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When Todd was eighteen, Neil tried to kill himself. He could never really put into words how that night, and all the nights after, affected him. When you’ve known no home other than a small group of boys whom you love deeply, it is indescribable the pain you feel at the thought of losing one. Todd had tied his soul to Neil, he had tied it to all of the Poets really, and to lose one would mean losing a part of himself. Perhaps it was naïve of him to make them his world, but when you’re young and shy and someone finally shows interest in you it is hard not to get attached. They were truly the first people to make him feel completely true to himself, he could be whoever he wanted to be in their presence, and he faced no judgement. He could tell them anything, and they would listen. He had never had that before, and to think of losing it made him feel queasy and off-balance.
He often thought about that night, and what would have happened if Neil had been successful. Perhaps he would have followed him too or would he have kept on living for the others? Maybe it wasn’t even worth dwelling on now when Neil slept soundly by him every night, but it did not mean he ever stopped thinking about it. He sometimes thought about what he would have said at his funeral, would he have even been allowed to speak, would Neil’s parents even know what Neil meant to him and he to Neil? Probably not. But maybe Nolan would have let him say a word or do a reading. Todd had written eulogies in his head for a boy who had never even died. Maybe it was the lasting fear that made him do it, some sick joke of his own mind to keep him prepared for if Neil ever tried again. He had never told Neil he did this; Neil would probably understand but it still felt taboo and so he kept silent about these intrusive thoughts. He suspected Neil might have known about them though, after all most of Todd’s thoughts bled out into his work, and Neil would read his poems often enough to know most by heart. But they both knew that there were some things you had to work through yourself.
Truthfully, life moved on after Neil’s attempt. He never left the experience behind, but there was nothing else to do really other than continue to fight each day as they came. He was reminded of something he had once heard; that our emotions were like a sine wave and that anything we feel negatively, we have exactly the same capacity to feel positively. Everything will get better, and our lows will become highs. Still, the grieving was different, and it often felt strange because how can one feel grief when someone is alive, but you still feel like you lost them? For a few hours of that night and morning he and the others had huddled together in purgatory as they waited for news, either confirmation that he was gone or the sweet sound of the words “He’s safe” piercing the air. Knox had gripped his hand so hard he thought he might cut the circulation off, and Todd knew that he would never forget how his heart dropped into his stomach and his whole body felt cold. He was overcome with shivers and the words were getting stuck in the back of his throat so that he had ended up just spluttering out some sounds and a wail before pressing his face into Charlie’s dressing gown and wetting it with his tears.
It stayed with him for years afterwards that feeling, the hollow pocket in his heart, he thought it would have disappeared instantly when he knew Neil was safe, but instead it lingered on his body and in his mind, a dog that followed him endlessly no matter what he threw at it. He often thought too about what he might have done to prevent it all and sometimes he felt bitterly guilty about signs he had missed, that maybe if he had discouraged Neil more about doing the play, he could have stopped his attempt ever happening. But he realised, with time, that sometimes you can only sit back, and you watch, and you give them advice, but if they do not want it then they won’t take it and you’re left floating in that space between; you cannot condemn but you cannot condone, and all the while Icarus is flying ever closer to the sun.
The only true resentment Todd felt about the whole ordeal was a deep rage at the establishment that was Welton, how they had done so little to support a student and they seemed so entirely unaware that anything was wrong. The mindset of the school being that if they did not speak about it, it did not exist. But most of all Todd hated that they were still children, still just boys, but the real world was forced upon them so suddenly when they were ill-prepared to deal with it and the school never helped at any moment. He knew it had affected Charlie deeply, the endless burden of carrying everyone’s emotions on his shoulders had caused him to become a prolific smoker and Todd would watch in the months after as Charlie would shakily light up a cigarette and bring it to his lips, and it seemed to Todd that the only moment of relief the other boy ever got was when that smoke entered his lungs.
He liked to think that they would never grow apart, this friendship felt infinite to him and when he thought about his friends Todd was sure he beamed so much he became a source of light. He was cynical before he met them, when he was stuck at Balincrest as the butt of jokes and the odd one out, he took the view that soulmates were not real, and that life could never get better than what it was at that moment in time. He only took going to Welton as proof of that. Jeffrey, his brother, had not made the school seem like it would be any better than the hell that was Balincrest, and Todd dreaded the day he would have to step foot in its halls.
So, when he arrived, and he met the Poets his whole view of life was changed. If soulmates were real, then their souls were surely connected. When he did contemplate the longevity of their friendship, he would always conclude that no matter the distance, no matter the reason, if they called or if they needed him, he would drop everything to be there for them instantly. Some bonds can simply never be broken. It was his bond with Neil that was probably the most important thing to come out of that year at Welton, for they remained together still, and it had been years since they had left that place behind. Todd would wake to Neil cooking breakfast for them every day and every night he would read Neil an extract from a book, maybe a chapter or two, until he nodded off to sleep and they would repeat it all the next day.
They both still had bad days, days where they wanted to curl up into a ball and close in on themselves. Todd would comfort Neil as best he could, and Neil would do the same for him. Todd would want to be reminded that Neil was still there and so often they would end up on the sofa and he would lie back so his head fell into the other boy’s lap and Neil would softly stroke his hair and whisper sweet nothings to him, Todd would sometimes weep in his arms and Neil would wipe the tears away, following their trails with kisses. So, they moved through it but never past it, and while it lingered in their lives forever and Todd would sometimes wake up from nightmares clutching onto Neil as if he was the anchor to his soul, they never forgot that night, but they never let it define them either.
When his book got published and he became something of a semi-famous author, though he never took well to the fame and would often attend readings of his work where Neil would take his place and read for the audience instead, he gave a sum of money to Welton under the strict instructions that it be used for a performing arts scholarship. He thanked the stars he still had Neil with him, he helped coordinate it all as well, despite the ache going back to Welton caused him. Neil had a few films under his belt, mostly indie ones, but he was gaining something of a cult following and so he contributed to the fund too. They both disliked returning to that place, it was the keeper of an odd mix of sad and happy memories, but ultimately, they had never felt free there. That was the motivator really, the desire to make sure no one who entered the halls of Hellton ever felt as lost as Neil once had.
Part of the reason Neil’s father had been so against acting was because he saw no money in it and no achievement that he could gloat to his law firm friends about and make himself more superior with. The scholarship meant that boys who pursued it could demonstrate the value of acting to their parents, but it also meant they would have some financial stability as they went out into the world to perform. When he and Neil had left for New York after graduation they had been mostly cut off from their families. Neil entirely, but Todd still got something every so often in a package. He suspected his brother was behind it, but he never asked.
Nevertheless, they felt they had made some difference in the world and that was good enough for them. Todd thought it might have provided some closure, in a way, for Neil. He had found it a little awkward at first, but after a few years Neil took great pride in all the graduates of Welton who won their scholarship, and he fostered friendships with them well into the later years of his life.
Neil never won an Oscar himself, he got nominated a few times but never lucked out in the end, but there was one time, a few decades after they left Welton, when one of the boys they had taken under their wing years ago stood up on stage to accept his own award, and Todd could see the tears in Neil’s eyes as they sat watching one of their protégés from their seat in the crowd. He also heard the quiet sob when that boy thanked Neil in his speech for all his help and his guidance, and later Neil would tell him while they lay in bed that he was glad he had been such an impact on someone’s life, that he had been someone’s Keating and Todd had nodded and kissed his forehead, grateful that they had got through it all.