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Gerald POV

It was a pretty peaceful day. I finally had some time off of work and was enjoying the time lazing around, watching tv. Shelia had offered to drive Ike to hockey practice earlier and wouldn't be back until much later. Kyle was still home, but up in his room. I didn't give him too much grief about it since it was the weekened and he said he was using the time to catch up on some schoolwork due Monday. Which I encouraged since it was his senior year and every little bit of work counts. I just wish he had paid this much attention when he was younger, too. Now he'd be lucky to be recognized anywhere.

But at the very least, he's always there to help Ike out and be a good older brother. If only he was a good brother and a good student...Don't get me wrong! He got good grades, but outside of the schoolwork, he was just a trouble maker.

Shelia and I don't talk much about it anymore. We more just communicate through concerned looks and heavy sighs whenever a call from the principal or a letter saying he has detention comes. We had tried countless times trying to get him to act right. We tried to get him away from those trouble making friends, we tried to treat Kyle as an adult to show him we'd respect his independance more if that was what he needed, we tried to find scholorships to private schools...

So far nothing had worked. And it made me upset that Shelia was so depressed whenever she talked about it.

"Why can't he just be good, Gerald? Like his brother...Now, Ike! He has a future! He stays out of trouble despite Kyle's bad example!" She would sigh then and get this far away look. "Maybe we should face facts. Maybe the reason Ike does what he's supposed to is because he's much smarter. Kyle might be smart, but Ike is a genuis. Maybe that's the difference..."

Just when I was heading down a depressing path inside my own head, a small clink interupted my thoughts. 'Oh! The mail's here!'

I picked myself off of the couch and went over, picking up the pile of letters and tossing the magizine on the coffee table as I made my way back over to the couch, plopping myself back down.

'Let's see...Heating bill, electric bill, invitation to Randy's next Friday night kegger...' But the last one wasn't something that looked fimiliar. I dropped the other letters to the table to examine the one in my hands closely. I didn't recognize the name of the place that sent it, but it rang a bell...What was more unusual...It wasn't addressed to me or Shelia. It was for Kyle...

Call it parent's instinct or prying...but I couldn't help myself. I opened it.

Dear Kyle Brovlovski,

We are delighted and privledged to announce that your scores have been reviewed by a wide arrange of our many esteemed members, and our result has been finalized. You are well above the normal standards in every catagory of intelligence-nothing short of a genuis...

I couldn't find in me to read the rest of it, my eyes stuck on that single statement: Nothing short of a genuis...

That's right! This is the same place that we actually took Ike to to determine if he was as smart as we suspected! But...This score at the bottom...Ike's were no where near that high...

I stood and bolted up the stairs, letter in hand and knocked hurriedly on Kyle's door.

"Yeah?"

Taking that as the acknowledgement I needed, I let myself in, seeing Kyle sitting on his bed with his laptop in front of him. He didn't bother looking up at me, still typing away at something with more speed than I could ever hope to have.

"Kyle, this letter in the mail came for you," I started, trying to see if he'd know what it was for.

But instead he kept typing. "From school?"

"No, not from school. It's about a sort of test you took...The intelligence test..."

He stopped typing then, his eyes still glued to the screen in front of him, but lighting up with recognition before he sighed quietly. "No doubt you opened it then," he said boredly.

I went over to sit next to him on the bed, handing him the letter to look at himself. He scanned over it for a brief moment before he just set it next to him and resumed working on his computer.

Damnitt...Looked like it was up to me to start talking about this. "Kyle, why didn't you say anything before?"

He simply shrugged.

"Kyle, look at me,"

Kyle stopped his work and looked up at me, my own eyes met with his defensive green ones, looking the same as they always did nowadays. I sighed, trying to think of how to talk about this in the best way. "Kyle...I just don't understand. If you had this talent, then why have you wasted it all these years?"

His eyes sharpened then and he openly glared at me, but stayed quiet.

I nearly flinched at that. I knew he'd be mad, but jesus!

Before I could say anything further, he closed his laptop and set it inbetween us before getting up and going over to his desk, grabbing something from the top drawer and tossing something over at me, making me stumble to catch it.

"They don't think I wasted it," Kyle replied bitterly, seating himself in his desk chair with his arms crossed over his chest, still glaring at me.

I was confused and looked over the budle of papers in my hand before I realized what they were: acceptance letters! There must have been thirty in this pile alone! But why-

"Kyle, why didn't you say anything to me or your mom?"

"Because you both gave up on me a long time ago," he replied harshly. "I'm the trouble maker, remember? I could never be as good as your youngest son Ike, because I don't live up to the standards of being a perfect human being. There's no possible way that someone like me is smart, huh?"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just sat there, dumbfounded.

Kyle just shook his head at my silence. "I took that test because I'm tired of everyone giving up on me. I needed some form of proof that I was worth something and now it's meaningless because you've ruined it for me by making into something about you and mom." His gaze became saddened then and he looked away, his green eyes looking like there was a shine to them, as though he was close to tears. "It's not just you guys, either. It's the school, the people in town, the people who I thought were my friends...No one believes in me. According to everyone I'm just some stupid kid that'll never amount to anything. It wouldn't matter if that letter got printed in the newspaper. No one would think any better of me,"

He stood then grabbing his jacket from the closet and his mp3 from his desk. "I'm going for a walk,"

Without waiting for me to say anything I could hear him almost stomp down the stairs before the front door opened and slammed shut. Then silence...

Just me, my thoughts, and the letter that disproves anything I've ever thought about my son.

ooooooooo

sadness...

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