While everyone praised Daniel, I was twelve again in my head, standing in a hallway with a blue science-fair ribbon.
I waited for my mom to turn and say, Let me see. She never did.
That night she was frosting a cake because Daniel had “tried his best” after failing a math test.
In our home, Daniel was the sun. I was furniture—useful, quiet, expected to hold things up.
Favoritism doesn’t always look like cruelty.
Sometimes it looks like light—light aimed at one child so long the other learns to disappear.
