Accidental Baby

Chapter Six

COCO

Miggy. Miggy. Miggy. Si Miggy na magaling. Si Miggy na ang matalino. To my Dad, he was the perfect son. My older brother had always been his favorite. I had felt it since I was a kid. Iba ang trato niya sa akin at kay Miggy. I didn't know if my sisters noticed it but they were both girls. Walang competition sa kanila pagdating kay kuya Miggy. Kuya Miggy and I were both boys so I felt the silent rivalry more.

I love my brother but I envied him. Everytime I get compared with him, I always feel like a total turd. Dad always bragged about kuya Miggy graduating as a valedictorian in highschool and he had alot of honors as he had been active with school activies. Mapa-sport at academics. In college, he graduated as summa cum laude. He was the jack of all trades and he fucking mastered it all. I knew I could never compete.

He was taking his master's degree in Harvard. Mom and Dad makes it to a point to always see him in flesh every month. It was either they travel to Massachusetts or kuya Miggy flies back here. Of course, they couldn't bare not seeing their favorite son. Since kuya Miggy wasn't too busy with school, he was staying with us for the weekend.

"Coco, are you listening?" Dad asked.

"What?" I asked, swirling the peas on my plate with my fork.

"You're a very smart kid, Coco. You just don't know how to listen." Dad sighed. "I want you to finish college with honor so you can get to Harvard, just like your kuya and I."

"Dream on." I snorted.

"It's not impossible, Coco. You just don't push yourself hard enough." Kuya Miggy said.

"I'm not you." I shrugged. "Did you two ever consider that maybe I don't want to follow the same path? Maybe I don't want to be a businessman."

Mama put her warm motherly hand on top of mine. "Coco, kung anuman ang gusto mong i-pursue, yun ang gawin mo. You don't have to be like your Dad or your Kuya. We'll support whatever you want to be."

"Thanks, Ma." I finally smiled.

She smiled back at me. At least, Mama understood. I wasn't as smart as Dad and Kuya Miggy. I wasn't like them at all. I was just... me. I silently stood up from my seat after finishing half of my dinner. I went up my room and stared through my window. Anais' window was right across from mine and in between our windows was a tree. Kapag gusto ko siyang puntahan, lumalabas ako sa binatana ko at tumatawid papunta sa bintana niya.

Wala akong masasabi sa pagiging Kuya niya. He'd always been there for us whenever we needed him. But I hated how inadequate he always makes me feel, especially when around Dad. I'd always been the black sheep of the family, the rotten apple, the bad seed, the kid that did everything wrong.

I remembered overhearing one particular conversation Mama and Dad were having in Dad's study. Hinding-hindi ko makakalimutan iyon.

"Coco, he has a lot of angst in him. I don't like it." Dad said.

"Nick, let our son be. He's still a teenager, he'll grow out of it."

"Miggy never went through that phase. I see so much of my old self in Coco. I'm afraid he'd repeat the same mistakes I did when I was young."

"Magkaiba si Miggy at Coco, Babe. At hindi mangyayari kay Coco iyon o kahit sa sino'ng mga anak natin."

"I don't know, Cass. Ginawa ko naman ang lahat para lumaking maayos ang mga anak natin. I don't want to happen to Coco what had happened to me in the past. He's been expelled from two different schools when he was in highschool. And just recently, he got into a fight with that boy Steve in his university." He sighed.