Hey. My name is Rick. Rick Hodge to be exact. In my early childhood I lived somewhere in Virginia before my parents moved to New York. Of course they took me with them, they wouldn't abandon me. Mom and Dad always had been good parents, spoiling their little boy to no end and possibly avoiding those cheesy family meetings for him. That had been an difficult task, they used to say, but they didn't want my cheeks to be pinched by Aunt Bibs. Believe me, they were right to save me. Aunt Bibs had never been the sensitive type and had once pinched my father's cheek so hard that he still has a heart-shaped scar today. How? Let's say my family always had been... special. Aunt Bibs was stronger than a elephant (and looked like one, too), Dad healed with a simple touch and Mom, she was nicknamed 'Blizzard'on purpose. They were supers. They were, I wasn't. But when I was three and my little brother was born, we all knew he was 'special' too. I won't lie to you, so believe me that I wasn't jealous when Bibs got to go on vacation at some beach with him . Neither had I been when he lifted me off the ground at the age of three. Or when Dad bought him weights for Christmas (they consisted of two cars, but oh well...).
I didn't care about things like that, all that mattered to me was that he was nice to me. I'm not here to complain about my childhood and how horrible it was because I wasn't super, blah blah blah, because it wasn't, Bob didn't made it horrible, if anything, he made it even more wonderful. He was my little brother, I always was his 'little big bro' and he loved me more than anything else in the world. Not only that, I loved him back. I still remember one night when he had been nine and I thirteen, he just had had a nightmare about the city being destroyed and him being to weak to stop it, he wouldn't stop whining until he was allowed to crawl into my bed. He had been so bulky by then that we barely had enough place on the small mattress. But he managed to get me to cuddle with him and within a minute he was asleep. I couldn't sleep. I thought about his nightmare. It must have been horrible to know that one day it could really occur, for a moment I pitied him for being so strong, then I began to wonder how it would be if I had turned out as a super. For the next four years I woke up with the fear something could change.
As you can maybe tell, I was a rather philosophic kid and a worker with special goals, but not really smart. Smarter than Bob, I'm not saying this to make him look bad, but let's be honest: if it weren't for his powers and the immunity coming with it, he would have stayed down a year. He always said 'One day I'll be a hero, I don't need school.' and made his way through middle-school before going to a special high-school for future heroes. There he worked as hard as me for a year. When I was seventeen and he reached the age of fifteen, we were glad to be done with school and applied for college. We figured that since we both graduated from high-school with excellent grades (Bob had been trained for speeches and such) and we could be the two Hodges at college, we should both send our applications for The American Institute For Justice together.
In our two weeks of suspenseful waiting, I took myself some time to study my body. Apparently I hadn't been the only one to remark that I wasn't that bad looking. I had a beautiful girlfriend who kept on saying how sexy I was with my muscles, how much she loved my blond hair and- Oh!- how masculine my angular chin was!
But there was someone with more muscles, blond hair and a more angular chin. My fifteen year old brother.
It had been after two hours of exhausting swimming, I silently threw my bag onto our family-couch and sleepily walked to my room. Just before I touched the doorknob, as if I knew something was going on, I leant my ear onto the door and listened closely. I heard her voice.
"Oh Bob! That was so good!"
A satisfied chuckle echoed in the room, "Yes, I'm glad you and Rick broke up a few weeks ago..."
At that point I had heard enough, and as silently as I had come, I had retired to the couch in a certain state of shock. I'm sure you've felt it once. When you just have received a message to big for you mind to handle and you can't feel anything, not even pain, like a protection inside of your head. In my case I hadn't felt my nails dig into my knees. I don't know how long it took Bob to come out of my room with a smug grin, but at that point I was still staring at the ceiling with glistening eyes and he immediately had spotted me. I didn't look at him.
"We didn't break up."
These icy words had been my last for the rest of the day. When Melinda finally had come out of my room too, Bob had yelled at her for five minutes in the kitchen before she had run away crying. It had been fine with me, that bitch deserved it.
It had been after the numbness had wore off that I realized that it had been there for protection. I had entered my room, had hidden in it for ten tortuous minutes before I couldn't stand it anymore and grabbed a pillow to expose myself in the living-room, anything was better than staying in the room that smelled of Melinda and Bob. Together. All I did for the remaining two days was sulk on the couch and scream my anger into my pillow.
When the mail from the institute came, my father made me sit at the table with them to assist as Bob wrote that he had been accepted, while our parents congratulated him, I wanted to smile for him, my baby brother. But no matter how much I tried, I couldnt' even fake an upwards tug at my lips. All my miserable self could do was stare at him with eyes that radiated misery and yet congratulations as well. I'm still glad he had understood and had smiled back, even though he did it with his full lips. Those full lips that were placed on my face too. We were almost the same, so why, why had Melinda wanted him more than me? I couldn't figure it out, so I had watched his every movement. Bob had ripped open the second letter. Bob still had been grinning. Bob had scanned the letter. Bob's happy expression had dropped. Bob had looked at me. Bob's eyes held the look of sympathy and pity. My head hit the table. Finally, I had realized I was the difference. There you had it: my aunt Bibs, my brother Bob, my mom Beatrice, my dad Blake and myself, Rick. You could even hear the difference in the name. I wasn't a super.
Dad immediately told me he would be able to pay for my college, but that didn't mean he was satisfied. Good, neither was I. Once again I retired into the living room to slowly decay in peace for the next week. When I slept, which I barely did, Mom would come to cover me with her blanket.
Do you remember when I told you I wasn't here to complain about my childhood? And how wonderful it had been? Well, I can't say the rest of my life went like my childhood.
