Faust is a quiet boy. He has a penchant for pain, but he doesn't know it yet. He has a ridiculous crush on Memphis and wishes she'd ask for a cigarette every single day, just so he could kiss her. When he was five, his mother died of cancer. Her body was riddled with tumors and she didn't remember anyone except Faust, in the end. She smiled at him, right before she died, and it's the only thing that's kept him going. That's the only memory he has of his mother, her lying there with a tube in her throat and her hands and wrists, smiling up at him. The doctors told him later that she wasn't lucid by then, that she was just smiling because she'd lost it finally. But Faust doesn't believe that.

His brothers made his life hell. The oldest never graduated High School, and the other two never went to college. They all live with their father still, living in the house they grew up in, working in an auto repair shop. Faust hates his brothers, has actual contempt for them, and never goes back. He writes to his father, but it's never more than a basic update. He feels like they don't care about him so he shouldn't have to care about them. He never had friends in high school, they were the reason. He never had a girlfriend, they were the reason. He got into Elsinore on a full scholarship. His father cried when he learned and Faust awkwardly hugged him. His brothers just made fun of him. He left as soon as possible.

Faust is defensive. He feels like everyone is attacking him constantly, so he has to defend himself. He doesn't know how to let people in, which is why he likes Memphis so much. She doesn't want in, she just likes to mess with him. It's what he's used to. It's all he knows. Therefore, he likes it.