A Friend Like You || Completed

Chapter Twenty-Eight || Matthew

Matt woke up to Rick shaking his shoulder. He rolled over and buried his face into his pillow, not wanting to start his day yet. Even though it didn't officially begin until his birthday Monday, he considered himself on Spring Break the second he got home yesterday.

"Come on," Rick groaned and got on the bed. "Let's do something like get a bunch of Easter eggs and fill them up, then hide them around the house, and make Mom and Dad find them tomorrow when they get back from their little getaway."

"Why tomorrow?"

"Because it's Easter?"

"I thought it was next week."

"Nope," he popped the p. "Easter Sunday is on March twenty-seventh this year. Oh wow, Easter falls on Em's birthday, I just realized that."

"Yeah," Matt breathed and composed himself, for the sixth year in a row they wouldn't be seeing each on their birthdays. "Aiden and Greg aren't going down this time; I don't know why."

"Neither do I, so how's Charlie?" Rick changed the subject so fast it gave Matt whiplash.

"I don't know, and we're not talking."

"No, you're not talking."

"It's been like eight years."

"Why is that?"

"What?"

"Why don't you talk? To everyone else, I mean."

"Because..." Matt sighed and laid on his back, his hands clasped over his stomach. He knows why he stopped talking, if he were silent that day, then nothing wrong would've happened. It was his fault. But why did he speak to Rick?

"I got why you did when I was in Juvie," Rick adjusted himself on the small bed and bumped Matt's elbow. "Mom and Dad didn't have a lot of money to spare at the time for letters, and visits were a family affair. Phone calls were the only way we could keep in touch that year."

"It sucked, you were gone, Greg and Mary were fighting about the school, Emily..." the sentence trailed off, but Rick knew what he was saying. Emily was going through hell, and her case's judge was the one that sent Rick away. The trial was what everyone talked about in town, except for the news which Matt still didn't understand. They also didn't talk about Rick.

"So it's a coping mechanism? For me going to Juvie and Em's trail?"

"I guess, but it wasn't those things, well, just them."

"What else?" Matt could feel his stare. "Is it about what Peterson-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Did he-"

"I wasn't there," Matt snapped, getting off the bed by crawling to the foot. "Can we talk about anything else?"

"Okay, why aren't you talking to Charlie? She's your best friend."

"And she didn't tell me she's moving to Seattle." Matt held onto the back of his desk chair, the metal biting his hands and digging into his back. Two weeks and it still hurt to think about.

"Could be moving," Rick sat up and watched him. "It was never set in stone."

Matt frowned, "No, she said they were moving Seattle."

"No one said she was going for sure. Greg asked if it was her dad's company; she said it was, but he hadn't confirmed anything, and he offered to move them if they went. I swear to God, if you've been ignoring her over a misunderstanding, I will-"