For years, my parents let my younger sister, Mia, steal everything from my older sister, Brit. She stole her dreams, her joy, and even her boyfriend. When Brit returned for a family gathering, pregnant and hopeful, Mia tried to take one last thing.
But our family didn’t let her get away with it. I’m Nick, the middle child caught between two sisters. Brit is my older sister, and Mia is our younger one.
Mia was the sun in our parents’ universe. She was their miracle baby, the one who “wasn’t supposed to survive” due to an illness. Luckily, she made it.
And Brit? She was just… there. I grew up watching the imbalance, but as a kid, I didn’t have the words for it.
I just knew that when Brit got an A+, my parents barely looked up from their phones, but when Mia won “Participant of the Week” in soccer, they bought her a cake. “Look what I drew, Mom!” Brit’s excited voice echoed through the kitchen one afternoon, holding up a detailed sketch of our family. Mom glanced at it briefly, muttering a distracted, “That’s nice, dear” before turning back to Mia’s soccer schedule.
Brit loved to draw, but when she asked for an art set, my parents said it was “too expensive.” Mia decided she liked art a week later. Guess who got a full set of professional-grade supplies? I remember Brit looking at me once when we were kids, her voice trembling.
“Am I invisible, Nick? Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror just to make sure I’m still here.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I was 10.
I didn’t know how to answer that. All I could do was hug her tight and feel her tears soak into my shirt. By the time we were teenagers, Mia’s obsession with being “better” than Brit had gone from petty to straight-up psychotic.
She stole Brit’s crush — just because she could. She cut Brit’s hair in her sleep once, giggling the next morning like it was some harmless prank. “It’s just hair, Brit,” Mom had said dismissively when Brit came down sobbing.
“It’ll grow back. Mia was just having a bit of fun.”
“Fun?” Brit’s voice cracked. “You call this fun?
She waited until I was asleep! She —”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Dad cut in. “Your sister would never hurt you intentionally.”
Brit swallowed her tears for years.
And in college, Mia stole her boyfriend. That was it. Brit was DONE.
She cut all ties, walked away, and built a life without them… and without us. She found happiness with Patrick, though everyone just called him “Pit.” He was the kind of guy who would fight a bear for her if he had to. She was finally free.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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