A/N: Wow...I think this is the longest story I've ever written. :)
I just wanted to thank SecretLifeOfAChemNerd for beta-ing me on this. THANKS SO MUCH!
Disclaimer: I do not and will never own Big Time Rush.
It was like this—he never backed down from a challenge. Ever. The spark danced in his eyes and everything around him seemed to tense as if he were going to explode with his passion.
Little did he know, that would be his downfall. No one knew this about him, but he was only competitive because he wanted what his best friends had. He was just so envious of them! They had everything he didn't—Carlos had his energy, Logan his brains, and James his pretty face and big ambitions. But he? He had nothing. Sure, he could lead others, but what could he really do with that? It wasn't like he was suddenly going to become the president or something.
He hated lying to himself, but it had to be done. No, those weren't the main reasons he was jealous of his friends. The real reason was that his dad died when he was six. He could remember everything about that night. His dad had come home, drunk and exhausted. Kendall had always adored his father because he was a doctor, and he had admired the fact that his dad saved lives on a daily basis. Whenever Kendall and Keith would talk, it was always about how Kendall was going to grow up to be a doctor and how proud Keith would be when that happened. In Kendall's eyes, he was the best father anyone could ever be.
Of course, Kendall was too young then to know that drinking wasn't the correct protocol—especially for doctors—but Miranda wasn't. The first time that it had happened, Miranda simply looked disappointed that he would do such a thing. She had just led him to their small bedroom. The second time, well, Miranda seemed angrier. And then, that fateful night—that was the third time. He remembered standing in the shadows, half-shrouded with darkness, listening as she screamed at him for his stupidity. He couldn't understand. His dad hadn't done anything wrong, had he? No, his mind answered. No, he hadn't.
He remembered feeling furious at his mother. He remembered that cold feeling that ran up his spine and through his body. Why was his mother yelling at his father, who had clearly done nothing wrong? Kendall had always been headstrong, but now…now everything changed.
Kendall knew. He knew that that night was the night that he learned how to hate. His mother and father had gotten into a huge screaming match, and he, being the only child, was the only one there to witness it. Oh, it was terrible. His father was so upset in his drunken stupor that he idiotically grabbed his keys and drove off into the night. His mother had screamed, "GOOD! I CAN'T WAIT TO NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN!" in her blind rage. His father, not in his right state of mind, had believed her. And Kendall had just sat, unbelieving, in his state of distress. His father had left him. His father had left him. Kendall had never thought that he would say those words, but he did. He said them aloud, but they were but a whisper—a whisper of a broken spirit and soul.
But that's when it happened. Not fifteen minutes later, he had heard the phone ring. His mother dragged herself to the countertop and had picked it up. Kendall had watched as her face dropped so suddenly that he felt sick to his stomach. Even at the age of five, he just understood that something had happened. His mother had replied in a weak, trembling voice and had hung up the phone a few minutes later. He remembered watching her lean unsteadily against the wall and breathe heavily. Then she had called out in a weak voice, "Kenny?" and he had just known that, consequences be damned, he shouldn't pretend to be asleep. He had quickly run out and had looked at her with his emerald eyes that reminded her so much of his father. She had cried softly and had said, "Kenny, it's your father…he's—he…he's…d-dead…" And her voice had choked on the last word, leaving her to sob desperately. Kendall hadn't believed her at first. It had been like a nightmare, and it still was. And that night also had something else tied to it—another life. His mother had gone out and had gotten drunk, like his father had, and had gotten knocked up by some random guy. That was the night Katie was conceived.
But he remembered going through the days and the weeks in a daze. He remembered his mother just falling apart, knowing that she did this to him. And even though some rational voice in his head had reminded him that it wasn't her fault, he had ignored it and had believed whole-heartedly that it was. He hated her, and he hated Katie—at least for a while. Eventually, he grew to love Katie because it wasn't her fault. But it was Miranda's. So even though he acted like he loved her in front of Logan, James, and Carlos, he really didn't.
Kendall knew Miranda wasn't stupid. She knew that he hated her with all his being for taking away his dad. He was something that was irreplaceable—even if Keith had made a few mistakes— and he knew that, and she knew that. But Kendall did pity the woman, even just a little bit. He wasn't stupid either; he knew that even though she acted strong—just like him—for everyone else, she was truly broken inside. Yes, he knew that he hating her didn't help anything, but he also knew that Katie loving her with everything she had would. So, he had come to her when Katie was three and had told her that they should never, ever tell Katie what happened. Kendall had grown up a lot in four years and was a lot more mature than anyone else his age. She was still a mess then, but she had agreed. And that was that. They never spoke unless they had to, except in front of his friends so that they didn't suspect anything.
His friends. Oh, his friends. They were so wonderfully naïve, and he wouldn't want them to change anyway. He had met them the day after the accident. He remembered it clearly.
He had gone outside in need of fresh air after the accident that shattered his whole world. He just started kindergarten that August and had, unluckily, made no friends at all. So, naturally, he surprised himself when he decided to go to the park. The park was synonymous for being the place to be with friends—at least for kindergarteners, anyway. So he went, trudging dejectedly, mulling over what had happened. In his depressed state, he didn't noticed three boys walk over to him, one with pale skin and black hair, another with tanned skin and dark hair, and the last with sun-kissed skin and long brown hair. The tanned one spoke up first.
"What's wron'?" he had asked excitedly. "Logan says you look lonely so we came over."
"I'm fine," Kendall muttered dejectedly, even though he knew he wasn't fine. The pale-skinned boy was about to say something when a loud voice was heard.
"Hey! Mitchell, so you're hanging with the friendless loser now, are you?" the voice sneered. The pale one shrunk back and shivered quite noticeably. Kendall had looked up, finally, and saw that the voice belonged to the class bully, Dave. Dave was two years older than everyone else because he had repeated kindergarten twice. He was angry all the time because of this, and he always took it out on everyone. However, Kendall found out later that he was especially hard on Logan due to his geeky nature and shy demeanor.
The boy with the long brown hair had spoken up.
"Hey! Leave Logan alone!" he called out bravely. Kendall knew that the boy was scared, yet the boy had spoken up anyway. The bully was about to shove the brown-haired boy when Kendall stood up.
"Leave. Them. Alone," he said to Dave quite menacingly.
"Oh yeah? Or what?" Dave challenged. Suddenly, Kendall drew his fist up and punched Dave square in the nose. Dave looked at him, unbelieving, but left pretty quickly, running away, screaming, "MOMMY! MOMMY! He hurt me!" Dave had never again bothered the boys.
After Dave left, the three boys turned to Kendall with a look of awe in their eyes. Their innocent faces shone with appreciation, and they hastily invited him to play with them, talking animatedly about the play date and what they were going to do. (Kendall found out their names after finding a break in their chatter and asking quickly.) Kendall knew that he hadn't the heart to tell them what had happened—and he still didn't now—so when the guys asked later on where his dad was, he quickly lied and said that Keith was in Massachusetts because his parents were divorced. James and Carlos bought it. Logan looked at him suspiciously but let it go anyway.
Even if the existence of their parents made him the most jealous, he envied everything Logan, James, and Carlos had. First, there was Logan. Logan, Logan, Logan…perhaps he was jealous of Logan the most of all the boys. Logan was really smart, and Kendall knew it. However, he had never let it bother him until they were eleven. Their science teacher, Mrs. Adams, had given them a particularly hard science test. Kendall had studied hard for it, so when they had taken it, he was confident that he would do well. Little did he know that he was so wrong.
Mrs. Adams had given their tests back to them with an excited look upon her face.
She announced beforehand, "Class, I have finished grading your papers, and I have exciting news! One person in this classroom has gotten a perfect score."
A murmur of excitement rose from the classroom. Kendall felt his spine tingling with excitement. It was him; he just knew it! He glanced at Logan, who was sitting beside him with his fingers crossed and eyes shut tightly. Kendall knew that Logan would care if he had gotten anything other than a perfect score, and Kendall pitied Logan because Kendall knew that he would be getting the perfect score. Beaming with anticipation, he waited anxiously for his name to be called.
Mrs. Adams said, "And that person is…Logan!"
The class burst into applause for Logan, well, everyone but Kendall. He sunk low into his seat, stunned. How did he not get that perfect score? He had studied so hard for that 100, only to have it go to Logan! Furious, he turned to Logan.
"This is so unfair!" he screamed. The whole class watched in eerie silence. "I studied for that test. You didn't! I should have been the one to get the score! Not you!"
Breathing heavily, Kendall plopped down in his seat and put his head to his desk and arms around his head. He missed Logan running out of the room with tears burning his eyes and James glaring daggers at him and running after Logan. Carlos simply followed James out of the room and refused to look at Kendall. After a while, Kendall lifted his head. Logan was next to him, but with his back turned, and there was a piece of paper on his desk. Curiously, he picked it up and saw that it was his test paper. Turning it over, he was devastated to find that he had gotten an F on it. For the rest of that day, Kendall walked around in a daze, not speaking to any of his friends, and they not speaking to him.
When he got home, Kendall's thoughts were in jumbled pieces, and he felt heartbroken. He'd always wanted to be a doctor like his father, yet how could he if his grades weren't stellar? For the first time in his life, he truly hated Logan, even if it was only for a split second.
Kendall hated to admit it, but that incident drove a deep wedge between him and Logan. Before, he and Logan had been closer than the others to him because he saved Logan from Dave, but now…he wasn't as close because of the incident six years ago in which he was just…jealous.
Then there was Carlos. If he was jealous of Logan the most, then Carlos was definitely a close second. In fact, he was often more envious of Carlos than he was of Logan. Carlos had what he wanted the most—a complete, functioning family. Carlos had a mother who wasn't broken and torn, a father who wasn't dead, and a sister who wasn't the result of a mistake. That was the reason Carlos was so happy all the time—his family loved him, and he loved them back. That was so hard to come by.
He went to Carlos's house one afternoon to work on his Spanish homework with him. With Carlos being a Latino, help would definitely come to Kendall. Kendall walked in, and immediately, a voice boomed, "Well, hey there, son!"
Kendall was so surprised that he didn't say anything, leading Carlos's dad, still clad in his uniform, to yell, "Maria! Come here, there's a boy who might be mute!"
Kendall was so offended that he snapped, "I'm not mute!" just in time for Maria to hear. The pretty woman just smiled at him gently.
"I know, honey," she said soothingly. "Carl here is just a bit assuming." Carl looked pretty ashamed of himself. "Carlos, sweetheart, Kendall's here!"
"Coming!" a shout was heard from upstairs. But before Carlos could come running down, a flurry of pink and purple tumbled down the stairs.
"Mama!" the girl complained. "Bruno ate my homework!" Kendall guessed that he must have looked pretty confused because Carl explained that Bruno was their family dog. Then, the girl noticed him and smiled shyly.
"Hi, I'm Sasha," she stated.
It was been then that Carlos raced down the stairs. Carlos smiled easily and said, "Oh, I see you've met Papi, Mama, and Sasha."
Kendall grinned back affirmatively but felt the sharp claws of jealously clenching around his stomach. The rest of the evening was filled with awkwardly pronounced phrases, laughter, and boisterous conversations.
He got on well with Carlos's family, and it was probably because of this that Kendall became closer to Carlos than he did to James or Logan. Despite this, Kendall still regarded Carlos with a bit of resentment due to Carlos having what he wished so much for.
James, with his big ambition to be famous, who had pretty hair and a pretty face and everything that he needed to be a pop star, including the voice. Kendall was just so jealous of James's clear ambition. James knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. James wanted to be a pop star, sell out millions of arenas, and marry Logan. (Yes, James was in love with Logan. It made Kendall sick because James would look at Logan with a puppy dog look in his eyes. When James wasn't looking, Logan would do the same to James.) But Kendall had no idea what to do when he grew up.
He remembered Mrs. Temir, his kindergarten teacher, asking the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. She had called on James first. He had promptly answered, "I wanna be famous!" in the most enthusiastic voice possible. The class had laughed, but after seeing the determined look in James's eyes, Kendall knew that James would grow up to be famous.
"Kendall? What about you?" Mrs. Temir asked.
Kendall had thought for a few minutes but couldn't think of anything, so he had just answered with the first thing he thought of, "A hockey player!"
His friends had looked at him with surprise. He had never showed indication of wanting to play hockey, but it was one of the things that his father had managed to teach him before his death. In honor of his father, he kept practicing, in hopes of being as good as Keith one day. In order to make his lie believable, he had decided to join the hockey team in middle school. Since he was the unofficial leader, his friends followed his example.
But since then, he had been extremely jealous of all of his friends for being who they were and having what they had. He had nothing, and they had everything. And it was probably from this jealousy that his competitive nature arose. Because of this, Kendall felt like he had to do something or have something better than his friends.
And Kendall wasn't completely stupid. He knew that academics were out—there wasn't even a point in considering it, seeing as though Logan would always beat him. Hockey? Sure, but that was just one thing. So for as long as he had known his friends, Kendall had been competing against them in his mind in everything that he could think of—skating, playing hockey, eating (Kendall beat Carlos only once, though), every single activity that the quartet did.
Of course, Kendall knew that his friends hated the fact that he was so competitive. But he had nothing else going for him. If he could just be better than his best friends at one thing, maybe he would feel better for a split second.