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There's a crown on his head and a gun in the house.
He's lived seventeen years in a life devoid of passion, a mass-manufactured pawn churned out of Welton Academy. He's found his passion on a stage and in a blond boy with a poet's heart and stars in his eyes.
He stood on the stage and stared into the audience, first at his poets, then at his father, then at the Captain.
His father will never let him on a stage again. His father will have him imprisoned for the next ten years. His father will take away everything and soon enough he’ll find himself a ‘successful’ doctor looking back at today and realising his life wasn’t worth the effort.
His life had a passion for all of three hours as he stood on a stage wearing an itchy costume, sweating under stage lights. He will never feel that way again.
There’s a crown on his head and a gun in his father’s study.
His parents are in bed and expect him to be too. But he’s awake. His last night as an actor can’t end just yet. He doesn’t like the finality of that word. Last. He’s always been the kind of person to hope for a tomorrow and a day after, for a sunrise after every sunset.
He's never liked sunsets.
Tomorrow wouldn’t come the way he wanted it to. Tomorrow wouldn’t greet him with a smile. It wouldn’t bring him his friends, jumping and laughing, or Mr Keating’s proud smile. Tomorrow would barrel into his chest, carrying with it confinement and rigidity. Tomorrow would hand over to him the burden of every expectation his father had built for him for the past seventeen years.
There’s a crown on his head and a gun in the desk drawer.
He feels suffocated. He feels like he’s drowning. He exists only in the now. Who he was, and will be, are different men. Neither of them is who he is as he drowns in a shallow pool. He’d felt this way before, as the weight of the world took the form of a brick tied to his feet when he was pushed into the lake.
This is deeper. There are more bricks. Five, ten, maybe even twenty, all tied to his feet. Heavier.
He can hear his father's voice echoing in his head, mapping out how he’ll take away the next ten years of his life. Somehow he feels he knew this would happen. He chose one happy night over a life of happy years. But what does being happy even mean?
There’s a crown on his head and a gun in front of him.
His hands shake in a way they never have before. His first time as a flag bearer, his audition for the play, and his performance. They’d all gone by without a trace of the slightest tremor. Now, the shiver took root in his stomach and spread to every fingertip.
He takes a deep breath and wills his hands to steady. They comply.
He questions whether or not he’s ready. Then he questions whether one can ever truly be ready to do what he’s about to do. For a long time, he’d thought that this had to be a decision made over days, weeks, or even months. He’d made up his mind less than two hours ago. He couldn’t see any way out.
There’s a crown on his head and a gun in his hands.
Over the years, he’d learnt how grief could drop like a bomb onto happiness, destroying any traces of it for miles around. He’d learnt how his father had mastered the art of releasing the bomb when he was at his happiest.
He’d learnt how to hurt himself just bad enough to make the all-consuming grief loosen its grip.
He’s working on the same principle now. It’s just enough. Nothing less would suffice.
There’s a crown on his head and a gun on the floor.
He had always hoped he would die happy. The universe refused to afford him even that.