That one family friend ~ Matthew Sturniolo

'Worry'

//real life//

⚠️Anxiety

Matt walks out of Noa's room, straight to his own. He needs to think, think before the overthinking would start and he would get scared. Scared of losing Noa.

Matt never really opened up about it, but Noa meant a lot to him. He was struggling a lot with anxiety before he met Noa, but Noa was the one who taught him to relax and not care about other people's opinions, and it helped him. A lot. But because he was so focused on himself, he couldn't see that Noa was struggling to, a way more than he was.

Matt walks into his room, and almost slams the door closed. He lays down on his bed, staring at the ceiling. What should he do? He stormed out on Noa, she is probably upset with him now. Matt's mind is surrounded by thoughts. He can't think straight anymore for a second, everything around him becomes a blur.

He closes his eyes, taking deep breaths. 'Come on Matt, the 5-4-3-2-1 method.' He thinks by himself. He starts to take 3 deep breaths and starts to try to calm himself down. '5 things you see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste.' he thinks by himself.

After that he sits up again, takes another deep breath, wipes some tears out of his eyes and walks out of his room to the kitchen. He hopes he will see his mom who would be ready to leave to the mall, but instead of his mom Nick and Chris stand there, arguing over something stupid, again.

Nick and Chris don't notice Matt at first, but when Nick turns and sees Matt's expression on his face, he falls silent. And so does Chris.

"Matt, bro," Chris speaks up. "Are you okay man? Did you cry?" Chris asks full of concern and so does Nick. Matt doesn't answer, he lets out a soft sigh and grabs a soda from the fridge, sits down at the kitchen counter, gets his phone and starts checking social media.

Nick and Chris look at each other, silently debating if they should let him or if they should talk to him, but before they can come to a conclusion, Nick speaks up again.

"Matt come on, tell us what is wrong, you can't ignore us." Matt doesn't look up from his phone, only lets out a cold "I'm fine." This got Chris rolling his eyes, and Nick scoffs.

"Listen man, we have known you long enough to see that something is up, and I don't know what. But the last time you acted like this was when we found out that Noa was gonna stay 2 weeks with us. So has this to deal with Noa or not. Cause if it is, then you better speak up." Nick says a little stern, but you can hear the concern in his voice.

This gets Matt looking up, confused. "What are you talking about, 'has this to deal with Noa'?" He says with an raised eyebrow. "U know damn good what I am talking about, so tell us, has this to deal with Noa or not?" Nick gets a little more frustrated, which pisses Matt off. He knows his brothers care about him, but they are a little too concerned sometimes.

"And what if it has to deal with Noa, why do you care?" Matt asks cold. Nick wants to speak up, but Chris was ahead of him. "Cause you are our brother and Noa is our best friend maybe?" Matt rolls his eyes. "Well, nothing happened, no worries, she is just packing her stuff."

"Matt come on, we care about you and we care about Noa. You went to Noa to help her and you come back and you are upset, what's wrong?" Nick asks, now a softer tone in his voice.

Matt sighs, he knows he can't hide it from his brothers. "Okay fine, but you can't tell anyone, not here and also not in LA. Understood?" Chris and Nick both nod.

"So, Noa told me why she went to Texas for half a year, and it just makes me upset that she didn't tell me, but I'm also upset with myself because I didn't notice she had-." He cuts himself off. Can Matt tell why Noa was gone? Not a lot of people know. What if she gets mad at Matt for telling Nick and Chris.

"She had what?" Chris his concern comes back. They were all very protective over Noa. "She had depression." Matt says calm and soft. This got Nick and Chris in shock. Who did they not notice? "Why didn't she tell any of us?" Nick asks with wide eyes.

"I don't know okay," Matt gets frustrated again. "I have no idea, she said that it was because she didn't want to worry me, but u can't tell her that I told you guys cause I don't know if she is gonna like that. You have to promise me!"

Chris and Nick nod, but stay silent. Thousands of thoughts run through their mind.

At that moment their mom walks in, noticing the tensed air. "Everything okay?" She asks softly, not wanting to catch them off guard. Nick is the first one to speak. "Yeah yeah, everything is fine." He says with a kind of forced smile.

She nods, but still knows something is wrong. "Well, okay. Matt, ready to go?" Matt nods and stands up, without saying anything he walks out. Their mom looks at Nick and Chris one more time before she also heads out.