Chapter Text
The day Neil had turned thirteen, the sun had been bright and the breeze had been hungry. He’d woken to a knock on his door and a hug from his mother—she had been sparse with her affection ever since he’d turned ten, but special occasions were an exception. His father had been waiting for him at the breakfast table and had greeted him with a smile.
Some days, Neil loathed himself for his bitterness toward his parents. And not for the reasons his father never missed an opportunity to remind him of, no—that they had raised him, sheltered him, put food on his plate and clothes on his body was their responsibility. He hadn’t forced them to have a son. But nor had he forced his father to teach him how to play chess when he was little, or to carry him on his back when he hurt his leg falling from a swing, or to buy him a volume of Shakespeare’s plays when he was sixteen. His mother had had no reason to teach him the right way to knot a tie, or to seep his tea the way he liked it.
When his father was angry—because of some mistake Neil made, or some mishap at work—he would never raise a hand on Neil. He would shout, throw things, kick the kitchen counter, but never go so far as to hurt him. And his mother was never angry at all. His mother was never much of anything.
Neil’s future had always been a point of contention. Well, not contention as much as mutual willful ignorance. His father had a straightforward plan: top grades at school, distinction at med school, their very own little doctor. When his friend had gifted a young Neil a nurse’s kit, he’d thrown it away. He was raising a doctor, not a layabout. Neil, on the other hand, had gone along with this fantasy for a while before discreetly sliding his growing indifference behind a mask of quiet obedience. Drop that club, yes Father, pull up your grades, of course Father, study for that test, I already have Father. Until this year, there had been no doubt that this was the way it would always be: his father reminding him of everything he owed to his good fortune, and Neil resigning himself to the life laid down for him.
And then he had gone and fallen in love.
The lights. The laughter. The littlest of things. Like most things, it had begun on a whim—a notice on the school board, the thrill of an impulse, his signature in the list of probables. The audition, the rest of the group. Puck had seeped into him slowly, catching him unawares and filling his lungs with new air. Practices, every week, every other day, every day. Then the other things, too—the new society, the new roommate, the new teacher. When he had stepped onstage in his crown of thorns, fairy, thou speakest right; I am that merry wanderer of the night , his friends in the crowd and his heartbeat in his throat, he remembered thinking, This is what it means to be alive.
Losing theater was more than just losing the part of himself that breathed on the stage. It was more than losing the ecstasy of performance, the pleasure of pretense. It meant that he would lose the one thing that gave him a reason to keep going.
Maybe if he had taken Mr. Keating’s advice and been honest from the beginning, his father would have relented. Maybe he would still be at Welton. Or maybe his father would have slammed down the receiver and moved him to this place anyway. But Neil was a coward, and now he would never know.
***
Bare feet on a tiled floor. Cold tapwater on his skin. He hung the towel, watched his face in the mirror. Then he ducked out of the bathroom and made his way to his bed. His roommate—a tall boy slightly older than him, with broad shoulders and a monosyllabic name, had made his own bed crisply, so Neil followed suit, tucking the edges under the mattress and smoothing out the creases.
First day of classes. Only for him, but the first day of classes nonetheless. He didn’t quite have it in him to be nervous, but a vague curiosity stirred within his stupor. As he shouldered his schoolbag, he wondered idly if he should call Charlie, let him know he’s alive. Then he remembered he had no way to.
Everything felt clouded, misted-over. He’d expected sleep to clear his head, but although he had slept for over nine hours, everything was much the same. He rubbed his eye, slipping out of his room to make his way over to his first class of the day. Perhaps it was better this way—if he could get through a year and a half of this by cloaking himself in numbness, then, well, if it worked, it worked. He stopped in front of a black door, checked to make sure it was the chemistry classroom, and let himself in. Whatever came next would come next. Right now, he just had to get through this.
He lowered himself into a seat in the backmost row and closed his eyes.