Chapter Text
13/12/2005
Dear Neil,
Hey. It’s been a while. 5 years, 2 weeks and 2 days, if my calculations are correct, which is admittedly not likely because I failed maths in high school and I haven’t done it since.
Sorry for not talking to you for so long, but in my defense, I was kind of hoping you would write first. Honestly, I don’t know if I ever would have written but my therapist made me so here I am.
I don’t know what you see up there in heaven or afterlife or whatever form you currently take but I might as well start with the basics. Hi, I’m Todd Anderson. Do you remember me? I was your best friend in high school. We kissed that one time for truth and dare, and it made me question my sexuality for forever until you died and I kind of focused on that.
Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to write here. Like I said, this was my therapist’s idea, not mine. My therapist’s name is Jan. I’ve been seeing her for around 4 years now. She’s my parents’ choice and she’s okay, I guess, but I don’t really know because I haven’t seen anyone else. She’s nice, I suppose. She has red hair and green eyes which tells me she doesn’t want to be there but hey, I get it. Doing therapy for a weird 22 year old must get tiring.
She told me to do this because it would help me get over my trauma. Become more accepting of it or some shit. I don’t really understand it. Also, it’s been 5 years. But apparently it impacted my connections and relationships with other people, getting emotionally attached, and so forth, but I think I had an issue with that before I met you. I don’t know. I don’t like saying anything in therapy, so I just nodded and said I would do it. So here I am, bringing the therapy back home.
I sound like I hate you but I don’t, I promise. I mean, I was angry at one point. Stages of grief and whatnot. You kind of fucked me up forever but it wasn’t your fault. I think I accepted it. Hearing your name and even saying it makes me shudder slightly but I think that’s more of my guilt and bittersweet memories. I think my therapist said something.
I’m doing a literature degree right now, in the University of Vermont. It’s far away enough from my parents that I don’t have to talk to them, but it’s also not that far away so I’m used to the area. Especially after the whole you thing happened I wasn’t ready for change, so I kind of just didn’t. The degree is okay I guess. I’m graduating next year and then I will have no idea what to do with my life. I’m just floating on trust fund and birthday money at the moment, so my guess is I’m going to be screwed by the time I finish studying. My therapist gave some advice but I wasn’t listening. I’m never listening. Actually, that’s not true. I try to listen, but I zone out. I always zone out. You remember that, right? I’d just zone out in the middle of class and have no idea of what just happened by the time the bell rang. I would copy your notes after class even though you kept saying to ask Meeks. The truth is, I didn’t want to. At the time I said that I didn’t want Meeks to question even though he meant and means well, which I did kind of agree with, but I just wanted to spend time with you. Which is kind of sad when I think about it, but that’s high school, isn’t it? I can’t think of a more stupid high school crush thing. But yeah, I still zone out. Unfortunately. I copy my notes off James, a random kid who’s doing most of the courses I’m doing. I don’t know him that well, but he lets me copy. He’s pretty secretive, but I don’t ask anything and he doesn’t ask anything either. He’s the best acquaintance I know.
I keep in contact with all our friends still, by the way. I’m rooming with Charlie, who graduated in April with a business degree he didn’t want in University of Vermont. Everyone else is all over the globe. Knox is in Connecticut doing a maths degree in Yale. He’s still with Chris. I think they have a house together. He’s the only one who’s found love apparently. Meeks is doing medicine in Harvard, which is, you know, good for him and Pitts is doing astronomy and astrophysics all the way in Oxford. They’re probably the most successful out of all of us. Cameron is also doing a maths degree, but it’s all the way in Australia. I think he ran away to meet his pen pal or something. He was talking about it in the final year at school, but I don’t think anyone was really listening. Everyone was sick of Cameron by then, and I think he got sick of it, so one day he just left. No one really said anything about it. I think I’m the only one kind of keeping in touch. In the end, he liked me the most because I was too much of a pussy to say something to his face. He sent a postcard which I used as a bookmark in some book somewhere which I’ll probably never find again. I feel sorry for him but then also I don’t. We’re all different now so maybe I understand why he wanted to push Keating under the bus, but it’s easy to blame things on someone. It was kind of unfortunate that he ended up being the punching bag, but I think he’ll grow from it in the end.
We talk about you, sometimes. We meet up at least once a year minus Cameron, and we also try to meet for birthdays, but we’ve kind of made it a rule to not really talk about you as a group. It’s a heavy topic for a reunion, I suppose. We kind of mention you in passing, like talking about what you would say or what you would be doing. We joke about you and Meeks both doing a medicine degree in Harvard, but we all know you wouldn’t have been able to live with that choice if you were still alive. The others weren’t as close in the final year you were alive so it’s harder for them to know, but I’m pretty sure you would have moved to New York. You brought it up sometimes to me, privately, too much for it to be as much of a joke as you passed it off to be, and you always talked about making it big on Broadway. You sang with that stupid voice in Charlie’s karaoke party, but you were a good singer, as much as you denied it. Anyway, we bring you up sometimes, but not too much because we don’t want to cry or get emotional or all that. Charlie and I try to never have a job shift or go out on your birthday and December 15. We talked about the whole thing for like 2 years after, but it got hugely depressing so we just stopped and didn’t do anything to commemorate or talk about in general. Charlie and I have that habit to kind of avoid things we don’t want to talk about by blocking it or just refusing to have a conversation about it at all. My therapist encourages me to air it out, but I can’t imagine doing it and I physically can’t so I ended up just giving up. I don’t talk about it to my therapist anymore. Ironically, avoiding the topic about avoiding the topic. There’s some humour in that, I think.
Anyway, it’s almost new year. Charlie is out watching fireworks with some girl he met at the bar, so I’m home alone watching the Time Square one and flicking through other channels because I’m bored. The only plan I have is getting so drunk that I pass out on the couch and have stupid dreams and forget about what I did or wrote. I’m not planning to write a drunk letter to the dead, even though I generally have no dignity or respect, so I’m going to stop now.
Happy new year, Neil. I still wish you were here.
Yours,
Todd Anderson
P.S.
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
- O Captain! My Captain!, Walt Whitman