Family isn't all there is.

Everyone’s eyes are on her, constantly. She’s the star of the show, and she has been since she was born. A promise of life from the highest in rank, given to a pair of the lowest as a form of bidding. Watching from the side was always Everly’s brother. Everly was a gift, and Trevor was not to be seen in the same way. Trevor is supposed to be hidden behind Everly at Mr.Pierce’ss expense because he was not supposed to exist. A rank is a list of the successful and most liked families in society. Every three years, there is a family name rank election. Ever since the Shopel’s have been given Everly, their rank has been in the second spot right below the Pierce’s.

When I was five, the Pierce’s gave mother and father Everly. Everly was also five years old, and I could swear her skin shined. It was hard to look away from her. At the time, we were trying to get by day by day. It was a tough life. Our house had buckets on the floors to collect rain, and the paint on the walls was faded and ugly. We couldn’t afford to even be on the charts anymore. Mother and father told me the day before we were given Everly that we would have to leave town. I never wanted to go, and that night, I cried. I wept out of self-pity, and since that day, the tears have never stoped behind closed doors. Now thirteen years later in about to go to her birthday party. I know it’ll be more extensive than any I have ever had. I’m jealous, but we have to keep our rank so that the city folk don’t ostracise us.

I straighten my tie and head downstairs to meet our arriving guests. The Pierce family will be arriving today as expected. They always show their faces for Everly’s birthdays. To my surprise, Jackson walks through the door and shakes my hand firmly with a slight nod. I haven’t seen Jackson science last year. After his sister’s funeral, he’s stayed at home and only sees people when he asks them to visit. Jackson is in love with Everly, and so they see each other all the time. I wonder if he will ever confess to her.

Everly has never been in a relationship, but she has always been followed by admirers wherever she goes. On the other hand, Trevor has never been allowed to do anything that might damage the family’s rank or his sister’s name. As a result of this, he’s always just followed in her shadows.

I grab a drink off of Thomas, one of our waiters, and make my way to the back corner of the room. Once I make it there and get comfortable, I study the crowd of people surrounding Everly, congratulating her for finally becoming an adult. Jealousy rages through my veins, and suddenly I can’t control my temper. I swiftly move through the crowd of people and upstairs to my bedroom. I catch myself out of the corner of my eye in the mirror. My face is red, and I cringe at my reflection. Why can’t I be special like Everly? After a few minutes of pacing, my temper is finally at ease, and I sit down on my bed, falling onto my back. Closing my eyes, I hear a muffled scream coming from downstairs in the living room.

Rushing out of my room, I trip on my feet and fall on my face. The pain knocks me out of my haze, and I quickly gather myself rushing to see what’s happening. I turn the corner, and I see Everly jump into Jacksons’ arms squealing like a child. I ask the woman beside me what I missed, and she fills me in that he just proposed, and she said yes. I turn my attention back to her. Her feet are off the ground entirely, and moments later, the rawr of the guests gets subsided by a loud knock on the door.

Trevor wipes his nose and notices his fall from earlier made his nose bleed. He wipes it on his sleeve and rushes to the door. Grabbing the brass handle of the door, he already knows who is on the other side of the door. His presence is known by not only Trevor but every other person standing behind him in suspense. Behind himself, he can hear everyone’s whispers.

Mr. Pierce walks through the doorway with his wife on his arm, both wearing their movie-perfect smile on their faces. I back away to hide, only to do the opposite. Mr. Pierce’s eyes turn towards me, and his smile briefly drops. He makes me feel as though I’m on fire. I wince under his gaze and turn to hide quickly. I’m never to be seen near him. What if the other family figured it out? Both of our families will lose our rankings.

Seventeen years and eleven months ago, Trevor’s mother had a brief affair with Mr. Pierce, and Trevor was the result of it. He was not only almost the end of Mr. Pierce’s high status but also the end of his mother and her husband’s life in this city. Trevor grew up knowing Mr. Pierce was his real father, but he calls Mr. Shopel, his father. Trevor was to hide this secret behind Everly’s success and beauty. Mr. Pierce bought her from a top-ranking family in the city just west of them.

*TRIGGER WARNING SELF-HARM/SUICIDE*

Mr. Pierce walks right up to Everly, and he kisses her cheeks. With a movement of his hand, his son is beside him, holding a shoebox-sized present. I know this gift will be a good one; she always gets unique gifts from him. Her smile makes the whole room applause. I go upstairs and into my sock drawer in my dresser, and I pull out a bag with many pills in it. I’m so sick of being cast out, and the only way I can get out of this is to forget the world I'm trapped in. Below me, I hear a woman say in a high-pitched voice, “Oh my, a car! How lovely for you, Everly!” Standing before the bathroom mirror, I mock the woman and turn to face my bathtub.

For a while, Trevor has struggled with self-harming and suicidal thoughts. His Problems have gone unnoticed because of his sister. He also is addicted to pills, and this is how he escapes. Trevor is almost old enough to escape this town, but he knows moving isn’t enough to fix his developed problems. Everyone knows him as the brother second to his sister. Trevor wrote his goodbye letter two weeks before this. He planned to die then, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Tonight was his limit, so this is the event to end his short life and painful death.

I turn up the water and plug the bathtub; watching it fill, I listen to the chattering going on downstairs. Why couldn’t I be like Everly, and Why did I have to be a bastard child. I wish I was normal and somewhere far from here. I pour the bag of pills out onto the table, and I count them. Fifty-five pills this should do. I turn on the sink when my bath is almost done, and I Scoop the pills into my hand. I lean over the sink, collecting water into my mouth, and I force the drugs down with it. In small amounts, eventually, finishing them. My bath is drawn, and I open my mirror, revealing some tiny storage shelves.

In the mirror, I have a box of razors. Pulling out a fresh one, I close the mirror catching one last glimpse of my foggy face. The water in the tub is too hot. It burns as I sit in it, still fully clothed. Rolling up my sleeves, I know that the pills will take effect soon, so I must hurry. I hold my arm up with the side of the bathtub.

Drawing lith the metal Trevor left a red line in its wake. He did another on the same arm, this time deeper. And then again on the other arm. He quickly plunged into the water and cried out as the hot water filled his fresh wounds to keep them from clotting. Finally, Trevor got what he wished for. While his sister was living a great life of her own, he got to end his. He finally got something he wanted… His own show.

Later that night after the party, Ms. Pierce searched his room to request his help with cleaning the house up. She couldn’t fund him anywhere; full of fury, she knocked on the bathroom door a couple times with no response; she rushed into his bathroom. His funeral was held a week later, and he was buried along with his secrets.