By The Time I'm Gone

I

The morning comes rushing in. Mom wakes me up with the heady scent of pancake and maple syrup while dad clumsily hits edge of an old China cup with a teaspoon, probably while reading the morning paper in one hand.

And as the sun tries its best to blind, I scoot under my blanket with eyes wide open. I just woke up but there's already a lot to take in-the pancake and dad being here. Mom only cooks breakfast as damage control, when there's bad news waiting around the corner and dad never stays for breakfast. He has always been too busy with work that we barely see each other. I know something is wrong. The pancakes and dad, something is terribly wrong.

I peek through my blanket to look at the clock hanging on my gray wall and its already a quarter past 6 o'clock. If I don't hurry I will be late for school again, and the last thing I want is to be stuck In this house with my parents, so, I drag myself out of bed rushing to the bathroom, not making any eye contact. I am too scared to hear the bad news; I avoid my parents the entire time I'm preparing for school. The only interaction I have with them is when I was saying goodbye.

Mom hands me a bag of pancake and as I'm kissing dad on the cheeks, he secretly slide a 500-pesos bill in my pocket, whispering...

"Don't tell your mom" and flashes an awkward wink which weird the crap out of me. I need to escape from the awkward crime scene so I friskily walk to the doorstep while shouting

"Bye!"

As I am walking to the nearest jeepney stop, I keep on thinking what the hell is up. So many things popped in my head, reasons like my parents forcing me to take a break from college, or that we have to move again to some deserted place for the nth time, or, or.....

"NO!" I blurt out loudly. And the pedestrians turn their heads toward my direction as if I were a circus clown performing on the street. I swallow a big clump of air and keep on walking with my head facing the ground as if nothing happened.

The day goes swiftly. From the moment I got to school until my last class,it feel as if I've been aloof the entire time, floating in some deep thought universe that nothing can possibly snap me back to consciousness. I condition my mind with possibly reasons for the pancakes and dads presence until I settled in one. Mom is pregnant and they'll tell me I will no longer be an only child. God, no!

I can't have a younger sibling. I'm not really a baby person. I'm not the type who fancies sugary stuff. Everyone thinks I'm a pumpkin, but in reality, I have always had this hole inside me-an active volcano waiting to erupt. By the time this baby comes out, I would probably just make it regret he or she was ever born with it for I will most certainly just eat that things head for breakfast or toss it in the air like a tennis ball. I have been alone all my life that I'm turning out to be good at it. And the thought of having a sibling irks me.

"No! There's no way I'm ready for sibling. No. No. No. Way," I scream inside my head.

Just the thought of it trigger the volcano inside me. I will soon erupt, killing those in the way of my hell-like lava, burning them to ashes. I can feel my inside shaking, like an earthquake with an indeterminable intensity. And I don't know how much longer I can hold it in.

I will erupt, soon. I feel it.