"Stop."

Payton watched his sister walk through the gates of the airport and on her way to San Francisco where she was going to college without him.

To be honest Payton didn’t want to go to college in San Francisco with Purity. But it would have been nice if when he wished her good luck in college she could have done the same. But no. Payton was not going to college.

It was a long story and Payton didn’t want to get into it. The point was that instead of college he was staying home with his dads and taking classes at A.L.U. and going to a speech therapist. All because one point in the summer he said a word.

It was after the fourth of July when the house was full of relatives and Payton was annoyed. Relatives meant those annoying question they always ask about college and the future. And the whispering about him being mute.

They always did it whenever they came over and Payton was tired of it, couldn’t they just stop and talk about it out loud?

So he told him to stop.

“Stop.”

That was all he said and it hadn’t even felt weird until afterwards. He hadn’t even noticed until everyone was staring at him weird.

They had thought it was permanent, that he would never be able to talk again. But that one word gave them hope. Which meant more whispering. So Payton locked himself in his room for the rest of the week.

No matter what anyone said or did he did not leave. He didn’t want to. Part of him was scared. He was so used to being mute he didn’t even remember what it was like to talk. And the fact that somehow he said that one word so effortlessly scared him. It made him wonder why he wasn’t talking if he could.

After a week in his room he only left in the middle of the night to eat and take a shower then he went back to his room and locked the door again. His dads were worried, and his grandma delayed her flight so she could stay and help. Payton just wanted everyone to leave.

And that how the rest of July passed by. Payton only left his room at night when he knew everyone was asleep. He almost never saw his dads and Purity. Until one night when Purity was sitting outside his door.

Payton stared at her.

“Why are you shutting yourself in there?” Purity asked, not really looking at him.

Of course he said nothing.

“You spoke,” Purity said. She hadn’t been there when he said “stop” it was just the older relatives and their dads. Whispering. She had only heard about it.

More silence.

“Can you do it again?” Purity asked finally looking up at him.

He went back into his room and locked the door and after a while of him trying to sleep he heard her footsteps go down the hall and her door close.

He felt bad for just closing her out like that. He thought about how they were once so close but everything that had happened lately had slowly pulled them apart and now he felt with her like he felt with everyone else. Like she wanted something from him.

When August rolled around he still didn’t want to leave his room but his dads had figured out that he was only leaving at night and caught him in the kitchen one night.

“We just want to talk,” they had said.

Talking was just what Payton did not want to do.

“We think you should go to speech therapy,” Phillip said.

“And some normal therapy too,” Daniel said, “we’re worried about you.”

Payton didn’t even know what he would say if he could talk. He wasn't gonna go to any kind of therapy. He didn’t want to talk.

So he walked back up to his room and the next day he figured he couldn’t stay away from his family forever, especially now that they were catching him at night.

So August was spent by Payton refusing to go to therapy and hoping that he could get away when college rolled around. But those hopes were dashed.

“You’re not fit enough to be by yourself,” his dads said.

He couldn’t believe that they weren’t gonna let him go to college. He couldn’t. The one thing that everyone wants their child to do they were stopping him from doing.

He shut himself back in his room.

And now he was saying goodbye to Purity, his dads had to drag him out to the airport, and wishing he could be going off somewhere too.