At father’s house, in the beginning of the summer, I was introduced to someone who I would hate for
a very long time: Leo Bubenheim. Alex Bubenheim married a German woman named Karina who had
just moved to the U.S. with her two kids: Leo and Pollina, who became Alex’s step-children. They would
then always come over as a family. Leo was 12 years old, and Pollina was a year younger than me. My
fear of girls made me keep my distance from Pollina. She was a total bitch anyway, and her attitude
would only get worse. She is a true representative of everything I hate about women.
When I first met Leo, I didn’t think much of him. He was only twelve years old. I just thought of him as
Lukas’s new older brother. I had no inkling of how much I will envy and hate him later on.
Soon enough, my jealousy of Leo began to manifest. He had just moved to the U.S. from Germany,
and yet he was already able to make lots of friends and had a great social life. He was tall, good looking,
blonde-haired, and a skateboarder; the type of person I’ve always envied and wanted to be.
The 4 th of July of this year was the day I saved my little brother’s life from drowning. I went with my
family to Antje and Gary Twinn’s house, as they always had a 4th of July party. The Bubenheims were
there, including Leo and Pollina. So was Vincent Twinn, who had grown up quite fast. The last time I saw
him, he was the little kid who looked up to me when I showed him all of my computer games. Now he
was just becoming a teenager, with an interest in skateboarding
Father suffered through a deep financial setback because of his movie. Could things get any worse for
me? As a result, my father abruptly cut off all of the child-support payments he was paying my mother.
My mother was forced to find a better-paying job to make up for it, and she had to move out of her
house to a condominium close by.
Thankfully, Rob Lemelson offered her a job in his production company, Elemental Productions. This
new job enabled my mother to make enough money to live comfortably. We hadn’t seen the Lemelsons
much since the last time we went trick-or-treating with them years ago. It was good to reconnect with
them.
I missed mother living in an actual house, but at least the new place was a condominium, with more
luxuries than the apartment we once lived in. The condominium had three bedrooms, and my room had
its own bathroom. The bad part about this condominium was its location in Canoga Park, a lower-class
area. I hated telling people that my mother lived in Canoga Park. It was highly embarrassing for me. But
alas, in that lonely and depressing stage of my life, there was no one really to tell, and I barely cared
about what people thought of me anyway. I was a complete dork, stuck in my own little world.