feel better after swallowing down the Advils.
“Oh yeah, one more thing, have you seen Alex anywhere? He didn’t come to my game and didn’t call me back after I left him a voicemail last night.” Alec suddenly remembered about his brother said.
“No, I haven’t seen him yet today,” Maria said while bringing plates out to the dining table. “The last time I saw him, he was fighting with your parents in the foyer after you left for school yesterday morning.” Maria, who remembered Alexander shouting at his parents about Alec before storming out of the house. But, chose to not tell Alec about them fighting about him.
“Oh, have you seen my parents then?” Alec said. He was confused about why they fought in the first place. Alexander and his parents hardly got into fights. Hearing Maria explain what happened yesterday kind of helped him understand why Alexander didn’t come to his game.
“I heard them shouting right outside Alex's bedroom last night, well a few hours ago,” Alec remembered them waking him up with their shouting. “Their shouting woke me up and gave me a headache,” Alec said and subconsciously shakes his head.
“Yeah, I saw them earlier in the morning, about 3 hours ago,” Maria said while bringing the last few dishes into the dining room and looked at the clock. “They had to go to an early morning meeting with their lawyers. They said they would be coming back for lunch.”
“Oh, did they tell you what the meeting is about?” Alec, who was once again confused, said.
Maria turned around to Alec and said, “Honey, you know they don’t trust me well enough to talk to me about their business. Why don’t you ask them when they come back?”
Alec rolled his eyes and replied, "Ugh, you know why I am not going to do that... They always ignore my questions when I ask about the business. I always have to rely on Alex after they leave." Alec started to get anxious and swing his right leg.
“I just want them to at least acknowledge me or be proud of one of my accomplishments. But, they never seem to care how well I do in school or how many competitions I have won. It is never enough for them.”
Alec started to remember the day he won his first game and started to get emotional.
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