I stood in the doorway while the narrow walls closed in around me. Through the imaginary film that separated me from my brothers, I could see only pain in my own heart and confusion in my own brain. I am a shadow. The youngest child, the one no one remembers, the one no one can feel for. The boy whose parents pick him up two hours late from school, leaving him in the freezing, needle-like rain. I am the brother who stays home alone while his older siblings are with his parents. I am the boy whose family forgot to come to his third grade play. I am only a shadow of my older brothers, trying hard to follow in their footsteps, but only to disappear when the sun is gone. The only person who is there for me is Max, my eldest brother. He is the one who picks me up from school, saving me from the bitter cold. Max is the brother that stays home with me so I'm not alone. He is the person who cheered me on during my solo in the play. But now I know he's not all he seems. Now I know that I am truly a shadow boy. A ghost boy. A forgotten boy.

I watch as my brothers sip from the strange bottles, holding their pinky fingers high in the air, and throwing their heads back to gulp down more of the dull brown liquid. Max pulls out a yellow and white stick from his jean pocket: a cigarette. I had seen those before, being held in the mouth of the man who stands by the gas station every day, and when he opens his mouth, smoke falls out onto a scraggly, unshaven beard. I always thought Max would never be like that, the kind of man who makes my stomach cave and in my eyes go wide. But seeing him hold the cigarette in between his sharp teeth, blowing out smoke from his cheeks creating a ring around his pale face, I couldn't be so sure.

A pile of bottles collected in the middle of the room, old cigarettes surrounding them, making my lungs ache and my throat burn like a log in a fire. I wanted to shout at Max and tell him to stop, but my mouth could not form solid words, and my tongue felt like one million pounds. I could only stand there like an invisible tree, watching Max and my other brother frantically throw the bottles into a bag, and spraying a sweet smelling mist into the air.

My parents enter the room, pushing me out of the way with their meeting hands as if I was an unusable toy, they could just toss away.

"How's SAT prep?" asked my mom in a hopeful voice.

"Great!" answered Max. He spotted me in the corner and winked at me, thinking I never saw the other Max he kept hidden from me.

I wish I had never seen my hero do that, because now I know I am really just a shadow boy.