It takes less effort to smile than it does to frown.
Seventeen muscles move together when you smile, seventeen small signals to the world of your happiness. But a frown? That takes forty-three muscles. Forty-three reminders that sadness is heavier than joy.
No wonder storms are exhausting. No wonder it feels so heavy when the dark clouds roll in.
For so long, I forced myself to smile, straining to find the joy that used to come so naturally. I only ever wanted to go back to the way things were. But you showed me the truth, Narcissa, when you tore down the Sunshine Club and replaced it with that fake, plastic thing you call Sunshine Reborn. Replacing real joy with canned laughter and painted smiles.
You showed me my smile wasn’t real. Too plastic. Too fake. A thin mask stretched over the weight of a frown. And smiling through a frown? My maths skills tells me that’s sixty muscles. No wonder I’ve been so damned tired!
You know that exhaustion, don’t you, Narcissa?
Those seventeen muscles you wear to hide your fear, your pain, your rage… layered over the forty-three muscles of that permanent scowl. Every now and then, the mask slips. Like when the Pantheon fell and Zeus lay unconscious at your feet.
I saw those cracks again when you came for the Sunshine Club, flicking that lighter while you set fire to everything I used to be. You told me I was dressing up pain and calling it hope. But at least I gave Arcadia something to believe in, some kind of hope. All you’ve given them is sadness.
And it hasn’t fixed your frown, has it? Not one bit.
Life doesn’t have to be so complicated, so exhausting… because it only takes three muscles to pull a trigger.
Three muscles, five pounds of force, to change everything. That’s the truth I taught myself.
So why is it so hard?
In the heat of the moment, it was easy. Pulling the trigger and watching that fake mockery of yours crumble. Easy to let my finger do the talking when my own mask finally cracked. But look into your eyes, and suddenly those three little muscles won’t move.
Because of something you’ll never understand.
Morality.
No matter how deep I sink, no matter how dark the clouds get, there’s still a part of me that believes in the smile. That tiny, stubborn part of me that whispers the sun will always rise again after the storm.
That’s something you’ll never grasp, Narcissa. You’ve worn your frown for so long you’ve forgotten there’s another way.
I’ve always sung about the secrets you’ll never understand. About how the only way to truly smile again is to fix the frown, and turn it upside down.
If it takes three muscles to pull a trigger, seventeen to force a smile, or every damned muscle in my body to end the storm you’ve brought, then I’ll do it.
Because when the storm ends, no matter how dark it gets, the sun always shines again.