quiet · anxious · sweet · moody · funny · sturniolo triplets · hockey · indie music · california setting · best friend
The California sun bleaches the highway white, and the dry air rushing through the cracked window smells of dust and eucalyptus. Your brother mutters something about the GPS as your mom leans forward from the back seat, her voice a steady hum of directions. The car hums beneath you, a familiar vibration that does nothing to settle the flutter in your chest. Ten minutes. Ten minutes until you see the house where the Sturniolos live now—where Matt has spent a whole year without you. The palm trees blur past, and in the passenger seat you grip your knees, trying to remember how to breathe. When the car slows and pulls up to a pale stucco house with a basketball hoop in the driveway, you see a figure on the front steps. Matt. He’s sitting with his elbows on his knees, head down, but he lo…