Gideon shares his self-harm history with Ava

Gideon shares his self-harm history with Ava through a movement from performance to private conversation. Onstage, Head of State gives poetic form to distress he had struggled to explain, including his fear, his mother’s discovery of his scars, and his longing for care. Later, in Gideon’s bedroom, he describes how the behaviour began and how his family helped him seek support. His disclosure changes the terms of their relationship: Ava receives his honesty with care, then begins telling him about Kelly, her dead best friend.

The performance and its audience

After reading Ava’s page, Gideon folds it and makes his way along a path lined with people toward the stage. Andy and Norma sit at the front, encouraging him as he passes. Ava is watching too. She is visibly nervous, but Gideon knows this because she has told him several times that evening, not because he can suddenly read her feelings. The event therefore begins with an intimacy already in place: even among a crowd, he is attentive to what Ava has shared with him.

At the microphone, Gideon introduces the piece as Head of State, catches Ava’s eye, and closes his eyes before beginning. The title and setting put a private history into a public form. The poem speaks of the surprise and pain surrounding the discovery of his scars, and of the difficulty of asking his mother for help. Its central image turns his mother’s loving response into a source of protection and care. The performance does not present distress as something resolved by a single declaration; it makes audible the need he had found hard to put into ordinary words.

The room’s reaction is part of the scene’s meaning. Ava watches closely, and the poem holds the audience’s attention as Gideon performs it. What might have remained hidden in his history is now spoken before other people, but the piece is directed toward someone specific as well: Ava, whose presence matters to him. The performance brings public expression and private address together, allowing poetry to carry what conversation alone had not yet reached.

From poem to personal history

Afterward, Ava remains in Gideon’s bedroom for hours as they talk and listen to music. The room is orderly, with books and papers arranged on a desk, a record player, and records stored in square plastic crates. That quiet domestic setting contrasts with the stage: the poem has been heard by a crowd, but its personal context emerges here, slowly, between the two of them.

Gideon rolls up his sleeves and lets Ava see the old scars covering his arms. She is startled by how extensive they are and asks how old he was when the behaviour began. He tells her it started five years earlier. The scars are visible evidence of a history that the poem has introduced but cannot, by itself, explain. Ava asks questions, and Gideon answers; when she asks to see his arms again, he exhales and rolls his sleeves back up. Their exchange makes disclosure a matter of choice and response rather than a revelation imposed on him.

He describes a family holiday to the Barrier Reef, where he stayed in long sleeves rather than joining in the summer activities. Susan, one of his mothers, saw his arms after he had showered. Gideon thinks she had already suspected something was wrong because he had kept his sleeves on throughout the trip. He recalls that she described walking in on him as an accident. Ava recognizes that phrasing from the poem and repeats its implication back to him: the discovery may have been called accidental, but the distress itself had not appeared without warning. Her recognition connects the performed text to the experience behind it.

What the behaviour meant, and how he sought help

Gideon says that he had not self-harmed for a long time. When Ava asks why he began, he explains that everything had felt too large and beyond his control. Self-inflicted physical pain, by contrast, was something he could see and watch heal. He also makes clear that his purpose was not to die: he had needed to feel something other than fear. The distinction matters. His account does not reduce his experience to a single motive or make the scars a substitute for the words he could not initially say; it gives Ava a more precise understanding of what he had been enduring.

The path toward help began when Susan discovered the scars. Gideon says that he and Susan sat together in the bathroom and talked for a long time. His mothers searched for information, and he spoke with several people until he found someone he liked. That person was Robbie, his therapist. Gideon also credits Robbie with introducing him to poetry. The connection makes poetry more than a performance skill: it is part of how Gideon found a means of expression after a period when he could not tell his mother what he needed.

Ava learns that the history began years earlier, that Susan’s discovery led to conversation and help-seeking, and that poetry is tied to that support. She also sees old scars rather than new cuts, while Gideon tells her the behaviour has not happened for a long time. These details establish both the seriousness of the past and the fact that the scene is not a sudden account of an ongoing act. His disclosure is retrospective, but it remains emotionally present in the room.

Reciprocal trust and grief

Ava feels grateful that Gideon is telling her this; she has not encountered such candour before. The trust is reciprocal, though the disclosures are not identical. Gideon has explained his history, and he does not demand that Ava immediately explain hers. He says he had assumed she would tell him if she wanted to, and offers to ask about it if that is what she would prefer. His restraint gives her control over whether the conversation turns toward Kelly.

Then Gideon asks how Ava is doing, questioning the routine in which people answer that they are fine or okay without saying much. Ava initially gives the familiar response, then admits that she does not really know how she feels. After a long silence, she starts at the beginning: Kelly was her best friend. She tells Gideon that Kelly’s grief feels too large to fit into a box. Gideon accepts the image rather than trying to correct or solve it. His own account of needing help has made room for Ava to speak, while her willingness to listen has made it possible for him to tell more of his story.

This exchange makes the event significant beyond the revelation of Gideon’s past. The poem does not cure either character or erase what they have experienced. Instead, it provides a shared language for approaching pain without pretending it is simple. Later, at graduation, Gideon performs Ava’s poem about Kelly before a large audience. That later act echoes the intimacy established here: poetry first helps Gideon communicate his own history to Ava, and eventually allows him to carry her words into public view. In the bedroom, however, the essential change is quieter. Gideon is no longer only the person whose scars Ava has noticed; he has told her what they mean, and she has begun to entrust him with her own grief.