It was still dark out, and 8 other people around me slept soundly. I laid awake on the bottom bunk, staring blankly into the nothingness.

My alarm was set to wake me in 3 minutes…I had been up for hours.

It was the last 3 minutes before I took a cab away forever, and it felt like the last 3 minutes of my life.

The building was an old victorian mansion adjecent to Presidents home in old town, Panama City, also know as Casco Viejo. As I stepped out of bed the floor boards creaked. I wondered if everyone knew I was leaving. I wondered if they knew why I was leaving and what my brother and I had been through.

My bag was already packed.

There was only one thing left to do, and it made my throat swell up like in the moment before we cry.

I woke brother sleeping in bed above mine. He knew what I was doing.

In a week he would go to live in England to work, not ready to leave his greatest adventure. He was what I was only two year ago…on his own now, in the world.

I stuck out my hand and his hand grasped mine. He looked me in the eyes, through the early morning gray and said, ” This is not over…we will go on”

I felt the creak of every step down the stairs like a shooting pain through my heart. My backpack weighed heavier on my shoulders than it ever had. It was worse than a break up.

My thoughts were of everything my brother and I had been through. No one would know…but for the rest of our lives we would have these memories to share with each other. And every experience was better because I shared it with him.