“I’ve always wanted an older brother, but I’d never thought it’d happen.”

Not like this.

For eighteen years, I was the only boy in the house. The middle child. The son. The one my parents pointed at when relatives asked about “the man of the family.”

And then suddenly — I wasn’t.

He came back from college different. Or maybe he had always been different and I was the last to see it. New name. New haircut. New voice, lower than I remembered. He stood taller somehow, shoulders broader, like he had grown into a version of himself I didn’t even know existed.

Everyone said they were proud.

I didn’t know what I felt.

I hit puberty wrong.

That’s the only way I can explain it.

While the boys in my class stretched upward, voices cracking into something solid, I stayed small. My wrists stayed thin. My face stayed soft. Even now, I look a year — maybe two — younger than I am. Cashiers still hesitate before handing me receipts for things that require an ID.

And at the same time, he was changing too.

But he was changing the right way.

His jaw sharpened. A faint shadow started to appear along his chin. His hands looked bigger. Veins more visible. When he laughed, it wasn’t high and light anymore — it rumbled.

I told myself I wouldn’t think about it.

Wouldn’t compare.

Wouldn’t even mention my “new brother.”

But now I notice everything.

The way his shirts fit across his shoulders. The way people call him “sir” without hesitation. The way Dad claps him on the back like they’re equals.

And it burns.

It burns in a place I can’t reach.

I hate that I feel jealous.

I hate that sometimes, when I’m alone in my room staring at my reflection — at the soft curve of my cheeks, at the way my body refuses to look the way I want it to — I think something awful.

I wish he had stayed a girl.

Now it’s like getting to know a stranger living in my house like he owns it.

Like he took something that was supposed to be mine;the height, the voice, the presence..

and grew into it effortlessly.

…

I don’t hate him.

I wanted an older brother.

I just didn’t expect him to make me feel this small.

I hate him.

I typed and hit sent. Talking with friends about it always made me feel better.