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I stopped trying to impress him because it made no difference. He stopped pretending to notice because he thought I didn\u2019t care. We drifted apart silently, each step widening a space that had been there since I was small.<\/p>\n
Little fractures appeared during holidays, birthdays, church gatherings. They weren\u2019t 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\u2019d collected.<\/p>\n
But even then, I didn\u2019t let myself imagine a life away from them. I knew leaving was an option in theory, yet never something someone like me actually did.<\/p>\n
The turning point didn\u2019t 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\u2019t expected of me, but it made no difference at home. Every achievement I earned disappeared under the weight of my brother\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n
Still, I kept my distance quietly and built a small inner world where I didn\u2019t have to compete with anyone.<\/p>\n