11 years ago. ...
I never really got used of living in this big Mansion of my parents. It almost felt like I was playing hide and seek with the ghosts with all the space the house had. I tried to keep to myself at all times, avoiding my stepmother's path.
For the first few years she'd have her friends come over and had me locked in my room till they were gone. "Don't come out till I tell you to", she'd say as she closes the bedroom door.
Her peers would sometimes catch a glimpse of me and wonder to themselves, why is the help's son always in the main house. But Mrs Baston would always through them off by telling them, "kids. They're all the same whether yours all the help".
Her peers would laugh it off with her, but their suspicions would constantly rise. They heard the rumours about my dad's many late nights at work. One time when I was four, one of the neighbours called me over when she noticed me playing outside. She was one of the many housewives. A black lady who married a dentist if I remember right.
"Hey sweetie. Where's your mother", she asked me. "She's out of town, but she's coming to get me soon", I told her. "Okay. And your daddy", she asked me. "He's gone to work", I tell her. "Who's your daddy sweetie", she asks me. I look at her for a couple of seconds, and turn back to look at my house. "Uhm. My dad is Mr Ba...", I reluctantly start to say.
"Jahmal! Come inside", Mrs Baston calls me in. I walk into the house and Mrs Baston looks at the neighbour and smiles. "His mom has been calling him like crazy", she tells her with a laugh. The neighbour laughs too, but it's more of a suspicious laugh. After that day I got a scolding from Mrs Baston, and she told me "whenever people asked who your father is, you should say I don't know. He ran away before I was born".
Our neighbour had all kinds of people, black, white, Asian, Colombian, German, a couple of Jews and a whole lot of different types of people.
What everyone had in common was they were all rich. Everyone in my neighbourhood competed with each other, by buying the latest cars, biggest yachts, best clothes, biggest property investments or constantly going on luxurious vacations. But nobody could compete with the Bastons except the Osmans of course.
April's family lived close to the end of our neighbourhood. They kept to themselves mostly, and never really flashed their wealth. But everyone knew they were filthy rich. Mr Osman was a renowned plastic surgeon who had made smart business investments throughout his lifetime. His wife was a fashion designer who owned her own clothing line and had yearly fashion events to showcase her brand. Despite that, they were generally nice people compared to the neighbours I had to deal with everyday.
As time went on I learned how the relationship between my stepmother and I worked out. She still didn't like me, but she tolerated me. It was simple, do what she asks when she asks, and stay out of trouble. The main point was not to worry her too much. So as I lived by those rules, I learned how to get a few bucks out of her. Her system was that if you do enough good and behaved yourself, you can ask her for an allowance once in a while.
It didn't matter what I ended up spending the money on. Whether it was clothes, booze, weed or even a drugs sometimes. But I wouldn't by the strong stuff, just a little something for a few laughs on the weekends.
She minded her own business, as did I.
It would have been a lot easier for me to ask my dad for money. But I did that once and ended up getting us both in trouble when Mrs Baston found out about it. So my best play was to suck up to person who held the keys to the wallet.
It got a little easier for me once people finally knew about my real identity. It never really damaged the Baston name too much, especially when people had their suspicions from a while back. After a week of the housewives gossiping about it, the buzz finally died out and they went back to kissing my stepmother's ass.
With everyone knowing my true identity, there was a constant need of keeping the Baston family name highly regarded. On one particular day I was heading out of the house when Mrs Baston stopped me.
"Where are you going", she asked me. "To go see a friend", I told her. She took one good look at me from head to toe and told me, "not looking like that". She grabbed her purse and pulled out a couple of hundreds and handed it to me. "Here. Go buy yourself some better looking clothes before you start parading around with our name. Make sure to get really expensive ones Jahmal, we have a name to keep.", she told me.
I grabbed the money and told her, "cool". We never say thank you between the both of us; and it's always been that way.
Now my relationship with Ethan and I was a whole lot different. Firstly he didn't like me, and couldn't tolerate me. Secondly, he hated being associated with me in any shape or form. One time his friends came over to play and they walked in on me eating a sandwich by the kitchen counter.
"Who's the kid", one his new friends asked. Ethan told him, "that's just my stupid stepbrother Jahmal".
"Hey Jahmal. F*ck off", he told me. I got up with my plate and headed for the stairs. As I got there Ethan kicked me to ground from behind. "Mom says no food in the room", he told me. I picked up my plate and ignored him while I went up stairs.
Ethan loved kicking me down from behind, but his biggest mistake was doing it so much that I could easily predict his move. The one time he tried to kick me, but I managed to dodge it and he ended up kicking the wall. What made it worse was his friends were there to see his failure. They laughed at him, but I knew for a fact that was going to backfire on me later.
Some of the kids liked me, and not just the black kids but also the other races. But they couldn't hang out with me thanks to my brother keeping them all to himself.
But that was fine, I had my own group of friends who lived a couple of blocks up from my house. They were outcasts like me. Children of very successful parents, but without any of the successful traits when it came to making friends. So we clicked easily. They had my back no matter what, especially at school when Ethan made my life a living nightmare.
Ethan wasn't too happy with the idea of me going to same high school as him.
"Why does Jahmal have to come to my school", he argued with my mom. "Because he's a Baston unfortunately, and Bastons need to keep an image"; she told him while fixing his tie.
I could tell Ethan was irritated by the whole thing, so much so, that he made it a habit to take out his frustrations on me daily.
But what really got to him, was how smart I was. He was the sporty type of student, but when it came to actual schooling, he was a solid brick with a pen in class.
I on the other hand was getting distinctions in almost all of my classes, constantly getting prizes every year. And I even bagged student of the year a couple of times like it was nothing. It really got to him that he's stepbrother was the Baston people were talking about highly. But he had his ways of putting me back in his shadow. For everything I did, Ethan would do something bigger to bring me back to second place. Still for any little thing I did; Ethan's jealousy would get the best of him.
It's really hard for you to feel highly recognized if none of your parents ever show up to witness your achievements.
My dad especially. He'd come to all of Ethan's games, but never an event of mine. I knew it was because of Mrs Baston, but still he could of at least made an effort.
For a person who had taken me away from my real mother out of love, Mr Baston sure had a funny way of showing it. Thankfully I had my friends support; and of course April's joined the circle soon after.
As I grew up I learned one important thing. No matter how old we got, Ethan would never stop meddling with my life and any success I gained.
Today. ...
Trevor and I were walking to a furniture shop to buy some things.
"And, why am I going on this run with you", Trevor asks me with his hands in his pockets. "Because; everyone is busy doing stuff and you're only one free all the time like me. Plus you have an eye for detail", I tell him. "Thanks", he says in a sarcastic tone. "But why are we buying office supplies when we don't have a place to put it all in, he asked me.
"I figured since our app has been making a decent amount of money in these couple of weeks, we should start thinking about expanding the business. So buying a property like an office space and getting furniture for it"; I tell him as we take the corner.
"Yeah but we don't have that property", he exclaims. "Baby steps T. We're just going to place an order by the shop, then once we get the property we'll collect the stuff later", I tell him.
"Fair enough. But we better be buying some really good stuff", he says. We walk into the shop and head over to the front desk.
"How can I help you gentleman", the man by desk asks us. "Yes we'd like to order some stuff, like office chairs; desks, couple of sofas. All that junk.", I tell him as I look at Trevor. "Okay. Could you please give me your name so I can check if you got a record"; the man asks me.
"It's Jahmal Baston; Jahmal with an H", I tell him.
The man starts tying on his computer. "Oh that's not good", he exclaims. "What's not good", I ask him. "It seems you can't purchase anything from us. You've been blacklisted sir", the man says.
Trevor and I stand there in complete shock.