🪽 - a Sturniolo short story

🪽 pt 4 (Was This a Bad Idea?)

PART 4!!!! I haven't done much writing since yesterday bc I'm rethinking the entire ending and I'm at the point I need to make a decision and that's hardddd...OH and tysm for 100+ reads!! I was expecting no one to find this...ENJOY <333

Hmmm...I wonder how Matt is doing?
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Matt POV:

   After leaving the house, I pulled into a nearby parking lot and went on my phone to find somewhere to stay. I found a hotel around half an hour away and decided it would be best if I was further away from home. I booked a room and connected my phone to the car to play music. Before I left, I went on Life360 to shut off my location. Nick was less likely to call if he knew where I was. I sat in the parking lot a little longer and tried to calm down before I continued. Then, I put the car in drive, hit the gas, and continued on my way.

—

About half way through my drive I get a call from Nathan. Nate has always been my best friend so I wasn't surprised to see his call, but I still didn't pick up. Then he called again. I picked up this time.

"What's up?" I started

"Matt what's going on is everyone ok?" Nathan spoke, cutting me off. And for a moment, I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to answer that question, but I wasn't about to lie to my friend. Nathan has always been there for me before, I was just hoping now wouldn't be any different.

I waited for a moment. "Depends what you mean by 'ok'."

"On your Instagram with Nick and Chris?" Nathan started, "You guys said there was a family emergency." I stayed silent for a bit, and so did Nathan. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, but it wasn't completely comfortable ether.

I finally decided to speak. "Nathan we had a fight." I waited for a response and when I didn't get one, I kept going, "I walked out." Then I got a response

"What do you mean you walked out?" He started asking "out of the house? Are you moving away? What about YouTube? What about your brothers? Your own family? What if—" I cut him off

"No Nathan not forever." He goes quiet

"How long then" he asks the burning question, and the real answer is: I don't know. Does Nick want me back? He made it pretty clear how much I burden him, but what about Chris?

"I don't know" I say quietly. "I hope it's soon but Nick likes to build hills he will die on so I don't actually know." At this point my breathing and heart rate becomes unsteady again and I'm in the middle of a busy rode. "I can't talk about this right now. I'm driving and I'm trying not to distract myself. Can we talk about something else for now? I'll explain everything later."

—

I parked the car, still on the phone with Nathan, and walked into my hotel. One of the reasons I picked this hotel is it had a lot of online services so I wouldn't have to talk to that many people.

It felt weird being alone. I know I technically had Nathan, but I missed my brothers and I was only gone for half an hour. I knew this was going to be hard, but Nick needed to learn his lesson. Just because he was my brother doesn't mean I was going to let him walk all over me and he needs to learn that.

I pulled up the mobile keycard for my hotel room and locked the door behind me. The first thing I did was make sure that nothing in my room was broken and that there were no secrets for me to find. Then I sat down on my bed and hit the FaceTime request on my phone for Nathan.

He accepted and I broke down as I told him everything that happened, how I've been feeling all week, how I woke up this morning, the fight in the video with Nick, what he said at home, the panic attack I had before I left the house, and finally my conversation with Chris.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do." I said to Nate. "I don't know how to be alone." There was a silence for a minute. Nathan just kind of sat there for a minute before speaking.

"Hold on" he said and he walked out of the room. I heard some commotion on the other end and eventually he came back in. "I'm getting a flight to LA. I'll stay with you for a bit to help you out, but I'm hoping I won't have to stay that long."

I look up and a wave of relief comes over me "thank you so much Nate. I'll pick you up at the airport when you come in and I'll upgrade my room so we can both stay." And with that we finished the call and I went to get in bed. Before falling asleep, I went on instagram and saw the post Nathan was talking about earlier. I texted Laura and told her not to worry about anything and we would be back as soon as everything was resolved. It was now far past 2:00 AM so I didn't expect a response. I got a text from Nathan saying his flight would arrive around 1:00 PM tomorrow so I responded and went to bed. This was going to be hard but I just hoped Nick would come to his senses sooner than later.

Was this a bad idea?

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A/N: YAY this one was probably the longest so far at 902 words (I didn't check the first two) I hope you all enjoyed and I'll see you tomorrow!! ALSO give me ideas for other stories after this bc I am completely lost. I was thinking something where they go to a party, but that's as far as I got... -Leah <333