Chapter 5

Alex's life at home is shown here.

 

        When school was over, Alex drove home. He pulled into his driveway and parked the car. After getting his backpack out of the backseat, Alex walked up the porch's white wooden steps and made his way to the door. He walked into the large white house and took his shoes off at the door. Socked feet stepped onto a clean white carpet and he looked to the side to see his mother standing in the archway that led into the kitchen.

        “Hey, how was school?” she asked.

        “It was good,” Alex said. “Gonna go do my homework before dinner.”

        Alex climbed the carpeted stairs until he reached the second floor. He walked down the hall and into his bedroom. It was a decent-sized room with a white carpet and white walls. A closed door that led into his bathroom was on his right. His single bed with a blue quilt sat in the far left corner of the room with one side of the bed pushed against the wall. A nightstand was right beside that and along the left wall was a dresser made of the same wood the nightstand was made out of. His desk sat against the wall opposite of the door with a computer and an ice hockey trophy on it.

        The brown-haired boy crossed the clean room and sat down at his desk. After quickly checking his email, he started on the little bit of homework he had to do. By the time he finished with that, he heard his mother calling for him to come down to eat. Alex shoved his binders into his backpack before heading downstairs.

        Once he got down there, he headed into the dining room. Like the rest of the house, it had a white carpet and the walls were a dark shade of red. The rectangular oak table sat in the middle of the room with two chairs sitting on each of the two longer sides.

        His parents were already sitting down and Alex sat down in an empty chair to join them. There was a couple minutes of silence as they all filled their plates with the food Alex's mother cooked. Once they all started eating, his mother decided to start a conversation.

        “So how was work today?” she asked Alex's dad.

        Alex's dad started to talk about his business and how successful it was so far. After about half a minute, Alex lost interest in the topic and went into his own little world. His father eventually took notice of this.

        “Are you paying attention Alex?” his father asked.

        “Huh?” Alex said as he snapped back into reality. “Err, yeah.”

        “You should pay attention son. It'll soon be your business after all. If you don't listen to what I'm saying you might not run it as successfully as I have.”

        “Do I really have to take over your business when I get older?”

        “You should. It's a good business. You'll make plenty of money there, which is what you'll need in order to support your family in the future.”

        An almost inaudible sigh escaped Alex's mouth. He wasn't interested in taking over the family business. Sure he could maybe make a lot of money, but running a business didn't interest the boy. Not only that, but Alex also got annoyed of his dad always talking about his future family. He didn't want to think of that kind of stuff right now. There was plenty of time to think about kids and a wife, which were two things he would probably never have. He didn't even find much of an interest in girls, or at least not in a relationship kind of way anyway.

        “And how was school today?” Alex's father asked after a few seconds of silence.

        “It was okay,” said Alex.

        “Anything good happen?”

        “Not really.”

        “Are you paying attention in your math class.”

        “Yeah.”

        “You better be. You need to keep your grades up if you expect to play ice hockey later on in the winter.”

        “I know.”

        The dinner continued with Alex's parents talking about things. Alex lost interest in what they were talking about and didn't really pay too much attention to them. When dinner was finally over, Alex washed the dishes before deciding to go to Vincent's house to play basketball.

        When he got over there, Alex saw that Vincent was already outside shooting hoops. He walked over to the taller boy and caught the basketball when it bounced off the backboard.

        “Hey,” Vincent greeted.

        “Hey,” Alex said as he threw the basketball up into the hoop.

        “How did the pre-test go?” Vincent asked while walking over to retrieve the ball.

        “It was hard. Something tells me I'm really going to hate math this year.”

        Vincent gave a shrug before saying, “You'll survive. As long as you get passing grades it doesn't matter, right?”

        Alex shrugged and said, “I guess.”

        “C'mon, let's play a game.”

        Alex nodded. The two started a game of basketball. Neither of them really tried too hard, but mainly just fooled around a little bit. The game lasted for about two hours before they decided to quit.

        “Looks like I win again,” Vincent said in between pants with a small grin on his face.

        “Not by much,” said Alex, also panting some. “You just got lucky, that's all.”

        “Sure I did,” Vincent said sarcastically before letting out a small laugh.

        “Well, it's getting late. Guess I should head home.”

        “Alright, see ya.”

        Alex made his way back home. When he got there, he found his parents sitting on the couch watching the big screen television in the living room. He walked over and sat down on a brown armchair that sat just to the side of the couch.

        “Have fun?” his father asked him.

        “Yeah,” said Alex.

        There wasn't really much else said aside from the occasional comments that were made about the show they were watching. It was one of their most favorite shows to watch as a family. Aside from dinner, this was really the only time they all spent time together.

        When it got late, Alex headed up to his room to head to bed. He was a little tired after school and needed his rest for the next day. It wasn't long until he dozed off.

Reviews

[Amund Schofield]

Oi, ok so you set it up so neither boy's parent's actually give a damn. I like that.

This next part is for those who would disagree with me about Alex's parent's not caring. These people, while yes they care about the kid to an extent, they only want to mold him. They don't give a damn about the kid's personal dreams.

So basically what you did is make both children isolated. Very two different forms of isolation sure, but isolation none the less. Alex doesn't have friends that exactly can agree with (his friend cares more about his car then the deer) and Sean doesn't have anyone. Kudos.

[Amy]

Alex has a nice life, so much differant from Sean, good chapter!!