dreams worth more than money ♛ self
“I mean, the professor’s kinda weird, but other than that the class is a total breeze.” Herrick watches inattentively as his toes curl against his headboard, wiggling a little down his mattress so that his head isn’t completely falling off the edge of the bed. He’ll neglect to tell his father that he’s falling behind in English, of course, because who needs English? The business world is increasingly multilingual, anyway. “I’m already ahead when it comes to all the tests, so.”
“That’s fantastic, mijo.” Andrés D’Cruz sounds distracted as ever—Herrick is certain he can hear him tapping away at a keyboard in the silence that follows the aloof praise. He holds in the urge to sigh. It takes weeks for him to schedule a call with his father and he can’t even get his full attention? Mierda.
Not one to be overshadowed (by work, no less), Herrick sits up with determination, clutching a furry sheepskin pillow to his side. “My counselor’s even saying that if I continue on the path I’m on right now, I could be set to graduate a year early. It’s like, it’s almost unheard of for double majors.”
That gets a pause out of his father, at least. “—You’re kidding, how fantastic!” (It’s the third time he’s said “fantastic”.) “Your mother and I will be very proud of you. Very proud.”
Of course they will be. They’re always just proud, but that’s all they ever are, they’re never proud enough to realize just how hard he works for what he wants. Can the same be said about Victor? Not at all. They celebrate when he wipes his ass on his own. Just the thought of his brother’s privilege over him has him seeing red, and he can’t help the next thing that comes flying out of his mouth.
“It took Victor five years,” he blurts out, not feeling the slightest bit of guilt for dragging his brother down to make his point. “He’s still trying to graduate.”
Nonchalance. “Victor has a business to worry about on top of his schooling, he’s been stressed. Don’t worry about Victor, worry about your own grades. You’re on top of your game!”
Though he had somewhat of a point, Herrick heard nothing after “he’s been stressed.” What a boldfaced lie. At this point, he couldn’t tell whether his father was being genuinely dense or just covering for his precious oldest son. “Stressed? He’s been partying nonstop since freshman year!”
“I mean, you see all the pictures he’s tagged in, all he does is drink and hookup with gold-diggers, he doesn’t give two shits about ‘schooling’ and he never has! I work ten times harder than he does for a lousy passing grade and you know that.”
“Enough already, I’m not having this conversation with you right now,” Andrés barks, startling Herrick out of his tirade for a change. His father hardly ever scolds him, but when he does, it has Herrick retracting right into his shell in a rare moment of surrender. “I don’t want to hear about Victor and the company anymore. Your focus needs to be on graduating, understand me?”
And Herrick was silent. If he couldn’t convince his parents to give him the business by succeeding, maybe it was time he started thinking about a different approach. Hanging up on his father without so much as a goodbye (he knew he wouldn’t even get a text for the next few days), he pulled out his laptop, going straight to his brother’s private Facebook profile and dialing another number. His father didn’t see how little Victor worked for this? That was fine. Surely the general public would see otherwise.
Herrick didn’t believe in sabotaging his competition. Right now, his competition was sabotaging itself.
