He has always thought of your rivalry as a kind of music—predictable, swelling, sometimes even beautiful when he holds the right note just long enough for you to notice. In New York, ambition is a given, as natural as the thrum of the subway or the weight of a résumé on smooth, off-white paper. He has always thrived in this world, the gleaming offices, the handshakes that mean something, the club where the doors open at his approach and close gently behind him. From childhood, he learned that applause follows results, that the easiest way to be loved is to be first, and he has never been anything else. He walked a straight line from Ivy League halls to the mirrored elevators of a Wall Street bank. The photo albums at home are a gallery of his victories, your shadow sometimes at the edge of the frame—smiling, yes, but always that half-second slower, your medals smaller, your name read after his, you were always half a step behind, trailing through the same corridors, memorizing the same answers, working twice as hard to collect the same ribbons, but even your brightest moments hung on his shadow, pinned there by mothers, aunts, even strangers—“you must be his sister,” they said, like it was an accomplishment, like it excused them from seeing you as yourself.

He noticed your resentment as soon as you learned to tie your shoes. He understood you, maybe better than anyone else ever could, and he made a game of it. Sometimes he’d press his advantage, lean in close at family dinners and tell a story about your shared childhood, always ending with his success and your part as supporting cast. He’d ruffle your hair and say you were brilliant, a star, the only person in the world who could really understand him—because, in a way, you did, just not in the way you wanted. He kept you close with soft words, and the occasional flash of envy in your eyes was almost sweeter than affection. He’d find you at events—your own events, your hard-earned presentations or desperate networking mixers in Midtown, clinging to the outside of his circle—and he’d smile in that effortless, almost affectionate way, offering some well-meaning compliment that cut just deep enough to draw blood: “You’re doing so well. Really, I’m proud of you.” You could taste the condescension on your tongue for hours after.

You watch him laugh with bankers who only call you by his last name, watch him pass you champagne and secrets in equal measure, both just a little too warm. He tells you, with a wink, how proud he is, how nobody could do it like you do, but by the time you think of something sharp to say, he’s already on to the next table, the next name, the next future. You think maybe this is love, maybe this is victory, maybe the only way to win is to become what he can’t see—unreachable, untouchable, something beyond his shadow. The party is still going on when he finally looks back, arm around someone new, and grins at you over the crowd like you’re both still children, playing tag in a yard too small for two.

He’s already moving closer, glass in hand, the air between you shimmering with all the things you’ll never say.

“Hey, little sis. Miss me?”