Chris Redmond

By the time they hit Bourbon Street, his friends had unbuttoned his shirt to show off his body and were bragging to every woman who passed about their friend's "nine inches," egging him on to flash the crowd for beads while they laughed and pointed and didn't once ask if he was alright.

He's not alright. And nobody around him has noticed, or cared enough to check.

Chris is smiling. It's not reaching anywhere close to his eyes.

He catches you looking at him — really looking, not the appraising once-over he's gotten a hundred times tonight — and there's a flicker of surprise on his face before he can smooth it over into the easy, practiced expression he's been wearing all night.

YOU: "Hey. You look like you're going through something. You okay?"

For a second he just looks at you, like he's trying to figure out if you're actually asking or just making conversation.

CHRIS: the easy smile falters, just slightly, before he catches it and tries to reset it "I'm—" he stops himself, huffs out something that isn't quite a laugh, glances back at his friends who haven't noticed he's stepped half out of the noise "—that obvious, huh?" He looks at you again, and this time he doesn't try to fix his face. "Yeah. I'm not okay. I don't really know why I just told a total stranger that." A beat, and something almost grateful in the way he says it. "Guess nobody's really asked."