Among the Living

I sit next to them but they don’t see me. I try to talk to them but they don’t hear me. When I hug them they don’t feel me. I send them messages but they never seem to get them. They never pay any attention to me anymore. It’s like they don’t even care or if I never existed. They look at a picture of me, they start to cry. When they look at my twin brother they cry. I was completely oblivious to all of this, until around the time I turned sixteen years old. It was a Tuesday June 30, 2011 approximately 5:39 pm to be more precise. I had taken my usual place at the table next to my twin brother-who is older by only five minutes-Colton. Our mother brought out a homemade mouth watering coffee cake drizzled with butter cream frosting. With green lettering that said Happy Birthday Colton! Then her and my father started singing 'Happy Birthday.' I was so confused. Where the f**k was my cake? Since Colton and I are twins, our mother always made us each our own cake. "Umm hello?" I try to interrupt their off key singing. No one looked at me when I spoke. Were they ignoring me? This didn’t make any since. Why weren't they acknowledging my existence? Finally their god-awful singing ceased. It was about f*****g time. I try tapping my brothers shoulder, "dude, what the f**k is going on? Why hasn't anyone even looked at me? And why the f**k was my name in that stupid birthday song?" Colton never replied. He didn't even look my way when I tapped him. It was almost as if he couldn't feel me tapping him. Out of no where it hits me. I must be dead or something. That could be the only explanation to them not giving me the time of day. I take a moment and observe my family and my surroundings. They all kind of seemed to have a look of despair about them as they ate their dessert in silence. As I scan the room I notice there were no pictures of me at all. Only Colton. That’s when I came to terms that no one cared about Alexander Reese Winter anymore. I was now just history. Non- existing. Or even just a distant memory. I was basically existing among the living.