"Do this. Don't do that. Listen."
They were commands—never questions.
Ethan's hands tightened around a chipped teacup, the ceramic trembling like a caged bird in his grasp.
They never came as questions.
Only commands. Always commands.
Ethan sat alone in the living room.
Outside the towering glass walls, a crowd gathered beyond the gates. Supporters, media vans, camera flashes. All of them here for the man upstairs. My father.
The Chief Minister of this state. The People's Guardian. The Nation's Future.
And me?
Just the son. A quiet figure in the background of perfect photographs.
They said I was lucky to be born in a powerful family.
I was 19. An age where others built dreams. I was still untangling whose voice lived inside my head—mine, or his.
"Study hard."
So I did. long after the house slept, pouring cold coffee and craming the equations and formulae.
"You're not trying hard enough."
So I stayed up all night, forcing textbooks into my skull like broken glass.
"Don't waste time playing."
So I gave up the one thing that ever made me feel alive.
Sports. Freedom. My body moving without thought. A self I lost.
"You think life is about what you like?"
No. Of course not.
I never fought back. Not really.
I nodded. I obeyed. I walked the path carved for me, even when my legs bled.
Science stream in high school. Because it 'sounded right' for a politician's son.
Entrance exams after that—Engineering, Medicine, Civil Services. Anything that would pad my father's image.
They called me "disciplined," "humble," "dutiful."
They didn't see me break.
They didn't see the trembling fingers, the failed attempts, the panic attacks before interviews, the disgust I felt toward every mirror I looked into.
"Why aren't you succeeding?" he once asked.
"You're not trying."
I was trying.
When my name wasn't on the final list of selected candidates—for the third time—I didn't cry.
I didn't scream.
I just sat on the rooftop that night, dangling my legs over the edge like a child again, staring at the city lit.
And for the first time, I asked myself a question:
What if I stopped trying?
What if I just let go?
"I don't want a good life."
"I just want to live one that's mine."
"From now on, I'll live for myself."
The words felt foreign. Almost laughable.
But I whispered them anyway—like a sinner trying prayer.
The morning after that rooftop, I stood in front of the mirror and looked at the man inside.
I had my father's eyes. Sharp. Cold. Made to command.
But mine had grown tired.
I was done being his shadow.
Done walking the line he drew for me since I was ten.
I didn't know what came next. I had no dreams left, no skills to call mine, no place to run to. But still—
"Even if I fall," I told my reflection, "at least let it be my fall. Not his design."
It was the first decision I had made for myself in years.
And yet, I couldn't even take a step outside.
That afternoon, I was called upstairs.
The staff said he wanted to talk.
"He's in a good mood today," they said. "Go while he's relaxed."
As if speaking to my father required strategy.
I walked through the hall I had grown up in—.The portraits of ancestors watched from their frames, dressed in war medals and parliament robes.
Men who 'built legacies.'
He sat by the window, phone in one hand, a glass of water untouched beside him.
The same man who never aged. Still poised. Still powerful.
He didn't look at me.
"You'll attend the meeting with the commissioner tomorrow. Wear grey. No pinstripes."
I said nothing.
"And stop wasting time with those thoughts of yours. If you want to stand for elections next year, you need discipline. No more delays."
I looked at the lines on his face. At the mouth that never asked, only told.
This is the moment.
Stand up for yourself.
I opened my mouth, feeling the words rise like breakers in my throat.
Say them. Say it now.
I want a life that's mine. I don't want politics. I can't breathe—
But my tongue stilled, heavy as stone.
I only nodded, obedient as always.
He gave a brief, dismissive nod, already halfway to the next command.
That night, alone in my room, I pressed my fists into my knees so hard my nails bled crescents into my skin.
"I swore I'd live for myself."
"And I failed. Again."
"Is this adulthood? Dying quietly in someone else's cage?"
I sat there for hours, hollowed out, until headlights painted the ceiling—restless, sterile, alien.
Then silence.
I don't remember standing, or moving to the window. Only the sharp cold air on my arms as I climbed the fire escape—barefoot, numb. The city below was a paper ocean. Stars scattered on the black.
There, at the rooftop ledge, everything hushed.
For a moment, freedom felt real. The air tasted cleaner here, thin and fierce. No voices but my own.
I closed my eyes. I let myself remember running wild. Warm grass. Laughter. A childhood untouched by rules.
The wind shivered around me, tugging at my shirt.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, whether to my father, my old self, or the sky itself, I couldn't tell.
Then
I decided to go back to my room.