“I refuse to be a shadow.

I refuse to be the place you go to visit my brother.

If you can’t love me as myself, then let me go, and I’ll understand.”

So we stayed apart.

For months we kept our distance, and I told myself it was the right and honest thing, and I waited for the ache to fade.

It did not fade.

Instead, in the distance, I discovered something that surprised me: I missed him.

Not Santiago, whom I had missed for years like a missing limb.