Chapter Text
Todd couldn’t feel the eyes on his back, he couldn’t feel the cold in his hands and at his feet. He couldn’t feel the wind freezing his ears and nose.
The tears and snow getting his collar soaked. It was like he couldn’t feel anything. Only the dead weight of Neil. The thought of Neil. Everything in his mouth was sour and it tasted disgusting, and he couldn’t care less.
His throat didn’t let even let him breathe. And his legs couldn’t carry him anymore. At the end of the dock he collapsed and didn’t think about getting up ever again.
He had read the poems about love in the English book and hadn’t been able to connect himself to them. The words couldn’t mean a lot to him. Only if he converted their meaning to friendship and thought about the Poets he sometimes understood them with his own feelings too.
He knew some of the texts by heart and didn’t know anything else to do to distract him from Neil. Most of them had been recited by him in his mind a few times already, as if he was speaking in front of the class without being scared.
In the snow, in the cold, he lay and his body didn’t have a lot of energy left anymore. There wasn’t an exact time he could point when he passed out, but he was sure he must’ve when he was woken up in his bed after.
That was just for breakfast this time, though the sight of Charlie at the other side of his bed had shaken him enough to start another breakdown. It took Charlie six minutes to have Todd stop crying, for the messed-up boy to start staring at the empty bed in front of him until Charlie realized breakfast was almost over.
Nothing was fair in this world. There weren’t any poetic sentences his mind could form right now. He knew he wouldn’t be able to pay attention in class, today, or the rest of the year. He knew he wouldn’t be able to eat. In the hall it became clear to him that the rest of the school had been informed of Neil’s attempt during breakfast.
In a meeting after dreadfully long classes, the headmaster explained how the funeral session would go, and Todd found himself not even slightly moved by any of his voice or words. Nolan didn’t care.
The poets tried helping him through the days, through any homework if they had it, though what once had taken them a few minutes now laid unfinished after crying over it for an hour. And they also could not only help each other, even if that was all they wanted to do. They needed help. The Dead Poets Society could not live with a Dead Poet.
People had always been saying that death was something you learn to live with. Todd could only think of how wrong that was, it was the exact opposite. You learn to live without someone. An empty space hurt so much more, learning to live without was twenty times harder than learning to live with.
For English Keating thought it only fair to start writing something that reminded everyone of the beauty of life, obviously with the memories of Neil freshly printed in everyone (including Keating)’s minds.
Todd had immediately turned to Keating, knowing no such thing as thinking about Neil’s life would help him in any way. Keating had to drag him into his office where Todd started unapologetically crying. In the same way as he’d done every day the last week. Same spot. Same looks from Keating. Same headaches.
It wasn’t a surprise that, even though the days passed slower than a whole year with Neil would’ve been, everything was such a blur Todd couldn’t remember what day it was. Keating stood with McAllister in front of the Latin classroom. Charlie, sat in the front, could hear that all they were talking about was the silences they had to endure.
Charlie hadn’t even recognized that even they had fallen silent more often, and it was a grim realization. They looked over their shoulder to find Todd, whose eyes stood in the same blurry expression as past week, watching absently over the two teachers finishing their conversation.
Cam and Meeks were the only ones who had to be silenced when McAllister started the lesson. Clear it was that none of the poets were paying attention, and McAllister granted them that. He’d done no homework checks since the fifteenth, which was behavior followed by nearly all teachers.
Todd worked himself through the days with painkillers the nurses would give him and staying at Keating’s. His English teacher was the only one who’d be able to receive news from Neil’s mother and father, as they had no care left for their son and his friends. They spent their days acting, acting in a way that would have Neil be outraged, Todd thought. Acting like they had cared. Mr. Perry would speak of missed opportunities and about what possibilities Neil’s life could’ve brought, with in his mind the doctor he had wanted Neil to shape himself into.
Keating had no news. No mourning card, invitation or even something administrational for Neil’s education at Welton. They did not care. Charlie had passed Neil’s parents’ house once and had seen visitors in black. This confirmed the poets’ speculation that Mr. and Ms. Perry were accepting anyone other than them to wish Neil goodbyes.
People read their poems and pieces inspired by Neil and by life on Wednesday. Todd followed Meeks out of the classroom when Charlie, the first of the poets to read, had burst into tears seconds into his line.
Soon the class was dismissed, as Keating himself was tired too and had an office with six poets in it. Meeks held onto Todd who had been shaking uncontrollably for a few minutes now, trying desperately and without hope to prevent a breakdown or panic attack from happening.
The others sat on the ground, silenced by their own thoughts. Sometimes a knock from other students or maybe even a teacher broke through it, to which Keating responded to leave him be for a moment. Keating patted Knox’ back a few times before standing up and smiling apologetically at the group.
They stared at him like their eyes were glass. Keating knew what it felt like, he had felt the same thing. He recognized the silences and the glass in their eyes. And he was feeling the same thing again. He only hoped that because they had each other, they would be able to pull themselves through this in a way they would all recover.
Every one of them had five, six if he counted himself too (which he hoped they did too), others to help them stay strong, or to break down with, sit in silence with, talk calmly with or scream at. He just hoped, as desperately as they had all looked the past weeks.
And their English teacher still had no news. Todd visited daily, and Keating saw the others almost no less than that. The teachers, though most still careful, were slowly beginning to give them assignments again.
Keating had had three conversations so far with Hager about the boys. Hager had to grant them at the least some more time to grieve without school pressuring down on their already weighted shoulders. Hager gave in only after Keating told him the boys would take extra lessons to catch up. He’d talk Hager out of those lessons later.
News did come eventually, though from an unexpected medium. Meeks and Pitts had been getting much-needed fresh air together and had gotten their way into town on the 30th of December, the Sunday two weeks after.
Almost all the magic of a town full of Christmas decorations and a layer of snow vanished in the eyes of the two Welton boys. What they were going through seemed out of place for such a view. A shopkeeper was announcing sales for lots of magazines they weren’t interested in. They definitely had no care for any New year’s editions of those magazines, but at a short, uninterested glance, the shop seemed to be full of newspapers with Thomas Perry’s picture on it.
Meeks had been the first to notice, pointing at it with a cold finger and dark eyes. Pitts bought one when the shopkeeper caught them trying to read the text without paying.
‘Thomas Perry charged for misinformation spread after son’s suicide attempt’ read the whole title.
In a matter of seconds, Meeks had soaked up the information on the front page and let out a high-pitched yelp. He watched Pitts’ eyes while the tall boy read the short text too.
Thomas Perry. The man’s eyes on the picture seemed to pierce them through the paper, through the cold air.
Neil Perry was alive.