Heavy is the Head

Anon - 1

Chapter 25

Did you know that the word anon has two meanings? The most common meaning is an abbreviation for the word, anonymous and the second is an archaic word that means soon. Remember that.

✧"Life begins when a person first realizes how soon it ends." - Marcelene Cox ✧

In order for this to make any amount of sense, I have to start at the very beginning and, as it always seems to, this whole ordeal began with Snow White.

I still remember the day Snow White was born. She was a sickly little thing with skin as pale as milk which was only emphasised by her hair. Hair as black as ebony. Her tiny red mouth was perpetually stretched in a massive "O" shape as she cried all day and all night long. Kingsley and Adelaide ran themselves ragged rushing to and from hospital appointments, perpetually in some state of worry or agitation. I was absolutely exhausted all the time and extremely worried about what would happen to me if Snow White died. Turns out I was concerned about the wrong thing, because in the end the stress of Snow White's health problems took a huge toll on Adelaide, so that she developed several issues of her own. As Snow White became healthier and healthier, Adelaide's health took a rapid decline until she was just skin and bones curled up on a hospital bed.

And then just like that, she was gone.

Gone was the little girl in mismatched hat, gloves, scarf and coat waiting by the window with bated breath for the first flakes of snow that would signify that her favourite time of the year was approaching.

Gone was the brave teenager who loved so hard, so fiercely that she gave up the security and comfort she had to help others and to make a name for herself without anyone's help or support.

Gone was the woman with the lopsided smile and the loud, unguarded laugh and vexing way of always needing to be right.

Gone. Gone Gone.

Right along with my freedom.

To begin with, I blamed Snow White entirely for Adelaide's death. My thinking was that if she hadn't gotten so stressed, she wouldn't have died or maybe would have been able to recover. I believed Snow White had killed the only person who cared about me and the only person I had come close to caring about, despite my reservations, simply because Adelaide was just so easy to love. Snow White on the other hand, was not. She cried and cried for her mother all the time and Kingsley was besides himself with grief so my parents sent word for me to come back home. Hence the end of my freedom.

My arrival back home was not received well. In the life plan that had been laid out for me, I was supposed to pursue a career in science but while I was living with Adelaide, I had been working on one of my stories instead. At the time, I had made around a thousand moodboards, but not a completed novel that I could show to them to prove how serious I was about my writing like I had wanted. I had only written a few complete chapters that I was happy with.

"For such an intelligent person, you are extremely foolish to think that we would ever change our minds in this regard. You will become a scientist and that is final." My mother said to me. She held out a long manicured hand to take my laptop where everything to do with my story was saved.

"You are good at science and that can help us to answer the great mysteries of the world. What can your writing possibly achieve?" My father scoffed. "Anyone can write!"

In a sudden flash of defiance, I held the laptop close to my chest and said to them, "Adelaide would have wanted me to do what I'm passionate about, not what you've set out for me. I don't want to become a scientist and I am old enough to make my own decisions!"

My mother slowly rose out of the armchair with the dark green pattern that had always reminded me of vomit stains. When she spoke, her voice was very level and calm, not a single trace of anger or shock at being spoken back to although I'm almost completely certain she was both angry and shocked. "I think Adelaide would have wanted you to do the right thing. Do you know how much your father and I have invested in your education?"

"By allowing you to live with Adelaide, we gave you a chance to be independent. We trusted you." My father chimed in. His eyes were beginning to stray over to his watch and I knew I was running out of time to convince them. "We gave you your chance."

"Please. Give me one more month to show you. One month. That's all I'm asking for." I pleaded, probably sounding like a petulant child which fit quite well because they still treated me like one.

"You will become a scientist and that is final. We are allowing you to choose your own area of study, you should take advantage of that before we decide for you." My father declared, taking the laptop, and my entire life's work, out of my hands. "This is for your own good. Now, are you going to delete everything? Or do I have to?"

"Father, please." I begged.

He shook his head and began to walk away. I felt my knees go weak and grabbed onto the back of the green armchair for support, hoping to at least save some of my dignity.

"Welcome back home, by the way, dearest." My mother said, the corners of her crimson lips twitching slightly. Mocking me. "Your luggage is in your room."

✧

That afternoon, as I stared at the ceiling in the attic room that I vowed to never come back to ever again, I understood for the first time in my life what pure, unadulterated anger felt like. Towards my mother. Towards my father. And towards Snow White. I had spent my entire life controlled by my parents and Adelaide had been my ticket out until Snow White arrived on the scene. I suppose it's a bit pathetic looking back, holding that much malice towards a child but I was so consumed with rage that I couldn't think straight. I needed to find someone to hate just as much as I hated myself and that happened to be Snow White. I now know that even if Adelaide didn't die, my parents would have found another reason to bring me back home. It was all about control for them.

In my room, the desk had been removed as had the piles of notebooks with all of my story ideas and in its place there was a massive imprint in the carpet. The phone Adelaide had bought me was nowhere to be found, my laptop was gone, there wasn't a single book, pen, pencil or piece of paper in the room and there was no way I was going to ask either one of my parents for anything.

Writing was everything to me. The ability to create a brand-new universe and alternate reality through the tip of a pen or the keys on a keyboard was what had kept me going for so long. As I lay in that horrible too-big room with the too-high ceiling and too-tall window, I heard the dreaded sound of the key turning in the lock on the outside of the door and I felt fury burn through my entire being.

Then, I did something that I hadn't done since I was little. I marched up to that stupid old door that held the entire world on the other side and I pounded on it until my fists burned and my throat was sore from screaming. It was all for nothing though, because just like how things would play out when I was younger, nobody came to unlock the door until morning.

There wasn't a single part of my body that wasn't aching and I had never felt so hopeless. But, you know, when I finally got let out of the room and was being escorted down to breakfast by my father's secretary to ensure I wouldn't try and escape, we passed Adelaide's portrait in the hallway and I swear, I felt my entire body go cold. I think it was right there, at that precise moment through my numbness that I realized that there was absolutely no way on earth that I could live the rest of my life like this.