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Neil didn’t own anything in his life. He never had.
As a young child, he’d played with secondhand toys. His parents hadn’t had much in terms of money, and what they had, they spent wisely. So Neil got toys from the garage sale down the road, toys that his mother would wash with dish soap before he played with them. They were nothing too frivolous or creative—no mini xylophones or toy automobiles. Instead, he received toy-boat-making kits, slinkies, toys that could teach him what his father thought were important skills—profitable skills that would get him far in the working world.
As Neil grew older, he still never owned anything. He went to school in uniform clothes given to him by the district, carrying textbooks provided by the school and more textbooks his father had checked out from the library for him. He used the textbooks’ words to talk to teachers, to answer questions, and he ate the school’s food at lunch.
He didn’t have a dream that he owned either. His peers in elementary school gushed about being scientists or presidents or famous actors, but Neil didn’t gush. He didn’t let his mind wander to what he would want in the future; he just fell back on what his father had always told him: he was going to be a doctor. He would be a doctor, and one day, his own kids would get new toys. They would own things, not Neil. Neil couldn’t own anything because everything in his life was someone else’s to own, including his future.
When Neil was offered the opportunity to apply for a scholarship to spend his high school years at Welton Academy, his father jumped at the idea, and Neil applied, with his father overseeing every part of the application process, fine-tuning his wording on an essay, his penmanship on a sample set of notes. The application had always been more for his father than for him, but he’d still been awarded the scholarship and enrolled for his ninth grade year and onward.
It was on Neil’s first day at Welton that he met Charlie Dalton. They sat beside each other as they were inducted into the school, lighting candles down the line. Charlie held onto his candle too long before lighting Neil’s and a droplet of wax had landed on the knee of Neil’s brand new uniform trousers. But Charlie had just grinned, grinned and shrugged as Neil continued to pass the “light of knowledge” down the line.
Charlie’s parents were bankers, ones with dreams for him much like Mr. Perry’s dreams of medical school for Neil. Charlie wasn’t like Neil, though. Charlie owned things. Charlie seemed to own everything sometimes, to the point where Neil wondered if there was any sort of force that could ever stop him, any hill he couldn’t climb. Charlie didn’t let people walk over him or control him. Charlie walked into a room and claimed it as his own.
Charlie owned himself and his life in a way that Neil could never even imagine.
Still, Charlie soon became Neil’s best friend. And through their friendship, Neil’s personality became more relaxed and jovial, goofier. He laughed and joked and took stupid risks just to feel the rush of it. But still, he didn’t own that either. Charlie did. Every joyful, risky act of rebellion he partook in was just a piece of Charlie that he borrowed for himself. So Neil still didn’t really have anything.
At least he was happier with Charlie than he was at home.
With Charlie eventually came the others as well: Knox, Meeks, Pitts, and Cameron. A study group they formed, one that solidified in their sophomore year, though Charlie always liked to pretend that Cameron was on a permanent sort of probation since they didn’t get along. They formed a group, though. There wasn’t much one could do at Welton to build their social life, so their study group became their social circle. There were the pairs of best friends, Charlie and Neil and Meeks and Pitts, but they were all friends. Neil had a group.
But the group wasn’t really Neil’s. He hadn’t formed the group or designated the subjects each boy would help the others with. No, that was all Charlie and Meeks. The group was theirs, and Neil was just happy to be a part of it.
And then, then came junior year. The same old Welton induction ceremony that he carried flags for with Knox and Cameron, the candles in the hands of boys just coming in, maybe a spilled drop of candle wax bonding a pair for life. The same old uniform with his same old pins and his same old parents sitting beside him as he made sure to sit up straight and listen to Mr. Nolan drone on and on.
But junior year wasn’t just any other year, because Neil had the new kid in his grade as a roommate, and Mr. Portis had finally retired after two years of torment from his brightest but least favorite student, Charles Dalton. Two new additions to the world Neil walked through but held no claim over: Todd and Mr. Keating.
At first, Neil and Todd simply didn’t get along. Initially, all that Neil could see in Todd was a spineless boy who would probably either drop out or just barely scrape by unless he learned how to talk like everyone else in the school. Todd didn’t dispute any sour words or attitudes that Neil showed him, though. He just stayed quiet, flinching at the sounds of his own footsteps, almost like he wished they weren’t his, that he was incapable of making sound.
Neil couldn’t deny that Todd was a good roommate, though. Maybe a bit too good. He was the kind of roommate that just sort of faded from existence from time to time. At least, he tried too. Neil was too perceptive to miss him, but no one else seemed to have that problem, not when Charlie sat right on Todd’s bed when he was on it, not when the others in the group stuck their heads in to talk to Neil and Neil alone. Todd just existed quietly in his own little space of invisibility, doing his homework or writing something else in his notebook.
Todd seemed to gain a little more life in Mr. Keating’s classes, but, then again, they all did. There was something about those classes that made their skin tingle and their bodies feel restless. Something about Mr. Keating made all of them want to study him under a microscope and find out just where all of the parts of him came from, what caused them.
And when they discovered the Dead Poets Society, it was like they had discovered the secret to Keating’s parts.
Neil wasn’t a timid boy among his friends, but he wasn’t often the one proposing outlandish ideas. No, that was Charlie. Still, he pushed the idea of the club until they’d all agreed, until he could feel a fire light inside of him, Mr. Keating’s fire, one that filled all of them with life, with the desire to do something, not just sit around and study Latin and wait for the day the kitchen served spaghetti for dinner. Neil didn’t think he’d ever felt anything like this, and he doubted any of his friends had either.
And then, there was Todd. Meek, quiet, mild Todd.
During study hall, as the boys all attempted to figure out a route to the cave Mr. Keating had mentioned, Neil slid onto the seat next to Todd, settling perhaps a little too close to him in his excitement. He asked him to come. He didn’t really know why. He and Todd didn’t know each other at all, really, but Neil had seen the look in his eyes during class. And Neil just liked watching him, honestly. He liked being the only one who saw the boy who hid himself from the world. And he supposed that he wanted to keep doing it, keep seeing him.
Neil looked into Todd’s light, nervous eyes in that study hall, and he imagined what he’d look like in the dark cave, with the cool tones of the night to bring out the blue in his eyes and the brown undertones in his hair. Maybe with a fire at the center, with flames to crackle and pop and make shadows flicker over the soft skin of Todd’s cheek.
Neil was aware that he was staring rather intensely at Todd, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t really want to.
“Keating said that everyone took turns reading, and…and I-I don’t want to do that,” Todd sputtered out under his breath, hunching forward ever so slightly, as if each word was painfully wrenched from deep in his chest.
Neil kept looking at him. His cheeks were flushing, and his jaw set itself in the way that reminded Neil of the grinding noises he heard from Todd’s side of the room when he woke up in the middle of the night. The wonder and curiosity he felt for the boy twisted around inside of him until it turned into something more like concern. Todd couldn’t speak in class, just sputtered some unintelligible words until the teachers moved onto someone else. Every time someone looked at him, he seemed to get two inches shorter, hiding away so that no one would notice him at all. He spent nights grinding his teeth and days making no sounds but the scratch of a pencil or the occasional creak of a bed or a chair.
“God, you really have a problem with that, don’t you?” Neil said to him.
He got defensive when Neil pointed it out, but it was obviously true. And so Neil told him that he didn’t have to read. He said he’d ask the others if they were alright with it, but instead, he simply told them that Todd would be listening and not reading, and all they did was nod and shrug along. So it wasn’t as if they did mind anyways.
It was after that point that Neil noticed a shift in how he and Todd interacted. Neil started talking to him when they were alone together—and not just talking at him but having a conversation, digging into him a little, poking and prodding and trying to see what it was that made him tick. He learned things about Todd—random things but things nonetheless. He learned that Todd’s parents wanted him to be an engineer, that he knew calligraphy, that he was actually really good at soccer even if he didn’t like it all that much, that he liked tea but not coffee. Neil started to get to know Todd and started to become comfortable around him, comfortable in a way that was unfamiliar.
With all of Neil’s friends, he took on parts of them and found solace in the ways he could somewhat morph into them and fit within their parameters, but not with Todd. Honestly, he’d forgotten to even try. Instead, he’d simply gotten to know Todd, and, in return, Todd had gotten to know him, to know that he was here on a scholarship, that he hated coffee and tea but would never say no to a hot chocolate, that something about the rain make it impossible for him to stop wistfully gazing out of windows, that his favorite color was green like pine needles. Todd was getting to know Neil right back, and without the methods Neil usually used to get to know a person, he was learning far more than Neil thought he could even notice.
He liked it, though. He liked making Todd laugh and smile and throw pencils at him in fake annoyance. He liked going to English class and feeling inspired. He liked sneaking out at night and turning old poetry into music with people he cared about. He liked the feelings it gave him.
It was after a particularly invigorating day—an inspiring English class, a particular giggle from Todd, a funny joke from Charlie—that Neil saw the flyer. Open tryouts for Henley Hall’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” A play. Neil had seen flyers like these before, had seen occasional classmates of his gush about being in a play back in elementary school. He’d always wanted to try it. Even back in his early days of school, back when he didn’t even have a concept of what individuality could even be , he’d listen to his classmates talk about wanting to be actors and actresses when they grew up, and he’d felt a stirring deep inside, something he’d pushed down and down and down. Something that Mr. Keating and Todd and poetry in a cave at night had pushed back up and up and up.
And so he took the flyer, ran straight to his room, and had his first fight with Todd since they’d begun to really get along. Not even a real fight anyways either. Neil knew that Todd didn’t harbor any ill will as he expressed doubts rooted in practicality. It was just that Todd didn’t get it. He didn’t understand.
If Neil were to do this, it would be his . His passion, his desire. He’d never been able to own anything in his life, but he could own this. He could own the stage and the way it made him feel. He could own the floating feeling in his chest and the way his hands had shook when he’d first grabbed the flyer.
This was a moment where it was so clear how different they were, with Neil racing around the room, fueled by the anxiety and excitement coursing through him, with Todd calm and measured on his bed. Todd wasn’t stuttering when they started. He’d stopped stuttering as often with Neil and with the others in the group. Todd was calm and steady and secure. Maybe he wasn’t confident or loud, but he was somebody. He owned something, even if that something was the little cloud of invisibility that he dragged everywhere with him. He still owned it. Owned that and his smile and those eyes—
And, maybe…maybe he’d started to own part of Neil too.
“Jesus Todd, whose side are you on?!” he yelled at him. And he could see the effect. He could feel the room quiet further, the way Todd’s body stiffened, avoiding making any noise, the look on Todd’s face, the set of his jaw.
And so Neil grabbed the flyer and slumped against the heater dejectedly. “I mean, I haven’t even gotten the part yet. Can’t I even enjoy the idea for a little while?”
And Todd said nothing. He looked away, scooted carefully back on his bed, and made no noise as Neil sat on the windowsill. The room descended into its own silence, and Neil hated it. He hated it, hated that he had caused it, and hated that Todd was right with his concerns. He just hated that something had gotten in the way of the first thing he’d ever felt this passionate about.
And so, he tried to talk to Todd again, to ask if he was coming to their meeting that night. Of course, he just assumed that Todd was going just like he was. He just wanted to ask so that Todd would say yes and then maybe they could start feeling normal around each other again. But then Todd answered maybe and the anger was back. The fact that Todd could be so mild and blasé about something so life changing, so purely fantastic for Neil made him want to rip his hair out. He wanted Todd on board with him, to bask in the feeling with him. He wanted to see the same passion within someone else, within Todd .
“Listen, Neil , I’m—I appreciate this concern, but I’m-I’m not like you!” Todd burst at him when he’d poked and prodded too much, accused him too thoroughly for even him to stand. “Alright? You—you say things, and people listen…I-I’m not like that, alright?”
Neil didn’t doubt for a second that he’d listen to anything Todd said, every breath that came out of him.
“Don’t you think you could be?”
Todd looked affronted. “No! I…I don’t know, but that’s not the point. The point is that there’s nothing you can do about it, so you can just butt out. I can take care of myself just fine.”
If Todd defined taking care of himself as grinding his teeth into nubs every night and shrinking in on himself when anyone outside of the Dead Poets looked his way—even sometimes when Charlie or Cameron looked at him—then sure. But that wasn’t enough for Neil. That wasn’t enough for him because he was Todd . He liked tea and scrambled eggs in the mornings. The sun shone on his face like magic when he sat by the windows in Mr. Keating’s class, and his smile felt like a drop of hot candle wax every time Neil saw it.
So he said no. Just a simple no. Todd was so affronted by it, though, that Neil couldn’t help but feel his stomach flutter with giddiness. Just to see the way Todd’s face twisted into confusion, how he let himself get just the tiniest bit sassy when he was so caught off guard. It was cute. Neil loved it.
“What do you mean, no ?” He asked Neil.
Neil grinned widely. “No.”
And he snatched the notebook from Todd’s lap, jumping onto his bed. This time, though, Todd joined him as he leapt all over the room. And maybe they weren’t so different after all. Maybe it had just been a silly disagreement. Maybe Neil just needed to pull Todd out of the shadows a little more and let him pull him in at the same time. Maybe he just needed to feel the way Todd chased after him to get his notebook back, the way they collided when Todd caught up with him and he could feel the other boy’s body against his, warm and solid and a tangible representation of the floating feeling in Neil’s chest. Maybe this would just be a blip, and everything could be alright again. Maybe it could get better.
When Todd recited his poem in class that Monday, a poem pulled out of him with no editing or filtering but still a poem filled with so much, so many sides of Todd that Neil had never seen—or maybe only seen in part—Neil felt like his entire world was shifting. Suddenly, being around Todd wasn’t just something that he did, it was something he knew he needed, something he chased desperately, like the play, like the Dead Poets Society. It was something that embedded itself deeply inside of him.
It was his own. It wasn’t something that anyone else had, wasn’t just a part of Todd’s personality that he’d picked up and tried on. No, it was an emotion, a feeling that was completely his. Nothing in the world had ever been his, had ever been made available to him, but now there was this feeling, this corner of his chest that tangled and twisted and bloomed all for the boy smiling at the front of the room while the class applauded. It was new and scary, but it was real, and it was the first thing in this world to be just Neil’s, no one else’s.
Neil kissed Todd for the first time that day, back in their room with the door closed, leaning down to catch Todd’s face as he sat in his desk chair. The feeling inside of him spilled over in a way that almost hurt, but then Todd’s hand was on his face, and he was kissing back, and it was like a wave receding from the shore, just to crash in again a moment later. Only now it was sweeter, filled with more excitement than anxiety, the comforting sense of reciprocity, the sense of something not only theirs but something simultaneously shared and separate. It was like they held a matching set, Todd and his feelings for Neil, Neil and his feelings for Todd. In a way, they belonged to both of them, but they were also two purely different concepts. Neil didn’t think he’d ever understand what Todd felt for him, and maybe Todd felt the same way about Neil.
And after that point, it was like Neil had finally found his footing in life. He got the part he’d wanted in his play and ran back to his hall screaming about it to his smiling friends, went back to his room where Todd lounged next to him and looked at his bouncy, hyperactive form like it was something to be cherished, even as he slightly admonished all of Neil’s actions.
And then the time wore on with Dead Poets Society meetings, and play rehearsals, and Keating’s classes, and with practicing lines with Todd, and with Todd’s lips and eyes and the way his hair looked every morning. For once in his life, Neil felt free. He felt happy. He felt like a real person, not just a robot constructed by his father.
And then it all came crashing down.
Neil had always been a boy of big emotions, which he’d gotten from his mother and father both. And his life his junior year at Welton, with secret poetry clubs and a beautiful boy and a part in a play—it had filled him with so much euphoria, so much freedom and wild energy. All of those feelings didn’t just go away. That just wasn’t how it worked. Even crying to Mr. Keating alone in his office or accepting Todd’s quiet, comforting embrace didn’t quell the emotions.
Still, none of the feelings came out with his father. They couldn’t. And Neil didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he was like this. He didn’t know how his too-big emotions managed to fit inside of him when his father berated his passions. He didn’t know why he could jump around his room with Todd or run around the woods at night with his friends but felt like nothing but a numb, motionless statue whenever his father was near.
Maybe it just meant that he was a coward. He supposed it could be possible. He’d learned enough from Charlie to know how to be a sneaky one, though, so he counted on his father’s absence and told Keating a lie that was believable enough when he checked in. He smiled and laughed and kissed Todd, and he pushed his father as far back in his mind as he could.
And that night, he was good. He was so, so good.
And as he looked out at the audience and saw his father, there was only so much his emotions could go down, only so much he could do before it was his cue and he went out again and shone. Shone the way Todd’s skin did in the sunlight, the way flames did in a dark room. It didn’t matter that his father was there. It didn’t matter because his friends were watching him, and Todd couldn’t stop smiling, and Mr. Keating laughed at all of his character’s jokes. And then, at curtain-call, all he could hear or see was the standing ovation, the thrill of the performance, the euphoria running through his veins.
When he saw his father waiting still at the back of the empty theatre, part of him hoped that he’d felt it too, that he’d seen just a little bit of Neil’s shine, that he understood now, that he’d let Neil have this. Just this.
But he didn’t.
Neil was carted off to his father’s car, watching Todd, Charlie, and Mr. Keating step forward in indignation, hearing Charlie’s protests, seeing the scared look in Todd’s eyes. He could barely look at them, but he forced himself to. He could see the confusion, then the understanding.
When Neil got back home, he fought for the first time, fought for what he’d gained, what he had. He was arguing for acting to his father, but this was much more than that. This was the way it felt to stand on Mr. Keating’s desk. This was the softness of Todd’s skin. This was the way Charlie’s saxophone sounded in the acoustics of the cave. This was everything that Neil had come to know and to love.
Everything that he’d come to own.
But Mr. Perry wouldn’t listen. And not only would he take acting away, he’d take it all away. He’d send Neil away from Welton and to military school, a place to revert him back to the dull, dutiful boy who didn’t own anything, didn’t know anything, not really.
And Neil. He just, he couldn’t take it.
As he stood in front of his window, he thought about Todd, about the ways he’d started shining brighter, how he’d started gaining confidence, how happy he’d been. Neil hoped it wasn’t too arrogant to assume that at least part of it had been because of him, because of what he had, what he felt for Todd, the way he loved him.
Would Todd still be that way without Neil? Could the effects of their beautiful little matching set of feelings still shine through in him? Could his blue eyes still sparkle in the morning? Could he still laugh at Charlie’s jokes over tea in the morning?
Neil didn’t know. He just hoped that it would.
Because, as his parents went to bed that night, as he stared at the pajamas laid out for him on his bed, he knew that Todd would be on his own from this point on.
Neil just hoped that the little piece of life he’d come to own could live on through the boy he loved.