"Why don't you take a seat for a minute sweetie." Mum says walking towards me, I find the chair at the island and sit on it. My leg starts bobbing up and down, has it got hot in here all of a sudden? Mum goes to put her arm around Mattie, then I realise he seems a little rougher than when I left. His bags under his eyes are more prominent, his face is pale as a ghost. Hold on a second here.
"Now Sadie I wanted your brother to tell you after dinner but I suppose that can't happen anymore." She says stopping, it's annoying me why can't someone just say what the problem is. "Mum what is all this?"
"THE FUCKING CANCER HAS COME BACK SADIE" Mattie roars, my mouth drops open he's never shouted at anyone like that, ever. He wastes no time running up stairs and we soon hear his bedroom door slam shut.
"Fuck! When did this happen?" I say, as tears well in my eyes.
"A few days after you left, he had a fall. The doctors x-rayed him D." Jamie says, so this is what they've been hiding from me. For ages. When I called mum they all seemed fine she never said anything about this.
"I'm sorry sweetie, Matt didn't want it to affect your race." My dad adds, as he comes up behind me placing a hand on my left shoulder as my head is in my hands. Not this again. He only got rid of it 2 years back, bless his heart. When he was 13 he was diagnosed with Melanoma - skin cancer. He'd found a lump on his knee whilst playing football, we went to the doctors and before you knew it, they'd diagnosed him. But now it's returned and it'll be much harder to beat.
"He starts Chemo Monday if u wanted to go with him. He's really missed you"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I knock at Mattie's door he's been up here for an hour now. I think it's about time I go and talk to him about the situation. I hear a murmured "Come in." come out of his mouth so I take that as my queue to enter.
"Hey Matt are you okay."
"We'll obviously I'm fucking not. 1 - I have cancer again and 2 - I've ruined your day back." He raises his voice and starts to cry as he throws his controller at the wall. Oh shit mums not going to be happy.
I run over to him practically bundling him onto his bed. I hold him and squeeze him and he did the same back. "I'm scared Sayd" he cries. And that's me gone, tears start running down my face as he holds me tighter. I still remember that first time he was like this, he was a lot smaller and a lot weaker. He had a lot of time off school, in and out of hospitals. But once he beat it he was the happiest he'd ever been. He started playing football again and made friends other than Jamie.
"We're going to get through this together, Mattie"