I stopped trying to impress him because it made no difference. He stopped pretending to notice because he thought I didn’t care. We drifted apart silently, each step widening a space that had been there since I was small.

Little fractures appeared during holidays, birthdays, church gatherings. They weren’t dramatic. They were quiet and offhanded. My brother received the first choice of everything: where to sit, what to eat, which event the family attended. I learned to swallow small disappointments long before I understood how many I’d collected.

But even then, I didn’t let myself imagine a life away from them. I knew leaving was an option in theory, yet never something someone like me actually did.

The turning point didn’t come from one event. It came from accumulating years where I felt increasingly invisible. The more my brother grew into the image everyone projected onto him, the more I felt myself shrinking into the background. I tried stepping forward at times, joining clubs, working on projects, taking responsibilities that weren’t expected of me, but it made no difference at home. Every achievement I earned disappeared under the weight of my brother’s potential.

Still, I kept my distance quietly and built a small inner world where I didn’t have to compete with anyone.