A/N: This will be a one-parter. Ever wondered why Tristan is acting the way he is? Ever wondered if he could find a way out? Maybe this is the answer...

~~**~~

Do I expect to change

The past I hold inside

With all the words I say

Repeating over in my mind

Some things you can't erase

No matter how hard you try

An exit to escape

Is all there is left to find

(Trapt – Echo)

~~**~~

I am Tristan DuGrey. Heir to everything. When I'm grown up there won't be anything I won't own. Except maybe my own life. Ever since I was born my life has been planned out. I'll graduate from Chilton, study law at Yale, and one day the DuGrey lawfirm will be mine. Nobody ever asked me what I want. They just assume I will be perfect.

When I look around I see nothing. Empty people talking about their empty lives at parties. My parents force me to go to these parties, introducing girls to me so one day I will marry...settle down and produce another heir. Nobody knows who I really am. They think I am happy leading my fucking perfect life. I don't think anybody really cares anyway. The only thing they do at those parties is stare around hoping nobody will be outdressing them. Women walking around with so much jewelry that I wonder how on earth they are able to stand up straight...men talking about their stocks and shares...trying to win from the people they call their friends.

My parents treat me like I'm a prizewinning cow. `Look at him` I hear my mother say everytime before she shoves a girl in my face `isn't he gorgeous? You know...one day he'll be the richest man in Hartford...` I can hear her voice in my head...even when I'm alone. I know they don't love me. I wish I didn't care about it but I do.

I'm just a guy. Just an ordinary seventeen year old guy. I want things all seventeen year old guys want. I want love. I want my parents to look at me. Not look through me. I want them to see me, I want to see pride in their eyes...

There is...pride...but no pride for who I am. Just pride for the fact that they produced a fit young bachelor who one day will own the world. They care about my grades...but not about the paintings I paint...or the things I write when I'm alone in my room.

~~**~~

Close my eyes

Let the whole thing pass me by

There is no time

To waste asking why

~~**~~

That's why I'm with those girls. They don't love me either...but that's okay cause they still give me something. The feeling that they want me. I am wanted. I am king of Chilton and all the girls are dying to sleep with me. So who am I to stop them? They think they please me with their kisses and their body...when it's their soul that fills me.

There is just one girl that doesn't want me.

One girl that makes me feel like my parents do.

I know she doesn't do it on purpose...But everytime she politely declines my offer to sleep with her she makes me die a little. I think I might be in love with her. And it's destroying me. Not only cause I know my parents already found the perfect girl for me...but because I promised myself I would never let anybody get close enough for them to hurt me. And yet I did. I looked into her blue eyes and drowned so fast I couldn't get up again.

~~**~~

Can you see that I am needing

Begging for so much more

Than you could ever give

And I don't want you to adore me

Don't want you to ignore me

When it pleases you

And I'll do it on my own

I'll do it on my own

~~**~~

So now I know what I have to do. I'm prepared. I've thought of everything...I even wrote a note to my parents. Looking in the mirror I see a man who has been torn apart from the world. My eyes are cold and as unreadable as stone. I'm wearing my Chilton uniform, cause it is the clothing that makes me feel the best.

Slowly I am walking downstairs. In mere seconds I unlocked the door with an hairpin. My father always locks his study at night, so when burglars come in they won't be able to come in. He's stupid if he thinks they can't open a lock when I just need a couple of seconds to do it.

Looking around this study for the last time I quickly discover what I am looking for. I open the drawer and take what I came here for.

I decide to go into the garden one last time and stare at the sky. I think about all the things I did...all the pain I had to go through without anybody ever noticing. Have you ever heard of the saying `If life hands you a lemon, make some lemonade?` Well...life was throwing more lemons at me than I could handle. I felt like I was suffocating in a pile of lemons, trying to make lemonade. I didn't have time enough to catch up with my life.

Silently saying goodbye to everything I walk over to the summerhouse where I would always find rest and peace. I know this time I too I will find peace there. This time my fathers gun will bring me that rest I seek. I am looking outside, putting the gun to my head.

Finally I will be able to live my life the way I want it to. Finally I will be free. I will no longer have to behave like everyone is expecting me to. A small smile, so different from my trademark smirk, is lingering on my mouth. I feel perfect.

And with a final goodbye I pull the trigger.

~~**~~

A/N: And? How was it? Please review!