"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."
"En tres palabras que puedo resumir todo que he aprendido acerca de la vida: Pasa."
Psymon walked through the front door of his small town home. His mom and dad on the couch watching TV and Chrissy playing with the twins' old toys. "See? It doesn't look bad at all, we can actually see your face now," his mother said.
Tom turned around, "So what did you learn?"
"The next time I get drunk don't come home."
He then hastly headed to his room. He could feel the anger building and heating up. He sat on his bed contemplating some sort of revenge, something to get back at Tom. He laid back trying to relax himself, he didn't want another episode…
Monday morning has arrived and Psymon was not excited for it. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror debating on whether or not to wear a hat. He leafed his fingers through the black spikes and decided he would be brave and show it off.
He wondered downstairs to the kitchen where breakfast awaited him. Sitting down at the table, the twins instantly looked at him.
"Just say it already," he told them.
Alyssa burst out laughing, "Oh my, I can not believe I missed them cutting your hair off haha! I didn't even know you had a forehead."
"I'm leaving," Psymon said getting up and walking out to the garage. Tom wanted to keep his keys but Denise forced him to let Psymon drive.
He pulled up to Dane's house watching him walk to his truck. He only looked forward not wanted to make eye contact. Dane opened the door getting in and looked at his friend.
"Am I in the right truck?" he asked.
"Shut up."
"What the hell happened?"
"I came home hammered, puked everywhere, pissed off my dad then woke up with my hair all fucked up."
"I hope your girlfriend likes your new hair."
Psymon cringed being reminded of the future situation. He wanted this to be a real relationship. Something like he's never had before and prayed his father didn't screw him over.
After a close call of almost punching Forest in the face because of his hair, the moment of truth came. He peeked in homeroom and saw Elise talking with Farah. Elise turned toward the door as Psymon quickly moved out of her eyesight.
"I can't go in there dude," he told Dane.
"What are you gunna wait until your hair grows back to see her again?"
"I could do that."
With that Dane pushed him into the class room as Psymon rushed to his seat in the back just as the bell rang. Elise hadn't noticed him enter having Psymon sigh in relief.
An evil smile crept along Dane face as he rolled up a piece of paper into a ball.
"No," Psymon whispered paying no attention to the morning announcements, "Don't even think about it!"
Dane only laughed throwing the ball as Elise. She turned around to wave at them to only do a double take. She looked confused mouthing, "What happened?"
After homeroom the students left the classroom as Elise pulled Psymon aside to talk to him. "So why did you cut your hair?"
"Well, after me and Dane left your house we got a little drunk and-"
Dane cut him off, "A little? We were completely annihilated. This one fell off the tailgate chasing a beer."
"Anyway, that night I went home and parked my truck on the front lawn and puked in my pants then passed out in the bathroom and the next morning I woke up with my hair all chopped up thanks to my dad and little cousin. So I had to walk into town and get a haircut."
Elise smiled finding his story funny, "I think it looks cute. I like being able to see your face now." She leaned kissing him then heading off with Farah to her next class.
During shop Monty was sent to the principals office for starting a fight with Psymon. He apparently saw Elise kissing him and didn't like it. When the blonde beauty herself got wind of it she headed straight for auto mechanics.
Psymon sat outside smoking a cigarette as Elise rounded the corner from inside. He looked up to her with his black eye. "Oh my God, now what happened?"
"Monty saw us and punched me in the face so I beat him with a wrench then Forest picked him up and he got written up. So yea that's pretty much the story."
She sat on his lap holding his face trying to inspect his eye.
"It doesn't look too bad, it's not swollen. Your eye is a little red though."
He smiled, "It's fine."
He loved how she knew how to take care of him. He couldn't believe this was his girlfriend, she was pretty much perfect in his eyes and he couldn't have asked for more.
The past happy months came and went as fast as the blink of the eye. Psymon and Elise were still going strong as well as Farah and Dane. Forest even had his eye on a young girl from school.
Over Thanksgiving Psymon got the chance to meet Elise's family and found her five brothers and overprotective dad to be very cool and collected people. Elise had told him all about surfing in California and other known places around the world. Psymon decided to bring her snowboarding with him and Tom and she did as well as he expected. Now they take a trip snowboarding to Psymon's favorite spot every weekend.
Now it was almost Christmas again and it was Elise's turn to meet Psymon's family. She was nervous just Psymon was meeting her family.
On this night, the eve of Christmas Eve, Psymon brought his wonderful girlfriend and best friend to the peak that looked over Swift Current. Farah would've come but had other appointments to tend to. They sat contently in the truck bed sipping on Elise's favorite wine coolers.
"So what's your family like? What's everybody's names?" Elise asked.
"Well there's Grandma Combs. My dad's mom, she really nice the usual grandmother type I guess. Then there's Aunt Becka and Aunt Terry who are my dad's sisters."
"And your cousin Kelly's daughter Chrissy who cut your hair right?" Dane asked.
"Yea," Psymon laughed. Even though his hair of almost ten years was gone he appreciated the new look and kept it that way.
"You know, after all this time we've been together, you've never told me about your real family. You know…like you biological parents," Elise said. She's always wondered but never had the gull to actually ask him, almost afraid to confront him on it. But she finally had the courage to ask.
Dane looked to Psymon waiting for an answer, "After all these years you've never told me either, I just know about your little brother."
Now both sets of eyes were on him. "Well, there's not really much to explain," Psymon paused, "this might be harder to say then I thought."
"Tell us the truth Psymon, we wanna know everything. He's your best friend and I'm your girlfriend, we'll love you no matter what."
"No homo," Dane said.
"Ok… well… my mother was addicted to prescription drugs and my dad was an alcoholic. My mother, I think her name was Jaslene, came from the Dominican Republic and my dad was some kind of European. His name was Dominic. I remember because my little brother was named after him but we called him Nicky.
"It started when I was about six, every couple of months when my parents would fight my dad would take me or my brother to a hotel for a couple of days until the police made him go home. My parents would constantly beat Nicky and me like they were taking their anger out on us. Eighty percent of all the bones I've broken were from when I was with my real parents. They didn't feed us very well and couldn't really take care of us. I guess that's why I'm so thin now.
"But one day my parents really got into it and my dad dragged me by my hair out to his truck to go to another hotel. I think someone may have passed by our house and called the cops because the next day me and my dad had to sneak out of the back window of the hotel room and we got into a huge car chase. After about twenty minutes of trying to outrun a bunch of cops we got into an accident. I was in the hospital for a while then my Aunt Tamara found me a new home, which is where I am now. Ever since then I've never heard from any of them since. The only person I really wanna see is my little brother."
The other two were dead silent as if Psymon were goin to speak again.
But fortunately Dane broke the awkward silence first, "Wow… that's deep."
Psymon felt Elise's grip tighten a little more as if to comfort him, and in a way it did. "We'll find your brother one day, I want to help you," she said.
"That would be the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"Other then meeting me…. Right? Buddy?" Dane asked.