Thinking back on it, the pain in my chest wasn't new.
It only felt new because I had finally stopped pretending it wasn't there.
The real question was when it had begun.
Born in a family of many, yet I was the last.
In primary school, my brother's name was often used to call me.
Not because we looked alike.
Not because I answered to it.
But because it was easier.
At first, my life was simple.
Do what my parents — my family — wanted, and everything would remain simple.
Quiet, I kept my head down.
Studied.
Passed.
But I was always overshadowed.
Always almost.
Always not enough.
I tried harder.
I tried my best to blend in.
But when I turned ten, I realized something terrifying.
I had no friends.
My brothers had their groups.
My sisters had theirs.
I had silence.
That's when it happened.
A single moment.
A single person.
A single gesture.
A friend of my brother's actually spoke to me.
She was radiant.
Her smile made something in me shift.
She was thirteen then.
She asked my name.
She waited for my answer.
She called me Mandela.
For the first time in my life, I wanted something — not for them, but for me.
I wanted her smile to be forever.
I wanted her smile to be for me.
But alas, I froze when she spoke.
I admired in silence while she remained cheerful, always talking, always bright.
Even in the middle of their conversations, she would sometimes turn to me.
Ask a question.
Include me.
I began waiting for those moments.
I prepared answers in advance.
Rehearsed them in my head.
Tried to add something clever at the end.
I wanted to be worth the interruption.
Sometimes we laughed.
Sometimes they laughed.
It took me years to understand the difference.
Sometimes I made her laugh.
Sometimes I became the joke.
I learned to smile either way.
And every time the laughter grew too loud,
he would take it back.
A sharper joke.
A quicker reply.
A story told better than mine.
The room would lean toward him again.
And I would return to my place.
For months this continued.
I told myself it was fine.
She was my brother's friend, not mine.
She was older.
I stayed quiet.
I faded into the background of their conversations.
That was when I learned her name.
Gloria.
It felt strange knowing it without her ever asking for mine again.
If I managed to hold her attention for a moment,
he would step in — not to silence me,
just to shine.
And shining was something he did without trying.
I knew then, though I could not name it,
that I would always be second as long as he was there.
But one day, something shifted.
A wave of confidence I still cannot explain.
I was eleven.
I walked up to her.
My voice was clearer than it had ever been.
"I love you."
I didn't know what it meant.
Not fully.
I just knew it was the closest word I had for what I felt.
She stared at me.
For a second too long.
I felt the air change.
Felt my brother there.
Felt the weight of it.
Uneasy, I rushed to fix it.
"I mean — you're like a goddess," I added quickly.
"A divine being."
I said it jokingly.
As jokingly as possible.
They laughed.
We all laughed.
We called it a joke.
She laughed.
And for a moment, it felt as if heaven had opened its doors just for me.
My brother paid it no mind.
To him, it was just another joke.
After that, something changed.
We grew closer.
I became more confident.
More available.
The three of us would stay up late, talking about trivial things —
school, movies, teachers we disliked, dreams we barely understood.
But this time, I stopped blending into the background.
I leaned forward instead of shrinking back.
I spoke without rehearsing every word.
And slowly, without realizing it…
I became more like him.
His timing.
His humor.
His ease.
A reflection.
And she liked that.
Or maybe she liked him —
and I was just learning the shape of what she already admired.
I don't know which truth hurts more.
Somewhere along the way,
I stopped knowing which parts of me were mine.
But she was smiling.
And at eleven, that felt like enough.