Silent Chaos| Matt Sturniolo

Chapter 21

        I shouldn't be nervous. These are my best friends, the people that I've grown up with. This shouldn't be such a scary task and yet... I found myself anxious to tell my friends that I was going to be gone for god knows how long. That wasn't even the hard part, the hard part was the why. I never mention my father, and this would be like dropping a bomb.

"So, why are we here?" Sash picks up a fry and tosses it into her mouth. She was sitting across the table where our entire friend group squeezed into a booth at a diner downtown, since we decided to hang out today. Matt set this all up, 'fries and confessions' it was something we came up with when we were younger. Whenever we had a confession to make we came to the dinner and ordered a tray full of fries to shove our faces in, and then we confess.

I push around the fries on my tray as I look up to find my friends laughing and having a good time. I wanted to join them, but I was feeling less myself today. Matt's eyes meet mine as he gives me a nod before intertwining our hands under the table, so nobody would see.

            "Guys." Matt tries to gain everyone's attention, but they were still chit chatting which made Matt speak even louder. "YO! Amira has something to say."

           Everyone turns over to us as I look at everyone with my mouth open. Woah. I guess I was really doing this, huh?

"Right. Just a couple more fries." I shove a couple fries in my mouth to steer the conversation, but everyone's gaze was still on mine as I sigh in defeat.

My anxiety was at an all time high. Anxiety I never knew I even had, until Matt explained it to me and it all made sense. I think I've had it for a while, I just pushed it off as something else.

Matt squeezes my hand tighter under the table in reassurance. I look over to him trying to gain my confidence as he gives me a small wink. Just like that I felt like I was capable of anything.

"I'm moving."

        "WHAT!?!" The table exploded with confused and shocked faces. Matt strokes the back of my hand, reminding me that he's here with me every bit of the way.

       "Temporarily." I clarify before they get ahead of themselves.

         "What did I say about the way you word things, Amira?" Nick says shaking his head with his hand over his heart dramatically.

        "I got nervous and just said the first thing that came to my mind." I shrug with a shy smile.

        "Well?! Why? where? when? Details, Ams." Sasha exclaims asking a million questions at once.

    "My dad-" I stop myself trying to collect myself before I could start again.

"Your...dad?" Chris questions intrigued by the conversation. Since I don't speak of my father like ever, it was bound to be an interesting topic even without the drastic circumstances.

"I'm going to go see him. He's living in Germany right now." I continue biting my lip because I knew I couldn't withdraw the most important piece to all of this.

"But why?" Chris pushes .

"Because he's dying." I drop as the whole table falls silent.

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.

Amira, don't you dare cry.

"Turns out he has cancer, and he doesn't have much longer and I'm going to stay with him for whatever time I have left." I force myself to smile, even though I couldn't control the sadness in my eyes.