On our new family portrait, David looked slightly out-of-place. There were four light-haired children

in the picture, who all looked like their dad, accompanied by a blonde perfect mom. All of them had

bright blue eyes and handsome smiles. There was also a dark-haired boy in the picture, whose face didn’t

fit with the rest of the kids and who looked nothing like his mom and dad. Later, when I saw some

pictures of David’s dad, I recognized that David looked exactly like him. They had the same grey eyes,

the same shy smile and the same dark unruly hair.

But even if David didn’t look like any of us and he wasn’t my dad’s real son, he adored my dad and he

adored Christine and me too…

2. Go away please

The feeling wasn’t mutual; I hated David and I wanted him to stay far away from me. As the years

progressed, my annoyance with him grew steadily. By the time I was seventeen, I felt like punching him

every time we ran in to each other. I was really annoyed by him because he was such a good boy all the

time. He did his chores, he studied hard and he played with Christine and the twins. It was sickening at

times how nice he was. At school he was every teachers’ pet and he would even get groceries sometimes

for Mrs. Lindeman, our eighty-year old neighbor. And he copied me in everything; Joining the football

team, wearing the same kind of clothes, he even applied to write for the school newspaper as well! I

hated the way he tried to suck up to my dad and me.

But worst of all, he reminded me of my old life that was gone now, the life where my mom had still

been around and where I didn’t have to share my dad with all these new people.

I resembled my dad in many ways. Like my dad, I was popular at school and I looked like him; being

tall and blond with regular features and a stern chin. We had the same light blue eyes, the same hands and

the same voice. By the time I was seventeen, I was almost the same height as my dad, 6’3”, and naturally

broad-shouldered. When I looked at my dad’s old yearbook pictures, it was like staring at a photograph of

myself. There was only one big difference between us; I was gay and my dad was not… I hadn’t told him

yet that I liked guys. Even though I knew that he wouldn’t be angry, I was still afraid that coming out to

him would ruin my position as his ‘favorite’.

To please my dad, I joined the football team at school. My dad had played football when he was young.

He loved that I’d joined the school’s team. He’d played as quarterback at the same school when he was

my age and a picture of him with his team was still hanging on the wall of his study at home. He

encouraged me to practice and I was good at it, even though I thought it was pretty boring. At least all my

friends played as well.

I knew dad was proud of me when we won a game. He’d sit there with the other dads, watching my

games and cheered when I scored. Afterwards, when we were driving home he would secretly take a

detour so that we could have a burger and fries together.

A year later David started playing football as well and even though he was a better player than me, my

dad rarely came to his games.

It was around that time that I started noticing that my dad really wasn’t so fond of David as I had

thought. I think David noticed too because he grew even more eager to gain my dad’s favor. It pleased me

that my dad didn’t like him. Too easily David had infiltrated into our lives and I was glad that his plans to

replace me as my dad’s favorite son hadn’t worked. My dad was happy with my achievements at school

and even boasted to his friends that I would take over his law firm someday. David was a straight A

student as well, although he had to study a lot harder than I did, but my dad didn’t seem to notice. I

secretly reveled in the fact that my dad didn’t give a shit about all his studying and his grades.

If Juliette ever noticed my dad’s slight aversion to David, then she didn’t say anything. She was too

busy with her young twins and with my sister who was now as close to her as a real mom and daughter

can be.

At school David and me sat at different tables in the cafeteria with our friends. We hardly ever spoke to

each other. “He’s a total geek,” I told my friends when they asked about him. “He collects these stupid

Star Trek figurines and he reads comics ! He has like thousands of them in his room!” All my friends

laughed. We snickered when we saw him sitting in the cafeteria with his best palls, one fat and one skinny

teenager, deeply engaged in a conversation about the X-men. When David saw my friends and me he

smiled and raised his hand to wave “hello”… I completely ignored him. “Just get the hell away from me,”

I would tell him if he followed me around.

David didn’t seem to mind that I ignored him at school or even that I talked about him behind his back.

He never told his mom or my dad that I didn’t return his greetings or even told him to “Fuck off” when he

wanted to ask me something in the hallway.

3. Falling for David

Before I knew it, I was in my senior year. I celebrated my eighteenth birthday in February with a big

party and my dad took me to Los Angeles for a weekend of father-son stuff.

With my dad it became painfully clear sometimes that he wasn’t into David so much. He was never

mean or rude to him, but his lack of interest said more than words. David’s eighteenth birthday was

celebrated in a more modest way than mine. When David showed some real talent for drawing my dad

dismissed this as something trivial. I think he was afraid that David would turn out like his own artist dad,

the suicidal loser. I think that David was really hurt that when some of his drawings were exhibited at

school and my dad didn’t even turn up to look at them.

The day after the exhibition at school, we were playing basketball outside and he still looked sad and

didn’t focus on the game. It was a hot day and we’d been playing for some time and I was annoyed by his

mood.

“It’s too bad dad couldn’t make it,” he told me again. Without thinking, I snapped back at him. “He

isn’t your dad, your dad is dead.” He looked startled.

“You’re such an asshole,” he said and threw down the basketball.

“It’s true,” I said, “My dad doesn’t want you here and I don’t either.”

“Shut the fuck up,” he hissed. That really got me going.

“Don’t think you living here makes you my dad’s son. Your dad was just a fucking loser who killed

himself,” I yelled at him letting all my frustration with him reach the surface. Before I knew it I say

something break in his expression and he started crying and ran towards the house. I waited for a couple

of minutes for him to come outside to finish our fight and when he didn’t come I went inside too.

My dad and Juliette had taken Christine and the twins to our grandparents and wouldn’t be home until

eleven. I was starting to feel kind of anxious that David would rat me out to my dad and Juliette, when dad

had explicitly forbidden me to ever speak of David’s dad.

I decided to go to my room and to wait for David to join me after a while, like he always did when we

had a stupid fight. I was still feeling annoyed with him. When I got upstairs to my room however, I could

hear him crying in the room next to mine. When the sounds hadn’t stopped fifteen minutes later I couldn’t

take it anymore and went into his room.

He was lying on his bed, his head buried in his pillow. I don’t know if he heard me come in, at least he

didn’t look up. The sound of him sobbing really got to me and all of a sudden I felt sorry for him.