Arlen is freshly eighteen, and the world seems bigger than he can properly comprehend.

There isn’t a thing he can’t do. There isn’t a thing that he can’t be, a place he couldn’t go.

Arlen is eighteen, and he feels fricking invincible. He feels like he’s going to take the world by storm, like he’s going to finally apply to that art school, like he’s going to be everything his parents and siblings always told him he couldn’t.

Arlen is eighteen, and he is happy, and he is finally free.

Arlen is three months into his eighteenth year when he applies to art school, and is accepted. He didn’t think he had ever been more excited for anything in his life. He drew, and drew, and drew—in between reading fantasy novels, he was creating his own on the pages of his sketchbooks, drawing fantastical tales of knights and the dragons they slayed, of rescued royalty and friendships to last lifetimes.

Finally where he wants to be in life, Arlen finds peace. And the cracks within his chest become a little smaller.

Arlen is five months into his eighteenth year when he meets the man he is sure must be the love of his life.

All sweet words and rugged beauty, the man is like a knight in his own right, drawing Arlen down from his tower, holding him close and whispering sweet nothings that have his heart aflutter at every turn.

He’s never been told things like the knight tells him, has never been treated like he is something so wonderfully special and perfect, just for existing.

Arlen is eleven months into his eighteenth year, preparing for an art show that could change his life, and his knight, ever loyal, is right by his side. Arlen does not think that he has ever given someone as much of himself as he has given his knight. Would do anything for him. Would cancel any plans. And the knight likes to test this a lot.

And certainly, Arlen’s knight makes him cancel many of his plans. And certainly, Arlen’s knight takes things too far, pushes him too far, keeping him in the same little boxed routines.

But that’s okay, Arlen reasons, because love itself is a test in a way, as far as he’s ever known it, and he wants to pass. He always wants to pass.


Eleven months and two days into his eighteenth year, Arlen’s knight asks him to cancel his art show. Another test, Arlen knows, and he still wants to pass (he does), but this is important. Surely his knight knows this?

So Arlen does something different, changes to the script just slightly. He tells his knight “no”. Just once.

But once is enough.

Eleven months and five days into his eighteenth year, Arlen awakens in the dead of night to find his art aflame.

And in the middle of it all is his knight. But perhaps he had never been a knight at all.

No, this man was more like a dragon. And now, the dragon was turning Arlen’s kingdom to ashes.

Arlen is nineteen, and the world feels bigger than he can properly comprehend.

Looming, in a way. Like it could swallow him whole, and not a single person would take note.

Arlen is nineteen, and he has dropped out of art school without an explanation. He didn’t know how to talk about any of it, anyways. Shame and heartache ate him alive, and he couldn’t bear to think about any of it—much less put it into words. So he doesn’t.

Arlen is nineteen, and applies for a part-time job in a library, because he wants the pay. Because he wants the escape. Because it’s far enough away that he can move, and hopefully nobody will know his name or face.

Arlen is nineteen, and those cracks in his heart have opened back up. He feels like he’s drowning in them half the time.

Arlen is nineteen, and he’s still afraid of fire.

Arlen is nineteen, and he has decided that he’ll be his own knight.

… Safer that way.