WHO WE ARE ✸ Sturniolos

V. Five More Minutes

TW: Death, grief, heavy hallucinations, etc. Stay safe! x

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Nick stared at the ceiling, perfectly still, completely breathless. He had been finding even the simplest of tasks so difficult lately.

The stars beyond his bedroom window twinkled, celestial torches in the night, searching for their lost lovers who had perhaps vanished by now. That was something Nick envied about them: how most were already dead, but he could still see them. It was borderline insulting, given the circumstances, so he glared towards them bitterly. Matt loved the stars, which naturally meant that Nick hated them. They were always such polar opposites: Nick the day, Matt the night; Nick sweet, Matt sour; Nick here, and Matt . . .

Nick hated the stars, always boring their gazes down into him, flickering with naïve sympathy, doting over him each night as though he were some charity case. He was not. Nick did not need help.

It was everyone else with the problems. They attempted to hide their own grief in order to lighten Nick's load, but he knew exactly what went on behind closed doors. Their mother tried her best, bless her soul, but everybody knew the poor woman had a heart of glass. It had been cracked open, now shards pierced her chest and carved out her lungs. Nick sometimes rounded a corner to find her crouched down with her eyes closed and hands pressed to the floor, lips ghosting a prayer.

Then, Nick would scoff — as if praying would do anything anymore.

Chris always pulled on his collar nowadays, as if he was trying to claw through his throat and convince it to ease up, and Nick couldn't tell you the last time his little brother had slept. The only thing that mattered to him now was creating, and he mumbled over dinner one night that it was 'what Matt would have wanted'. Nick remembered screaming at him after that, throwing things around their desolate home and tearing Chris limb from limb. How dare he blame his brother for his own self-destruction? Would Matt be smiling down on them now, proud of their sagging eyes and quivering bones? Chris left the table that evening with his head hung low, and Nick had grit his teeth at the sight of his cowardice. He needed to get his act together.

It took a while for Nick to realise that he was angry. The revelation struck him when he stormed back down the hallway from that outburst at dinner. Smoke steadily seeped out from his ears, just because he had tipped over a plant pot on his way into Matt's room. That was Matt's plant, one he had (miserably) failed to keep alive, despite how many times Nick had reminded him to water it. He wasn't sure why he had decided to keep its coffin by the doorway. Maybe it was some subliminal message he wasn't thoughtful enough to understand yet.

"Stupid goddamn plant, fuck you!" His vocal chords had ripped apart, leaving his chest with a dull and emotional ache. He had kicked it, stupidly, and specks of rusty dirt spilled onto the carpet. Matt's carpet. An ugly sprinkle of reality tainting the once pristine memorial that was his bedroom. Nick had ruined it.

"Fucking piece of shit!"

Chris had tiptoed over somewhere along the way, staring up at him with an expression he couldn't define. His eyes were raw. Then two honey-sweet, boney arms hugged him so tightly that he was convinced all his strangled emotions would come bursting out in flames. A brilliantly tragic light show.

They cried in the hall for hours, or, at least, that was what it felt like. Nick lately found that hours flew like minutes and minutes loomed for hours. But he was past that now, because he wasn't angry anymore. Nick was healing. It was just something about those stupid stars that got to him. It was an itch below the surface of his skin, scalding goosebumps nothing could ever relieve.

Despite his hatred, Nick's gaze never parted from the window, because he was waiting. He would wait forever for Matt.

Sometimes even white noise sounded like his laughter, or the bathroom cabinet resembled his smile. It was enough to find him sobbing in the corner, feebly kicking Chris' hands away and tugging on his scalp. He had the destructive impulse to yank his hair out at times, since it looked and felt too much like Matt's once had.