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Todd Anderson is looking out the window at a gray, blustery morning, when they ask him if he’s going to be alright. It wasn’t quite certain before then. It’s not quite certain now, either, even after he answers.
“Of course,” he says somewhat unconvincingly, “Why do you ask?”
Behind him, Charlie Dalton raises a dubious brow. For once in his life, he’s holding himself back, but the situation requires discretion, and who is he to mess up at a time like this? He’s already been warned about treating Todd like a glass doll rather than a paper mache target, but even Charlie can tell that now is the time to pull a few punches. The hollows under his friend’s eyes are far darker than they were a couple of months ago. He wears unease like a well-traveled coat, thin at the elbows and rubbed raw at the seams.
“Look at yourself,” Charlie answers at last, “You’re exhaustion walking. And don’t tell me otherwise, I’ve got eyes.”
“I should hope so,” Todd remarks, and permits himself a small curl of his lips up into a half-smile. Half-smiles are good, though. Almost there to the real thing. So he’ll tell himself, at least.
Even a half-smile can let Charlie know that he’s alright. The other boy breaks into a well-intentioned snorting laugh. “Hey, ask any girl in town and they’ll tell you I’ve got beautiful ones. ‘Sides, Anderson, you know everything’s alright. The stuff with Neil was cleared over, right? He came back.”
“He came back,” Todd repeats somewhat weakly.
“Yeah, yeah, he came back,” Charlie confirms, walking over to clap his friend on the shoulder, shaking him a little bit just to mess with him but mainly to get his affections across. “He’s a little more tired than he used to be, and we’re all plenty scared from what could have happened, but overall we’re glad to see him again. His parents realized they messed up in the nick of time, and even if they wanted him under watch for a little bit, he’s back and we’re back and everything’s alright. Capiche?” He asks dramatically, wiggling his eyebrows for a bit of flair.
“Since when are you Italian?” Todd asks doubtfully.
“Since the situation requires it,” Charlie answers him, and slings an arm around the boy’s bony frame. “Come on now. The snow’s cleared up, and even if all that does is remind us how little grass grows on our campus, it means we can go into the woods again. I’ve been talking to the boys and we all agree that it’s time to dust off our finesse with literature. What do you say, Todd? You up for another rousing poetic exchange tonight?”
Todd jerks his head up and down in a hasty agreement. “Yeah. Neill’ be there?”
“Yeah, and me, and Knoxie, and everyone else you forgot to mention,” Charlie says in a tone of mock outrage. “God, you live with the guy, don’t you? Can’t you spare some excitement for the rest of us, too?”
Todd rolls his eyes, and finds the grace to elbow Charlie in the ribs. “Spare me the self-indulgence, Dalton. I’m glad to see all of you.”
“Don’t I know it,” Charlie affirms. “It’s been a while since we were all together, yeah?”
Todd blows out a low breath as they walk back towards the halls. It has been a long time, or it felt that way, at least. After the– after the incident after the play, in which Neil was found in his father’s study with a gun in his hands about to blow the trigger, it was decided that all of the pupils of Welton Academy would go home for a short period of time to clear their heads and come back ready to face the end of term.
Mainly, Todd thinks it was so rumors couldn’t spread about just what happened with Neil Perry to take him out of school, and he’s glad for it. Neil doesn’t deserve to have everyone whispering about what happened to make him decide that the best thing for his life was to end it. Neil deserves the world, and none of them could give it to him.
That was the worst part of it all, Todd decides. The guilt, how it wrapped around him in wires as strong as the heaviest chains of iron. He couldn’t escape it. If he was really Neil’s friend, he would have known. If he was really Neil’s friend, Todd could have stopped him. If he was really Neil’s friend, Todd wouldn’t have found out about the attempt the next morning, quietly awoken from drowsy sleep by a Charlie Dalton with eyes like a stricken soldier as he lurchingly informed Todd that Neill Perry had tried to kill himself the night before. And none of them had known. And when his father had taken the gun away, Neil fought and screamed for it, worse than he did when he tried to convince his parents that he wanted to act, louder than he protested that he would be sent away to military school.
And then they were alone. At home. The worst place for boys to be. Should you grieve the friend who is not dead? Do you call each other on the phone, and ask if you have been playing any sporting games with other boys your age, or if you have given any thought to the fact that your friend might not have wanted to die if you had praised him more in class, or clapped louder when he performed, or said something– anything– to this beautiful, brittle boy?
They don’t say any of that. They think it quite loudly, but unspoken thoughts do not travel well over the telephone. The flittering ghosts of would-be words tend to get lodged in the coils of wire from receiver to housing, across the street and over the miles of terrain until they reach the abode of the boy on the end, who also has a lot to say but won’t. And then they both stay silent. And they both know exactly what the other wanted to say anyway. That is how friendship works.
They came back, though. Welton sent out a series of letters to usher back the pupils, even had its secretaries working overtime to call the people who never seem to answer their mail. There was another rush of cars and luggage to the dorms, and then they were settled in again. Todd had wondered if he might be assigned another roommate– anyone other than Cameron, God, but preferably Neil still– and then the door had opened quietly and Neil was there again, trying for a brave smile, and saying, “Todd?” in a voice that had once rung pure and true through a theater that loved him.
Todd loves him for it. He’d embraced Neill with open arms, felt the air punch out of his lungs in one strike, but it came back. He came back. They were alright again, sort of. They might be alright in time, but time is what they have.
Now they’ve all been waiting for the snow to melt, and treading on thin ice around topics they don’t dare broach. Neil has been a good sport, never making them feel awkward for wanting to treat him like a china doll. He was good before, too, though, and– It gets hard to tell sometimes, that’s all. Hard to tell when he genuinely is unbothered and when he’s superbly good at pretending otherwise. They stick to safer subjects anyway.
At last, though, the ground is firm, the weather not terrible, and Charlie’s gone and rallied the troops for a night out there. At first, Todd’s first instinct is to panic. They aren’t supposed to be having any more meetings of the Dead Poets Society, not since Keating was the scapegoat for all the trouble and everyone cracked down on what makes a good boy want to escape, but over time he realizes that it’ll be alright. Some things are worth the risk. Making Neil smile again is one of them.
They meet at midnight. Todd sits awake with bated breath, even though the act by itself isn’t even all that unusual. They’re teenage boys. Staying up until the moon hangs high and lofty in the sky is expected, not uncommon. Still, a delicious shiver of inherent wrongdoing whispers down his spine when Neil walks slowly into the center of their shared dorm room and says quietly, reverently, “It’s time.”
As if the others had been waiting upon that very proclamation, the remaining boys peer out into the hall immediately after Neil and Todd silently close their door behind them. Their eyes meet with shared secrecy, shared triumph, and they make their way down the wooden stairs and out into the bristling chill of night. The stars are out tonight. We are all out tonight.
They all start heading out into the woods. Charlie takes off like a flash at the end of a matchstick, hurtling at a runner’s sprint across the hills, and the others follow him at varying speeds. Todd begins walking at a normal clip until it occurs to him that he doesn’t see enough heads bobbing around him and he turns to see Neil hesitating by the door.
They lock eyes, and Todd sees a whole host of things swimming in brown irises, fear and apprehension and a sick sort of guilt that makes Todd’s stomach squirm in sympathy. He gives Neil one last moment over the threshold, then jerks his head towards the others, putting a little faux arrogance into the gesture in the hopes that an actor might appreciate an act in someone else and remember what it is like to trust oneself again.
Neil accepts the move and grins, his teeth flashing in the moonlight. “I’ll race you to the caves,” he calls, and begins to run, his footsteps sure and strong.
Todd stares after him, an astronomer watching his first comet, then takes off after him. The grass is dry and quick under his feet, spread out under each footstep like the wake of a speedboat. The wind, already coarse, pulls at Todd’s skin, his hair, his clothes, but not even the strongest gusts could keep him down. Somehow, he’s already to the edge of the forest, and he lets out a loud, delighted whoop. A barbaric yawp, if you will. Somewhere in the back of Todd’s mind, a dark-haired man in a comfortable brown sweater smiles indulgently, and chalks up another small victory to the wonders of poetry.
The second his war cry leaves Todd’s throat, the other boys swarm him like moths to a flame. Someone claps a hand over his mouth, and around him, laughs echo into the crunching of leaves underfoot.
“Don’t be so loud, you’ll get the professors on us in no time,” someone admonishes, but then a different boy cuts in, “Don’t be stupid, we’re far enough out that we can all be shouting,” and Todd’s punishment is lifted and he can yell once more. His defender– Neil, it must be, no one else can make their voice ring with glory like that in just a few words– joins in in the triumphant calls, and then they’re all shrieking up to the stars above, here we are, not boys and not men, bold enough to scream and young enough to never listen.
Todd thinks, as they run through the forest, that it’s been a while since he let himself go free. He hasn’t listened to his mind in a long time, hasn’t let the words roll around in his brain, loose marbles of similes and paraphrased poems. His musings are dusty, dark things most of the time, but sometimes the light catches them just right and they glow like sapphires. He could write a thousand stanzas if he wanted to, right now, and everyone would listen.
The Dead Poets Society reaches the caves and a hush falls among the crowd. Slowly, they edge inside, eyes wide. The rock faces and crumbling caverns should be different, Todd thinks, something should mark the passage of time and all the awful things that have twisted their fates since the last time they sat together and thought of prose, but the stones still look as they did the last time they were here. The moss grows in familiar patterns, albeit a little thicker in certain patches now that it hasn’t been scuffed by boots in a month or so, but one of Charlie’s magazines that he forgot to take back with him turns up under some spiderwebs, and Todd’s favorite place to sit is still just as inviting. Maybe, then, the only thing that changed was them. Maybe that’s all that needs to happen.
“So?” Meeks asks, settling into a seat, “What are we doing tonight?”
“Poetry, duh,” Charlie answers him, rolling his eyes fondly. “We’re the Dead Poets Society. What else would we do, peruse our textbooks?”
This earns him a vengeful swat on the shoulder from Meeks, but even Charlie can admit that the question was fair. They’ve read plenty of poems, they’ve written a few, they’ve even gone off and run some improv limerick challenges, although Todd notes that they haven’t brought nearly enough alcohol for that tonight.
After a few moments’ thought, someone suggests a play. It might be Todd. Instantly, the idea is accepted, and roles are divided out. They’ll be doing Hamlet, since there are plenty of long sticks outside and everyone is quite fond of the idea of pretending to run each other through. Pitts is already practicing his death rattles, except he’s not very good at it, and it sounds more like he’s hacking up a lung or two.
Neil, though, is glowing at the idea, and even though they haven’t got any scripts so everyone is mostly just planning on paraphrasing the hell out of one of William Shakespeare’s finer works, Todd gets the idea that Neil has a few memorized soliloquies rattling around in his head already.
Good, then. They’ll enjoy tonight, and the next night they’re out here, and the one after that, too. It has been a very long winter, but Todd has caught his first glimpse of new spring, and he gets the feeling that warmer, sunnier days aren’t the impossibility they seemed a few weeks ago. The days are healing, and they will too. And so the Dead Poets come back to life.