Chapter Text
The MRI room was cold. The kind of cold that seeped into your bones. He lay still, the machine humming loudly around him. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend he wasn’t there. Tried to think of Nick cracking some stupid joke or Matt arguing about which song to play on a road trip. Anything to calm his nerves.
He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not for anything serious, anyway. Usually, his trips to places like this were because of a sore throat he swore wouldn’t go away or a sprained ankle from tripping over his own feet. Stupid things, really.
But this time.. He doesn't know?
It had started with the headaches—a dull, pressing weight behind his eyes that made him squint in bright light. He’d brushed it off at first. Advil always took care of it, so he thought it wasn’t a big deal. But lately, even four pills at a time didn’t touch the pain. It was constant now, a steady drumbeat in his skull that wouldn’t let up, no matter how much sleep he got or how much water he drank.
Then there were the moments—moments he didn’t like talking about. Moments where he’d lose time. One second, he’d be sitting on the couch scrolling through TikTok, and the next, Nick or Matt would be snapping their fingers in front of his face, their voices sharp with concern.
“Chris? Chris, are you even listening?”
He hated how confused he felt afterward, how much effort it took to pretend nothing was wrong. He’d laugh it off, tell them he was zoning out, but the truth was… he couldn’t remember what had just happened. Those few seconds were always blank, like someone had hit the pause button on his brain.
He told himself it was fine. It had to be fine. He's 20. Headaches and dissociation happened sometimes, right? But last night, when he woke up on his bedroom floor with no memory of how he got there, something knotted in his chest. It wasn’t just the pounding ache in his skull or the anxiety that made his chest tighten; it was the realization that if Nick or Matt had found him like that, they would’ve freaked out.
So he booked an Uber. It was stupid, probably. Matt would’ve driven him anywhere, anytime. But if Matt asked where he was going, what could he say? “Oh, just to the doctor. No big deal. By the way, I have this crazy headache for months now and fainted last night, but I’m fine.” No. That wasn’t going to happen.
Everything will be fine anyway.
-
His eyes were fixed on the image in front of him. His brain. Or what was supposed to be his brain. There, right in the middle, was a bright, opaque mass. It didn’t look real. It didn’t even look like it belonged there. It was just a white blob on the screen, but it was the reason his head felt like it was splitting apart.
The doctor’s words echoed in his head, but they didn’t make sense.
They couldn’t make sense.
“A what?” he whispered, his voice barely audible.
“Stage IV Glioblastoma,” the doctor said gently. “It’s a tumor. A form of brain cancer."
What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.
Tumor. Cancer. Glioblastoma.
This is not real.
He shook his head, couldn't help but to let out a little laugh, the sound sharp and hollow. “No. No, that can’t be right. I just—I just have a headache. A migraine, maybe. My brother Nick gets them all the time. It’s probably just stress or something, right? I'm completely healthy!"
The doctor’s eyes softened, and that look—the pity—made Chris’s stomach churn. “I wish it were something less serious,” he said gently. “But the scans-"
"No. Stop please."
"I know this is a lot to take in,” Chris scoffed at that, "You think?" He didn't have any intention to be mean, but right now he doesn't even know what the fuck else to do.
"This can’t be right. I’m twenty. I can’t—this doesn’t happen to people like me.”
“I understand this is difficult to process,” the doctor said. “As I mentioned, though a surgery is not possible at this stage, there are treatment options we can discuss—”
Chris stopped listening. He closed his eyes, his thoughts spiraling.
“How… how bad is it?” he whispered.
The doctor hesitated, and Chris hated that he did. “The prognosis…” he began, choosing his words carefully, “is eight months.”
Eight months? Eight fucking months?
Just Eight?
“No,” he said, his voice shaking. “No, that’s not—I can’t—I just—” His hands were trembling, his breath coming in short gasps. He felt like he was suffocating, the walls of the office closing in around him.
“Mr Sturniolo, I know this is overwhelming,” the doctor said, his voice steady. “But as I mentioned, we’re here to help you. There are treatments—radiation, chemotherapy—that can help.”
“Help what? Help me buy more time?” his voice breaking. “Like I’m some… some ticking time bomb?”
The doctor didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Chris’s mind raced. Eight months. Eight months to live. Eight months to tell Matt and Nick that he was dying. How the hell was he supposed to do that? How was he supposed to look them in the eye and tell them that?
He felt the tears coming, hot and unstoppable. He buried his face in his hands, his body shaking with silent sobs. This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real.
“Mr Sturniolo,” the doctor said softly, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I know this is a lot to process. But you’re not alone in this. You have family, friends, people who love you. Lean on them.”
Chris laughed bitterly, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Because telling them I’m dying is gonna be real fucking easy.”
The doctor didn’t respond.
Chris looked back at the screen, at the bright white spot a size of avocado seed that had just turned his whole world upside down. It wasn’t fair. He was only twenty. He had his whole life ahead of him. All the plans, dreams, stupid little things he hadn’t even thought about yet. And now?
Now he had eight fucking months.
-
His head is full and equally empty as he left the office, legs moving on autopilot. The crinkling sound of the paper bag as he shifted in his seat felt too loud as he settled into his uber ride. He didn’t even know what half of the pills were called—names he couldn’t pronounce, instructions he barely listened to.
“This medication won’t slow the tumor’s progression, Mr. Sturniolo. It’ll only help with the symptoms, and even that might not work as the cancer advances.”
He hated it. He hated how the doctor had looked at him, like he was some fragile little thing, and tried to initiate the treatment plan conversation.
But he didn’t care. He wasn’t ready to hear about treatment plans or radiation or chemo or whatever the hell else. The words had barely registered after “Eight months.” He needed time. Time to think. Time to process. Time to figure out how the hell he was supposed to handle this.
He didn’t even remember arriving home.
The house was still dark when he pushed the front door open. The familiar quiet of early morning surrounded him, the kind that usually put him at ease.
Matt and Nick were still asleep. Good. He didn’t want to see them right now.
Chris made his way to his room, steps slow and heavy. Once inside, he shut the door, dropped the bag of medication onto his nightstand, and collapsed onto his bed. For a moment, he just lay there, staring at the ceiling.
The tears came fast and hard, choking him as he buried his face in the pillow.
He cried for everything—the diagnosis, the pain, the fear, the overwhelming sense of helplessness. He cried because he didn’t know how to tell Matt and Nick, how to make them understand what was happening to him. They were his brothers, his best friends. They’d been through everything together. But this wasn’t a bad grade or a breakup or some dumb argument over pancake, waffle or french toast.
This was life or death.
His death.
He cried because he didn’t know how to fix this, because for once in his twenty years of life, there was no clear solution, no quick fix, no straight way out.
Chris didn't know how long has he been crying whenhe rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling again. By the time he stopped, the headache started pounding harderagainst his skull, he groaned softly, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. He reached for the bag of medication, he didn’t even bother reading the labels, didn’t care what they were called or what they might do.
He popped the pills into his mouth, swallowing them dry, the bitterness burning his throat. He then throw the plastic bag away into a drawer, hidden from his sight.
His head hit the pillow again, the pounding slowly dulling as the medication worked its way through his system. The edges of his consciousness slowly blurred away and pulled him under, dragging him into a drugged, dreamless sleep.