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Todd sat on his bed, deep in thought. It had been several weeks, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the poem he had written (spoken more like) in front of the class. Normally, that sort of thing would keep him awake at night with embarrassment, but it’s kept him awake for another reason entirely. He’s had this craving - this need - to put his thoughts onto paper. He never felt like his words had been worth so much as a page of his notebook, but now? That class had changed things. He longed to free his mind from the weight of his ruminations. He felt so much, had so many thoughts swirling in his head. He always had.
~•~
When he was little - like really little - he used to be an absolute chatterbox. He would run through the woods with his brothers and he would talk their ears off, despite their efforts to leave him in the dust. He would talk at the dinner table - tell his family all about his day at school and the kid he sat next to who wore glasses that made him look like a bug.
But the older he got, the more he could see it in their faces. Embarrassment. It made him wonder what there was to be so embarrassed about. What about him could be so terrible. It made him view himself in a way that he had previously been beautifully oblivious to. Todd had been a happy child, going through life without a thought for how he was perceived. Content to just be himself. But that look became etched in the faces around him and he couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring all of the terrible thoughts that were certainly being directed at him.
He turned in on himself. He couldn’t bear to look into the faces of those supposed to care for him most and see disappointment any longer.
So he had thrown himself further into his schoolwork, trying to do anything to wipe that expression from his family’s faces. He had earned himself accolades they could respect. National Merit Scholar. Full scholarship to Welton Academy. It felt absurd. But at least his father looked at him as something other than the gum under his shoe. It wasn’t pride, but it didn’t carry the sting that his humiliation had.
Mr. Keating had turned that on its head, though. When Todd had rambled, spoken what was in his soul, he had looked at him as though he were a marvel. As though, simply by speaking, he had done something extraordinary. Something worthy of respect.
It changed everything for Todd.
No, that’s not quite true. Because Mr. Keating hadn’t been the only one chipping away at the shell he’d spent so many years building.
When Mr. Keating had told them about the Dead Poets Society, Neil was the one insistent that Todd join. When Mr. Keating had looked at him with wonder for the words he crafted, so had Neil. Any time Todd was down on himself, or needed help with his chemistry homework, Neil was there. Neil brought him cheer on his birthday, when no one else knew about it and his parents couldn’t care less.
Neil was different than anyone Todd had ever met and he looked up to him. Saw him as all the right in the world. The only true friend he had ever had.
~•~
He tried to grab at the words twisting through the recesses of his mind. Aching to put them to paper. To let the overwhelm flow out so that he might be able to manage himself more easily. But he couldn’t find the right words. They wouldn’t string together the way they had that day in class. Perhaps that magic had been a fluke, and he was, after all, still cursed to live inside himself with no release.
Just as Todd was feeling himself deflate, he heard the doorknob turn and looked up to see Neil enter their shared room. He immediately perked up, glad for someone to talk to. No, not someone. This particular someone.
His face fell again when he saw Neil’s. He hung his head low, looking more dejected than Todd had ever seen him.
Setting his notepad and pen to the side, Todd rose from his bed and approached his roommate warily.
“Neil?”
Neil looked up at him, his warm, brown eyes filled with despair.
“Todd,” Neil looked at him, tears brimming his eyes, and began to sob.
Todd felt so out of his depth. He wasn’t used to crying. It was never allowed in his home. He imagined it wasn’t in Neil’s either but that only served to deepen his concern.
Tentatively, he took a step closer to Neil and circled his arms around him, hoping to provide comfort in the only way he could manage.
When his arms encircled his friend, Neil collapsed into him. His weeping showed no signs of stopping and Todd just squeezed him harder, needing something to grab onto himself.
What could have made him this upset? His grades? Did something happen to his mother?
The hug lasted a long time. At one point Todd wondered what someone might think if they were to walk in right now. He realized didn’t care. All that mattered was being here for Neil. He asked for so little and gave so much. He was the brightest of all of them. He shone like the sun and all Todd wanted to do was bat the clouds from the sky so his light could shine on.
“My father knows about the play,” Neil managed to choke out.
And Todd felt his blood run cold. He should’ve known. He knew there was no way Neil could possibly get away with this. But the play was tomorrow and he had come so close, Todd had forgotten to fear for him.
He didn’t have words. He wished he did, but they still swirled in his mind. Snowflakes that refused to land on his tongue.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Neil said, pulling back from him. “I talked to Mr. Keating and he said I need to tell my father how much acting means to me. But I know what he’ll say. It will be pointless.”
Todd had never heard Neil call something pointless. Todd himself had uttered this sort of sentiment regularly, but in all the time he had lived with Neil he’d always had a way of finding a solution to things. Neil walked over to his bed and sat down with such an air of defeat, Todd felt it in his stomach.
“Even if it wasn’t useless, what would I say? How could I even begin to explain? I feel like I have so much to express and give to the world, but I don’t know how to make him see that. I can get up in front of a crowd and profess the deepest emotions we’re capable of as humans, but when I’m under my father’s stare I just choke.”
Todd moved to sit on his own bed. Looking across the gap in their room into Neil’s eyes. Icy blue meeting toasty brown.
“Even if I could find a way to make him see how important this is to me, he has his own ideas of importance. And anything related to the arts is certainly not included in that. I have things to say, Todd. If I go to my father it will only take away my chance. I can’t jeopardize that.”
Todd knew all too well how Neil felt. As though his parents were stopping him from sharing himself with the world. Like they would be humiliated by him if he wasn’t their version of the perfect son. Todd had given into it to try and appease his parents and was he any happier for it? Had it actually made his parents proud? Of course not. He would never be good enough for them and their impossible standards. Parents like the ones at Welton cared more about their own reputations than they did about their sons. And they hid it under the guise of “wanting better” for our futures than they ever had. Yet they never stopped to ask what sort of future it was that we wanted. They were so busy projecting their own ideals onto us that they forgot to give a shit. Or maybe they just never did in the first place.
“Fuck him” Todd blurted out.
Neil looked stunned. “What?”
“Fuck him,” Todd repeated. “Who is your father to tell you what dreams you’re allowed to have? Who is he to tell you how to express yourself? He may be in charge of you, but that doesn’t mean he gets to tell you how to feel.”
Todd could feel himself getting worked up. The words that had been swirling around him without aim had coalesced into a vortex, leading him straight to a point. He stood up from his bed and began pacing the length of their small dorm room.
“I’m just so fucking sick of parents saying that they care about us and our futures, but never stopping for a second to ask us what we want with our lives. It’s always ‘you’re going to be a doctor or a lawyer’ or whatever other awful job they deem respectable. It’s never ‘what are your goals?’ ‘What do you care about?’”
He was breathing heavily now.
“I just - I can’t stand it. I’ve done everything my parents have said for my entire life and do you think that’s made them happy?” He stopped and turned to look at Neil, who was staring at him from his own bed, dumbfounded. “Do you think they’ve ever once told me that they’re proud of me? I’m a goddamn National Merit Scholar. I earned a full scholarship to come here. But that’s not impressive to them. No, that’s just what’s expected of me. Because anything less would be an embarrassment to them. Anything less wouldn’t have the neighbors and my father’s business partner and my mother’s social circle groveling at their feet. I’m just fucking sick of it.” He turned away from Neil and resumed his pacing.
“I’ve been sick of it. For a long time. But I’ve never been more mad about it than right now. You’re so fucking special, Neil. You’re one of the best students in our year. Everyone looks up to you. And more importantly than that, you care about making a difference. You have so much passion inside you and when you speak, people pay attention. They can see that and they see how powerful that is.” Todd could feel himself gesticulating wildly, his anger looking for any outlet out of his body. “Who says you can’t be a doctor and also be interested in the arts? And who said you wanted to be a doctor in the first place? It’s all a load of bullshit.
“You’re a fire, roaring through the forest. Your father sees it and is afraid of it because he’s been raised to think that fire is bad. But fire is necessary to the life of the forest. The fire burns away the rot and allows for new life to grow. It makes the forest a better place. Just like YOU make the world around you a better place, Neil.” He felt himself beginning to calm, his raving turning to something more pleading. He sat back on his bed and continued, hanging his head to stare down at his fidgeting hands.
“I know that you don’t want to talk to your father. And, hell, I wouldn’t either. Standing up to your parents is HARD. And I know you don’t know what you would say. But I’ve seen you do hard things. I KNOW you’re capable of hard things. And I know how important this is to you. I see it every day. I’ve seen it from that first day you found out about the play, when you had the brightest light in your eyes. Radiating pure joy at the mere prospect of an AUDITION. And then you go and get the lead role on your first go. I’ve never seen you act, but I know you have something rare. Don’t you dare let your father try to extinguish your flame. The world can’t live without your light. And neither can I.”
As he finished his rant, he realized there were so many things he said that he perhaps shouldn’t have. He didn’t need to project his own feelings onto the situation as though Neil wasn’t already dealing with enough.
But when Todd looked back up at Neil, he saw something in his stare that he had only seen there once before, when he had performed his poetry for the class. Todd could only think to describe it as wonder or admiration. But there was nothing admirable about Todd compared to Neil. Neil was the most wonderful person Todd had ever known.
Neil stood and took a step toward him. Todd gazed up at his friend, his BEST friend. The only true friend he had ever had. And something pulled inside of him, a string stretched taught between his own chest and Neil’s. Neil took another step toward him and reached his hand out.
Before Todd could stop to think, he had put his hand into Neil’s and he was being drawn up to his feet and pulled into the fiercest hug he had ever experienced. He hugged Neil back, clinging onto him just as tightly. He realized he never wanted to let go.
“Thank you,” Neil whispered to him.
Todd pulled back so he was able to look at Neil directly. Their hold on each other did not cease. Todd gazed up a bit to see the taller boy’s face.
“For what?” he asked, working to swallow the lump in his throat.
“Thank you for knowing exactly what to say. For telling me what I needed to hear and not sugarcoating it. For being so angry on my behalf,” he chuckled. “Thank you for being you Todd. Your parents may not be proud of you, but I am. You’re the best person I know.”
“I wouldn’t be half the person I am if it weren’t for you. You’re the one who showed me that I didn’t have to be their puppet. And it’s only fair that I remind you of the same when it’s hard to see.”
Something passed between them. A charge in the air that made Todd feel like he was going to do something stupid. One look at Neil and he saw it mirrored back. But now was not the time for any more revelations. An action of a different sort was needed at this moment.
Todd dropped his arms from around Neil and took half a step back, allowing one of his hands to linger for just a moment.
“You know what you need to do,” Todd stated matter of factly.
Neil nodded his agreement. “Can you help me figure out what to say to him?”
“Of course,”
What else were friends for?