Crash

I was smoking cigarette after cigarette, leaning my weight on both my feet as I stood there awkwardly outside of the church. A few people that were passing me to go inside looked at me oddly before retreating into the large building full of half our town. It was Christmas Eve, also known as the night when my parents decided they were going to be religious for once. I never minded going to church, mainly because I could see that if people chose to believe in something that made them feel like they had purpose, then they can go right on ahead. But I was never one to actually go to church. I’d usually sit in the back with my hair smelling like smoke and some gross cucumber shampoo and I’d get a weird look from a boy sitting in a few rows up and I’d just stare at him the whole service until he cried. I never did anything productive when it came to church. But always when Easter and Christmas rolled around, my mother would put on her dumb flowered 50’s housewife dress and drive us down to church as if we were the perfect family.

“Are you coming inside?” I heard my mother ask to the side of me. I heard singing coming from inside the church and I looked over at her and inhaled my cigarette. The cool breeze blew through my hair as I dropped my cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “You’re just going to leave it there?” My mother asked, disgusted.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said sarcastically. “Would you like me to hold it in my hand throughout the service?”

I then turned to walk past her inside but felt an arm at my wrist. My mother yanked me around to look me angrily in the eye.

“I don’t know what you’ve been having against me, Peyton, but this needs to end,” She retorted angrily. I stifled a sadistic laugh and shook my head.

“Why are you even asking me this question?” I asked. “You know why I’m treating you like this. You know what you’re doing to dad.”

“Damnit Peyton, I am not having an affair!” My mother yelled a little too loud. Silence filled for a few seconds before I just shook my head and finally spoke.

“Way to curse at church, mom,” I replied and then yanked my wrist from her grasp. “I guess God knows the truth.”

I turned away again and walked back in the church, where I sat down next to my father. I looked up to see young children reenacting the manger scene and turned to look at my dad and my brother who both watched with the same facial expressions. My father turned his head to look at me and smiled. He reached down and grabbed my hand, and then looked back up at the pageant. I looked down at our hands and couldn’t help but feel awkward, and sad that my father didn't deserve what was happening to him, at all.

“Should I tell him?” I asked Micah the next day. After we merrily opened presents on Christmas morning at my house and watched my brother and my dad put up a basketball hoop above the garage, I felt the dire need to get out of my house before it became even more like the front of a greeting card. I drove over to Micah’s and met his grandmother, who seemed to be the sweetest woman alive, although she looked at me and Micah as if we didn’t belong with each other at all. I could tell by her eyes that that was what she was thinking. But her thin lips kept her thoughts from escaping her mouth and I tried to ignore the judgment that I knew was there.

“I honestly don’t know,” Micah replied. He was sitting on his bed and I was standing above it looking down at him. “It all depends if you want him to find out that way.”

“This is so messed up,” I muttered. “I mean, she keeps denying it, even though I caught her in her own dumb ass lie. Like seriously, who does that? Who just keeps lying when they know that the other person knows they are lying?”

Micah grabbed my hand and pulled me down on the bed next to him. He looked over at me and leaned over to kiss my forehead, and then the top of my head.

“When it’s the right time, he’ll find out. Maybe he already knows,” Micah shrugged. I scoffed.

“My dad would not stay with my mom and act normal if he knew that she was having an affair,” I replied.

“Are you sure?” Micah asked.

I looked up at the ceiling and began to think that maybe… maybe Micah was right. Maybe my dad was letting my mom have an affair. He was a passive person, maybe he didn’t want to break up the family. Why would he do that though?

“Gah, I don’t want to think about this anymore, this whole situation is so screwed up,” I stated. I looked over at Micah who was staring at the ceiling as well. He turned back to look at me and I smiled.

“Oh, wow, did I actually just see the ice queen Peyton Oleander smile?" Micah relished. I rolled my eyes and moved to lean against him. He reached down and pulled his blankets over us as I laughed.

“You know,” I said, staring at Micah’s darkened face under the covers. “I feel normal when I’m with you.”

“Peyton, what is normal anyway?” Micah replied and then reached out to touch my face. “You are you, that’s all you should care about.”

Two days later, I was walking up the steps to my new therapist’s office. My mother refused to have me not see one, and forced me to continue. She looked up doctors online, and said this one was great and would benefit me in ways I never would imagine. But then again, she said that about Dr. Philander too.

I walked into the unfamiliar office that smelled like flowers and breath and shivered at how cold it was inside. I rubbed my arms and walked forward to a door that said “Dr. Barham.” I was about to grab the doorknob when it opened for me and a man stepped forward with a smile on his face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I stated as I looked up to see the same exact man I saw in the supermarket with my mother. The same man that has been causing so much trouble with my relationship with her. The same man that I saw kissing her. His mustache was identical, his eyes, his demeanor, everything.

“You must be Peyton,” Dr. Barham exclaimed while reaching out wanting to shake my hand. “I’m Benjamin Barham. Your mother has told me about you."