My childhood was a perfect one. My parents made sure I learned to dance with famous professionals. Rumba, Bachatam even Ballet and capoeira.

Music I was forced into. My elder brother Harry had made a show of it, touring the world, selling out world class stadiums in his free time. So as was common in my family, I had to match him.

Everything was made a competition between me and him, one that I would almost always lose. No matter how hard I tried I came second- and a good second at that. I’d often end up having to break a world record, or do something ‘amazing’ just to not embarrass myself. But between me and my brother, second meant I was last.

Harry passed exams ready for college for all his academic foci by twelve, and that was with a gap year that he forced my parents to let him have so that he could “find himself”. I was eleven at the time, and I was only starting my SATs which harry had aced at 9.

It was annoying but I got used to it. I always felt less loved, harry was appreciated more than me. Dad was a competitive man who prized manliness above all else. Having a son like Harry who dominated in everything was all he ever wanted. It wasn’t so much that I disappointed him but that harry set Father’s expectations too high and I could never reach them, always sitting just below, always failing him.

Mother loved us both, I think, or at least she would try too. But often harry would need more attention: she’d have to go to more of his performances; or take him to meet other promising youth. I’d have my fair share of occasions  to, but they’d clash with harry as he had too many and all of his were 'special' as mother would put it. I often had to go with the butler or nannies.

However, in the house I felt the least love from Harry himself. Harry rarely wasted words, if he had no reason to talk to you, he wouldn’t occupy himself with pleasantries. What does first place have to say to second? Nothing. I’d say we grew apart with age, but we were never close in the first place.

The day things turned I was fifteen in my sophomore year at Harvard. I had recently started a research project in neurotechnology. It was going to revolutionise learning, it would advance the world two decades over night and most of all it would be enough to impress my parents and beat Harry on something that mattered. The amount of good I would do for the world, even harry wouldn’t be able to match me. And I loved it. I loved the idea I was helping people, for the first-time life had some sort of purpose.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I had spent day and night for all my time in college, slaving in the library doing independent study for the research and it would all pay off soon.

But then on that day, as I slaved with my beakers and microscopes like I would every Tuesday one of our butlers came to my lab. It was Mother and Father, they had died. A gang had broken into the house the rare night they were both in together and killed them cold. The police report said they didn’t steal anything, leaving our home video security to watch them escape.

I was devastated. Although my relationship with my parents was an odd one, I loved them dearly. They always made me try my best. I’d seen them smile deeply for harry many times and wanted to earn one of those deep smiles for myself.

Although I tried to contact him Harry wasn’t interested in talking through the past. At the funeral he didn’t cry, and I wept enough tears for us both, once again a show of how much weaker I was than him.

They had split their millions between me and Harry in equal measures. Following Harry ended up turning millions into billions through investments and start-ups. He was the richest teenager in the world by seventeen.

I struggled to adapt much more. I turned to videogames to avoid confronting my emotions. I played games more and more, making it almost impossible for me to continue with my research, and then my studies. I decided I needed a drastic change to fix myself so turned to drugs.

I made few friends too through my dealer, Edward. At this point I couldn’t keep with college at all. I was kicked out of Harvard younger than most enter at sixteen.

I hung out with the Edward after college. We’d tour the world, rarely sober or level. We experienced many things, from Burning Man to doing hits with young royalty, the life was wild and expensive.

I had no idea how rich Edward was, but he always seemed to have enough money. We would always travel with an envoy of models and take them to our own separate quarters for ‘good times’, and the models were always tens.

Then I found out why. One day I overheard him talking about how much to sell the next batch for. He started describing them. Tall, all Brazilian but with good English. It took me a second to realise he was describing the same models we had round the night before.

It tormented me, I felt empty and evil and a failure. Harry now owned one of the biggest companies in the world, one of his early start ups investments and was set to hit double digit billions by eighteen and I was helping with human trafficking? The drugs made the emotions worse too. I felt all my failures crush down on me at once.

I needed repentance, and the only way to do that was to remove the main reason for all the evil I was seeing. Edward.

I staged an assassination for him, one night while he was sleeping, I went to his quarters. I found him with two true blondes, all laying in bed fast asleep, and I couldn’t help but be sickened by the sight. Tears started to streak down my cheek as I lunged for his heart. I’d brought one of the kitchen knives and new exactly where to strike from when me and harry done an anatomy sculpture contest.

Before I could serve the lethal strike, something stopped me, piercing through my skull. I heard a crack and then all there was was darkness.

I’d been shot.