3.

At the next meeting, Payton decided he was definitely going to go talk to Namine. Floyd tried to coerce him to go to the bar tonight, but Payton knew what he wanted to do. So, Floyd left by himself. And Payton went over to Namine

            “H-hey…” said Payton.

            “Hey!” replied Namine.

            “I’m Payton” said Payton.

            “Nice to meet you Payton, I’m Namine” replied Namine.

            “Do you… Do you want to go to a diner and talk?” asked Payton. He immediately regretted it. She must think he’s crazy. Or a rapist. Or �"

            “Sure” replied Namine. And she began leaving. Payton was perplexed. He quickly followed her out of the hospital.

            Payton sat down across the table from Namine. But he didn’t have anything to say. He had never talked to a girl before. He didn’t know what to ask her.

            “So… so what’s your favorite band?’ asked Payton awkwardly.

            “You’ve probably never heard of them,” laughed Namine. So hipster.

            “Try me,” replied Payton.

            “I’m in love with this band called the Postal Service. Their song, “Brand New Colony”, is basically my favorite song ever,” replied Namine. Payton had to pinch himself. Was he dreaming? Was this girl real? Payton wanted to respond, but he couldn’t. He wanted to shout that he loved that band too. Finally, he uttered:

            “Yeah, I’ve heard of that band, they’re pretty good,” Pretty good? They were amazing. Payton wanted to slap himself for being so stupid. He didn’t know what to say next. So he pretended he was Floyd. He leaned in close and whispered:

            “So… how’d you… you know, do it?” Namine gave a strange look. Payton got a fast, sickening feeling all through his body.

            “Are you asking me… How I tried to kill myself?” whispered Namine. Payton didn’t want to respond, but out of paralyzed fear, he nodded his head.

            “Well, I was a drug addict- how do you think I did it?” asked Namine. It was obvious now- she had overdosed.

            “So, what was your poison?” asked Payton. It was like Floyd was talking through him.

            “I abused prescription medication. I was diagnosed with depression when I was fifteen; after I watched my parents die. I lived with my grandparents until I was eighteen,” replied Namine.

            “What happened to your parents?” Payton wasn’t even holding back now.

            “We… were in a car accident. My father pulled too fast on a turn, and we rammed into a tree… The car flipped a few times. My door was… ripped off, so I crawled out. But… both of the front seat doors were crushed in, trapping my parents… I tried to get them out… but… the engine caught fire… They… were burned alive in front of my eyes…” replied Namine. Payton closed his eyes. He had thought he had had it bad. He thought his life was hard. His life was a trip to Disney World compared to Namine’s.

            “I always thought that… I should’ve died that day… you know? Like, I wasn’t supposed to make it out. I tried to… off myself for the first time only a week after the accident. I’ve tried three times, and failed every time. I have a therapist I have see weekly, and check in with doctors on a biweekly basis,” continued Namine.

            “I’m… sorry. That must be very hard for you to go through…” replied Payton. Namine looked at him.

            “So, what’s your sob story?” asked Namine.

            “I found my brother dead when I was twelve,” replied Payton. Namine scoffed.

            “Damn man, that’s rough; anything else?” asked Namine. Payton said how his parent’s divorce made it so he had to raise himself and his brother, and how he had never been social because of that. He also told her about how he had recently tried to kill himself, but that his amnesia rendered him unable to remember why.

            “So, how’d you try and do it?” asked Namine. Payton lifted his sleeves. The bandages were gone, but there were long, nasty scars still traced across his arms.

            “Whoa. You don’t mess around,” replied Namine. Payton nodded his head awkwardly. Namine squinted, and then looked at Payton.

            “Hey, can I ask you something?” asked Namine.

            “Yeah, go for it,” replied Payton.

            “Have you ever heard of the word eccedentesiast?” asked Namine.

            “I’m pretty sure you just made that- What does it mean?” asked Payton.

            “It’s a person who fakes smiles. Someone who feigns happiness. But not to themselves. They feign happiness to the outside world. They make other people think they’re okay,” Namine explained. “I think that most people are eccedentesiasts. Everyone has a reason to feign happiness.”

            Payton was shocked. Eccedentesiast. Never had a word described him so well. Apathy didn’t quite hit it right, because he cared a lot. In fact, he often times cared too much what other people thought of him. But this word. Eccedentesiast. He knew that this was the word to describe him. It fit him perfectly.

            Namine continued: “But I guess the real question is this:”

            “What?” asked Payton.

            “Why? Why do we fake smiles? What is each person’s own personal reason?” asked Namine. Payton stopped and thought for a second. He didn’t have a reason for his own eccedentesiast behavior. He thought of himself and everyone else he knew, and why they faked smiles. What was Floyd’s reason? And what about Chase?

                                             

            Chase unlocked the door to the apartment, and walked in. He put the mail on the table, and a letter fell out of the pile and grabbed his attention. It was addressed to him and was written in messy handwriting. Chase stared at the letter for a second, and then ripped open the envelope. It was just a piece of paper that had seven words on it, written in big, messy letters:

YOU’LL END UP JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER

            Chase almost fell down. He sat in a chair, and covered his face with his hands. How did they find him? He had run away from that life. This was his start over.

            Chase crumpled up the letter and threw it away. He stood over the trash can, and began to sob. He couldn’t help himself. He was suddenly thirteen again. Scared and alone. With no one to take care of him. His mother wasn’t here. Payton was gone at his meetings. Chase was alone again.

        

           

            Floyd left the meeting that night, but didn’t want to go to a diner. Instead, he went to the local bar. He walked in, with “Boys Don’t Cry” by Oleander blaring over the speakers. Floyd sat at the bar, next to a woman. She was done up well, but Floyd had no interest in her. Floyd had no interest in any woman. Floyd got his drink, and the woman looked over at him:

            “Hey honey--“ she started, but Floyd cut her off.

            “I’m not interested,” said Floyd. The woman gave an irritated look.

            “Come on baby, you know you need to unwind…” she whispered in his ear.

            “No… I think I’m okay,” replied Floyd. The woman started to push harder. She started to caress his leg, and whispered:

            “It won’t be something that you’ll ever forget�"“ but Floyd cut her off again, this time, by slapping her across the face, which threw her off the stool and onto the ground. The bar stopped. Music went silent. Everyone stared at Floyd. The woman touched the side of her face, and then looked at her hand to check for blood. She looked back at Floyd:

            “That’s gunna bruise, you f*****g f****t!” screamed the woman. Floyd lost it. That word reminded him of his father. Suddenly, Floyd didn’t see a woman on the ground, he saw his father.

Floyd was about to punch the woman again, when a large man came from behind, and broke a bottle on Floyd’s head. Floyd fell to the ground, and the man punched him in the face three times, and then finally picked him up and threw him out of the bar.

Floyd was just conscious enough to hear the man shout: “And never come back, f****t!” And then Floyd went unconscious.

        

“So, why do you fake smiles?” asked Payton to Namine.

“I’d have to say it’s to fool my doctors that I’m alright,” said Namine. They had left the diner, and were now sitting outside, on a bench. Namine lit up a cigarette, and offered one to Payton. Payton refused. He was suicidal, but wouldn’t risk the cancer. What an oxymoron.

“I don’t really like talking about my feelings with shrinks and what not,” continued Namine. “They don’t understand, you know? They haven’t been where we’ve been.”

“Yeah, I can agree with that,” agreed Payton.

“So why do you fake them?” asked Namine.

“I’d have to say… to fool my parents into thinking I’m alright. And my friend Chase too,” said Payton.

“Why do you need to fool your friend?” asked Namine.

“Cause we live together, and he’s always worried about me,” replied Payton.

“Is Chase depressed?” asked Namine.

“I… don’t think so. His father killed this lady and her kid when he was drunk, so he really wanted to move away as soon as he could, but other than that, Chase has had a pretty normal life,” explained Payton.

Namine scoffed: “Normal life. Wonder what that feels like.”

“I don’t know, it must be nice though,” whispered Payton.

“It’s probably pretty boring,” joked Namine. Payton laughed.

Payton looked over at Namine. Namine took a drag from her cigarette, and looked over at Payton. She looked down, and then back into his eyes. This was it. He was going to finally do it. He leaned in, and kissed Namine. It had taken twenty-three years, but Payton had finally gotten his first kiss.

“Well… This group meeting thing has turned out to be better than I was expecting…” softly said Namine.

             

 

At the next meeting, Payton noticed that Floyd wasn’t his normal self. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t upbeat. He looked at the ground the whole time, and didn’t even say hello to Payton when he walked in. But Payton could see that he had a nasty black eye, and his face was bruised badly. Namine came in and sat next to Payton. The leader lady started the meeting, and asked if anyone would like to share themselves. To Payton’s surprise, Floyd raised his hand, and stood up.

            “Hi everyone, my name is Floyd. I’ve… never talked so… here goes. I’m laying everything out there. I was at a bar last night, and a woman started hitting on me. I threw her off me, and she… she called me… she called me a f****t.” Everyone was silent. Floyd looked over at Payton, and then back to the group.

            “Now, I’m gay. I have been for… my whole life, I suppose. But my father didn’t learn that till I was twelve, when he caught me and my friend Daniel kissing in my room. Now, my father is… a wholesome, to-the-bone American man. He… has strong Christian values that… interfered with what I was doing… So… He figured that the best way to teach me that what I was doing was wrong was… He…” Floyd scoffed at this point, but not because it was funny. It’s that awkward reaction to something uncomfortable: you laugh. But Floyd continued:

            “He… began to… ‘teach’ me by means of sexual education. He would… physically show me that being gay was wrong. He would… yell at me while he did it… He’d… He’d shout things like… ‘You f****t!’ or… ‘Are you enjoying this? You shouldn’t enjoy this’… ‘You’re a devil child! I knew I should’ve hit your mother harder while she was pregnant!’…” Floyd stopped, looking down at the ground. The room was silent. Payton could hear the electricity faintly buzzing through the lights in the ceiling.

“He did this… everyday for a year. And my mother did nothing. I don’t know whether she supported it or whether she didn’t know it was happening… or she was too afraid of my father to stop him but… I remember the first time I tried to kill myself was… age thirteen. I hung myself from my ceiling fan… My father found me, cut me down, and took me to the hospital. Once I came home okay… he tied me to my bed, so that I couldn’t escape or try and kill myself again. He would beat me every day, telling me that it was my fault what had happened to me, and that I should… just choose to be straight…”

“I have tried seven times since age twelve to kill myself… And I remember at age seventeen, when I… electrocuted myself by sticking a fork in a socket, that I was officially dead for two minutes. My heart was stopped for a hundred and twenty seconds. And those… those are the best a hundred and twenty seconds of my life. Because I wasn’t with my father. I was free of him…”

Floyd grabbed his coat and quickly left the meeting room, with the only the sound of his quick footsteps to fill the void of silence that he had left. Payton quickly grabbed his own coat and followed Floyd, and Namine followed Payton.

Payton ran after him, shouting: “Floyd! Floyd!” And when Floyd heard this, he stopped. Payton ran up to him, and Floyd was sobbing. Payton grabbed Floyd and hugged him. Namine caught up with them. Floyd cried hard, but he kept whispering something that Payton could barely hear:

“I just don’t want to pretend anymore. I want the pain to just go away. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”