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Todd kisses him on the mouth, cumbersome and stiff like he intends to pull away in the next half-second, and Neil can think of nothing else but to hold on. He reaches across the mattress, finds Todd’s sweater, gathers warm wool in his fingers like anchor points. He softens Todd’s lips under his own, takes when Todd starts to give, gives back more. He feels like he’s brandishing something that should be well out of sight, even with the dorm door closed.
Neil has kissed people before—against trees, in empty washrooms, on the lakeshore at the Dalton summer home while Charlie’s parents quarreled in the lounge. But he can fold those kisses up and tuck them away in drawers. This one spills out through all the gaps.
Todd hasn’t kissed people before. He keeps second-guessing where to put his hands. They land on Neil’s cheeks, flinch away to his shoulders, slide up to his collarbone. He’s oversized. He’s more than Neil can carry.
Voices go up at the end of the corridor. Neil’s script crinkles under his knee. He won’t listen to any of it, not now. He releases Todd’s sweater and traps one of Todd’s hands against his collar, fixing it in place, and he can’t stop himself grinning.
Startled, Todd’s lips break away from Neil’s. His face is close, but his eyes are unsure. It takes him a moment to round out the words. “Did I—did—did I do—”
“You’re doing it right,” Neil laughs breathily.
“Am I?”
“Yeah.” Neil laughs louder, touching the skin under Todd’s jaw to tug him close. “Do you wanna stay like this a little longer?”
“Yeah.” Todd smiles and lets himself be tugged.
I live in a one-room house. Everything I’m allowed to have goes in here. I want to bring you inside, but there’s so little space and you’re too big. I don’t know where to fit you. Look around, you’ll see what I mean.
There are my uniforms and suits on the rack, all pressed and tight-collared. You can’t go near them. Cardboard boxes full of textbooks line the walls, and they’re ready to topple over at any moment. My father’s shadow takes up half the room, and it’s spreading. I won’t let you stand underneath it with me.
Will you sit on my shelf with all my awards? There’s a gap between Best in Chemistry and American Legion Citizenship. If you turn your body the right way, you can avoid the prodding edges. You could even hide behind them if you wanted. You’ll be protected up there, I promise.
Neil finds Todd hunching in his desk chair, staring down the notebook in his hands like he could intimidate it into coming up with words. Light from the low-hanging sun stretches across his fabric folds, the tag where it sticks out from his collar. His back looks wrongly unoccupied.
In one breath, Neil kicks the dorm door shut, stoops down and presses his arms against Todd’s shoulder blades. “That’s gotta be your tenth try by now,” he muses.
“Neil,” Todd huffs, glancing behind in his fitful, flustered way. He slaps his poem face-down on the desk and keeps his hand there. “You—you can’t—I’m trying to work here, Neil.”
“Poetry? That’s not work.”
“Get off,” Todd laughs. “Aren’t—aren’t you supposed to be at math club soon?”
Neil shoves him lightly with his elbows. “We shall not speak of it. Can I see what you wrote?”
“I haven’t written anything.”
“You don’t have to hide it, you know.” He pauses. “I swear I won’t steal it.”
“But I can’t—it’s just not—” Todd’s words get caught on his teeth. His skittish fingers slide the notebook back and forth.
Neil watches him, finding the ends of his sentences in his body language and waiting for him to voice them first.
“It won’t come out right,” Todd blurts.
Neil keeps watching him. There are soliloquies in the furrows of his forehead, the twitches of his frown, the tilt of his chin, and Neil wants to learn it all by heart. He doesn’t think about the calculus textbook on his desk or the classroom across the courtyard. He kisses Todd’s shoulder, stands up and flounces onto the foot of Todd’s bed. “Maybe I can help you. What’s it about?”
Todd screws up his lips. His poem is an unpleasant plate of food he’d rather push away. “I can’t explain it.”
“Well, you’re the one writing it,” Neil laughs softly. He curls a hand around the mottled bedframe. “Please try.”
Todd looks over at him. He searches his face like the words he wants to say are scrawled across Neil’s skin. He clings to the edge of his desk. “It’s about us. And Charlie and Knox and everyone, and how we—” He looks down. “W-w-we want so much, I think. But we have it already. Or maybe…we don’t know what to do with it, and so we treat it the way we’re taught to treat everything else.”
For a moment, there is only the creak of old wood, the whine of wrought iron and bedsprings. Neil stares. He feels as though Todd has strewn his words across the surface of something much vaster and more paralyzing than Neil would ever dip his fingers into.
“What’s ‘it’?” he asks cautiously.
“A way out, maybe,” Todd finishes, looking at him again.
“Todd, that’s…” Neil clears his throat. “You really think that?”
He shrugs.
White-hot panic flares in Neil’s stomach, the awful instinct to laugh too loud and make nothing of it. He stifles it, watching Todd pick at a split in the soft wood. This isn’t nothing.
He shifts, lays his hand over Todd’s wrist and squeezes. “It’s good.”
“I haven’t written it yet.”
“If it’s from you, it’s already good.”
“I don’t understand it, Mr. Perry.” Hager glares over the rim of his glasses, looking like he could command the entire student body from his teaching desk if Nolan would let him. “You haven’t missed a single meeting with the mathematics boys. You wouldn’t, especially not towards the end of the school year.”
Cold sunlight spears through the window and glances off Neil’s cheek. His hands sit in fists behind his back. “I’m sorry, sir. It was poor form, I know.”
“You should also know what this means for your track record. Impressive as it may be, rules are rules. To let this go without reprimand would serve as a bad example.”
Neil presses four nails into his palm. “Of course, sir.”
“Good. That’ll be two demerit points.”
“Two? Sir, I thought—”
“Don’t debate me on this, Mr. Perry. Your…outburst at this alone should be enough to remind you just how essential your extracurriculars are.”
In the stiff air of the classroom, Neil feels caught. He listens to his friends on the way to their next classes, heels scuffing wooden floors in the hallway, voices scrambling over one another to be heard.
He wishes he could think about disobedience the way Charlie does. Charlie collects his demerits like scars, lifting his sleeves to show them off, recounting how he earned each one with grand gestures and eye-rolling hyperbole. And it’s fine, because he spaces them out until the school wipes his record the next year and everyone important forgets about what he did.
It doesn’t work like that for Neil. Everyone important remembers him.
“I’d like to know where you were, by the way,” Hager drawls.
“I—Well, I was with my roommate, sir.”
“How could your roommate take precedence over mathematics club? Anderson, is it? I find it hard to believe, but if he’s that much of a bad influence—”
“No, he’s not the problem. It was my fault. I meant to grab my things and go to the meeting, but I—I wasn’t keeping track of time.”
“Roommates are supposed to be an encouragement to your studies, not a distraction. If he continues to be, I’ll have to consider re-assigning you.”
The urge to object rushes up Neil’s throat, but he swallows it down again. This shelter he shares with Todd—laughter, half-whispered dreams, the space between beds crossed during the night—he can’t make it conspicuous. He needs to keep the blankets drawn over their heads. So he nods, and says thank you, and leaves when Hager tells him to.
What if I squeezed you in next to Charlie and the other boys? They’re crouching in the corner, jostling each other for space, muttering things I don’t always hear. They’re allowed to stay as long as they don’t venture too far into the room.
I’m sure they’d make room for you. They like having you around. They can tell you where to move and how to sit and when to speak—at least, I hope they will. Then you’ll be allowed to stay.
Whenever Charlie raises his voice in the dorm—which is just about every damn time he opens his mouth—Neil has to resist throwing a hard object at him. Five Centuries of Verse would do the trick, but the book is well out of reach. Pushed into the depths of his desk drawer after Nolan had Charlie dragged from the chapel by the elbow.
He lounges on Neil’s desk right now, his feet stretching out from the edge to rest on Neil’s mattress. He pinches a cigarette between his fingers. “I’m telling you, the staff will never expect kids like us breaking out of Hell-ton’s walls,” he says. “They didn’t before, and they won’t now.”
“Well, they’ve got every reason to,” Cameron snaps from where he stands by the door. “Thanks to you, they’ll be on the lookout for a club like ours. We’re risking it even being here.”
“What club?” Charlie smirks. “They don’t know we’re meeting. Mr. Nolan wanted names, and I didn’t give him any.”
Neil lurches forward on the radiator, gripping the blades. He doesn’t mean for his voice to come out croaking. “Charlie. How’d you get away with that?”
The rest of the boys go quiet. Knox sprawling at the end of Todd’s bed. Meeks crossing his legs on Todd’s desk chair. Pitts behind him, hands in his pockets. Propped against his iron headboard, Todd draws his knees to his chest and looks at Neil.
“I told him it didn’t exist,” Charlie says, waving flippantly. “I’d read about it in an old school annual, thought it sounded smart and stole it for the paper.”
Cameron scoffs. “Mr. Nolan would never let you off that—”
“Conclusion?” Charlie cuts in, his gaze fixed on Neil. “We can still hold our meetings in the cave, and no one’s gonna come looking.”
His words rise in the smoke-heavy air, more insistent than calls for dinner and busy footfalls in the dorm corridors. Neil keeps hold of Charlie’s gaze, but he’s not looking at the easy defiance in his eyes. He sees him on the quiet walk from Nolan’s office, eyes wet and tired. Until then, Neil had never seen Charlie cry in front of anyone other than himself.
Beside him, Todd draws a too-long breath. Then: “I say we go.”
Charlie decides he’s not going to get what he wants from Neil and jabs his cigarette at Todd, grinning. “Thank. You. Todd.”
“If Todd says we should do something, we should probably do it,” Knox sighs good-naturedly. “Cause you wouldn’t waste your breath for nothing, hey?”
“I—I suppose—” He flounders, squeezing the ends of his fingers. “I don’t know. I just think—ending it now wouldn’t really be in the spirit of the Dead Poets, would it?”
Todd turns his gaze up to Neil, searching for the only approval he cares to have. Neil wants to give it to him, but his hands are empty and he’s growing out of reach and the space where he’s allowed to stand is shrinking.
“My thoughts exactly,” Charlie declares. “Anyone else?”
“Wait. Can we think about this?” Neil throws his words at Charlie. “Keating said all those things about not choking on the bone, didn’t he? We’ve gotta know when to back off.”
“Back off? Since when did you start doing shit by half?” Charlie demands. “You were all for the Dead Poets.”
“Until you screwed it up!”
“And then I unscrewed it. C’mon, Neil.”
Two thumps resound against the door, and the argument stutters. Charlie snuffs out his cigarette on Neil’s bedframe and tosses it underneath.
“Neil Perry?” a younger boy’s voice seeps in.
Neil allows himself a breath as he crosses the dorm and cracks the door open wide enough for the kid to see him. He finds out his mother is waiting on the line downstairs.
“Um. Do you know what for?” He winces. It’s a pointless question.
The kid just shrugs, and Neil thanks him anyway.
“What was that?” Charlie asks.
Neil looks over his shoulder, nervous energy careening under his skin. His eyes find Todd. He speaks to him more than anyone else. “There’s a call from my mom. I gotta take this, guys.”
As he swings off the doorknob into the corridor, Charlie’s call follows him out. “Tomorrow night. Usual time. You’re coming, Perry.”
Then he’s standing by the noticeboards and pigeonholes, squeezing the telephone cable in his hand and listening to his mother’s strained platitudes—her introductory paragraph to whatever she really wants to say.
“My classes have been fine, Mom,” he forces into the receiver, his only conclusion.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? That’s good to hear,” Mrs. Perry tuts, tinny and far away. “Now listen, we heard about the incident with the Daltons’ son.”
“Oh. You did?”
“He caused a real stir. I know you’re friendly with him, but he’s trouble, Neil. It won’t do you any good associating with him now.”
Her soft words carry a fierce twang. He recoils from it. “The—the Daltons are a good family—”
“We think it would be best if you stayed away from Charlie and your other friends.”
“Mom, please—”
“I’m making this call before your father thinks of it, so be thankful,” she says. “Just focus on your classes and there won’t be any hassle. Alright?”
The cable leaves a trail of indents along his palm. “Alright.”
I’ll put you with Mr. Keating instead. He’s new here. His reputation hasn’t quite settled into shape. He stands over there by the door, reading from his books and gazing around the room when he’s curious. Sometimes he looks like he wants to say something, but his voice won’t reach me. He’d love your company, though. He’ll keep you safe.
In the end, only four of them go to the meeting.
The trails they trample through the scrub grow wider, the stirs and sighs of the forest louder. It’s unsettling, even when Charlie’s voice joins in, low and forceful as he chants the words to ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ from his Chuck Berry record. Knox strides next to him and sings along when the titular verses come up.
A few paces behind, Todd watches with a bemused smile tucked into his scarf. Before they crept from their dorm, Todd had first been secretive and then suspiciously indifferent about this whole thing, and now he’s keeping one hand hidden under his duffel coat. Neil won’t ask about it. He just lets his shoulder sweep against Todd’s as they walk.
It’s what made him come tonight—this childish part of him always feeling out to make sure Todd is still there. He tweaks Todd’s clothes to get his attention, pushes his socked feet under his thigh, taps out tunes on his knee. It’s all he has. Everything else is being pried from fingers.
(On his way to lunch, Nolan had fallen into step and steered him away from the dining room. He asked about his studies and Neil answered until they stopped at the trophy displays.
Nolan paused. His gaze roamed over colorless team photos, Welton’s old boys trapped in cabinets interminably. “You’re one of our best students, Neil,” he said. “You understand what we value here at this school.”
Neil couldn’t see what Nolan saw in those faces behind the glass. He saw graves, just as Mr. Keating had said. Fertilizing daffodils.
Nolan turned to him, eyes shrewd. “If your new English teacher seems to stray from those values…If you think he’s guiding your peers in the wrong direction, you just let us know.”)
“Gentlemen, does our cave seem a little…bigger this evening?” Charlie asks as they clamber through the rock-strewn entrance.
“That’s just you, Charlie,” Knox grunts, struggling over a boulder.
“I’m five-eight, jackass. C’mon, we all know the real reason.”
Neil frowns, following Todd into the center of the cave. He folds his arms over his chest, shivering. “You can’t keep railing on them for not coming,” he says.
“I sure as hell can,” comes the brash reply. “We didn’t run into any trouble coming out here like I told ‘em.”
“I thought we came out here to read poetry,” Todd mutters, eyebrows hitching up.
“Alright, settle down, Anderson.”
It’s an unspoken agreement. With only each other for warmth, they crowd together among the rocks like children over a hearth. Fires are more trouble than they’re worth, but Knox tries to ignite the god of the cave with a handful of matches.
Todd moves closer to Neil than anyone else, pulling in his knees and squishing up against Neil’s side. He looks incorporeal in the half-light. If Neil were to reach out and touch his face, his hand would fall right through. And yet, Todd is right here, the weight of him tangible and deliberate. Neil nudges their shoes together in answer to his touch.
Something makes him glance across, and Charlie is giving him a wry smirk. Like Neil has chosen truth over dare and Charlie is about to ask a question he already knows the answer to.
“Will someone read a poem before I freeze my ass off in here?” Charlie asks instead.
“I’ve got one,” Todd says, forcing the words into their huddle. “Shh-should—should I stand, or—”
A surge of encouraging voices cuts him off, boisterous and impatient. With the oil lamp now burning, Knox rests the god of the cave before him and declares it his spotlight. Neil grins at him and gives his shoulder a light shove, and that finally gets Todd on his feet.
He pulls a pocket-sized paperback from his coat and searches for his page. Then he stops, clears his throat, clears his lungs. “Um. Th-this is ‘Song’ by Allen Ginsberg.”
Todd’s eyes don’t leave the book. As he recites, Neil only hears his voice breathing through the words, catching on difficult lines, running over simpler ones. And then he hears the poem itself.
…in human—
looks out of the heart
burning with purity—
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love…
Todd looks at him with such fleeting worry, Neil would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been gazing so intently at his face.
But we carry the weight wearily.
Shame scrambles towards his chest, the kind he feels when his father sees him cry and yells at him because of it. He doesn’t want to feel that. Not while he’s looking at Todd. Not while Todd is seeing all the parts of him and caring for him anyway.
Then Todd is closing the book, and Charlie and Knox are clapping ferociously, and it’s only another poetry reading. Todd sits down again, just as close to Neil as he was before.
“That was brilliant, Todd,” Charlie says, stretching to shake his arm. “You moved me. Where’d you get that one?”
“Er, I borrowed it from Mr. Keating. He called it contraband.”
“Contraband? Gimme that.” Charlie swipes the volume. “Howl and Other Poems. You mean Keating snuck this into the school?”
Todd shrugs. “Maybe. It’s not in the library.”
Charlie rifles through leaves of poetry, Knox peering over his shoulder. Neil stares at them, unease stirring up his stomach.
“Oh God, listen to this,” Knox says, incredulous. “I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.”
Against his arm, Todd goes very still. Neil thinks he’s going to be sick.
“I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you,” Charlie continues quietly, “and followed in my imagination by the store detective.”
“No wonder it’s not in the library,” Knox snickers.
Charlie looks across at Neil, but he’s not smirking this time.
Something inside Neil overflows. He throws himself onto his feet, knocking Todd from his body. “We shouldn’t be reading this,” he snaps, though he can’t really hear himself. “Keating shouldn’t have given us this.”
Silence swells around him.
“Neil—” Todd tries.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Charlie rises, gripping Allen Ginsberg at his thigh and searching Neil’s face.
“They’d kill us for having something like that,” Neil splutters. “What’s wrong with you?”
Charlie scoffs. “What exactly do you mean by that? I could ask you the same damn thing, but I wouldn’t call it wrong.”
“Of course I’m not—I’m trying to look out for us, alright?”
“Us? Or just you?”
“Charlie—”
“Y’know, something’s gotten into you lately. And no one needs a superb fucking intellect to figure out what that is.”
“What are you talking about? Ever since Keating got here, it’s been you getting me into trouble.”
Charlie’s voice sharpens with spite. “We all know you’re the darling of Welton, Neil, but not everything that goes on around here is about you.”
The words wrap around Neil’s lungs and crush inward. “Go to hell,” he says weakly.
His shoes skid over wet leaf litter and grit as he treads away from the cave. He keeps his arms bundled in his coat and tries to swallow the aftertaste of everything he said. He doesn’t want to guess what’s being said in his wake.
He can’t make himself walk back to Welton. He finds a tree and slumps against the bark, lingering for several long minutes before he hears footsteps and murmurs. He looks over his shoulder as the boys emerge, the meeting cut short.
“Hey, Todd.” Charlie’s low voice carries over the forest trails. “Lend that to me when you’re done, will you?”
“Here, take it. M-make sure it gets back to me, though.”
Neil stays where he is, looking at the roots under his feet as they keep walking. Maybe he should’ve apologized. Maybe he should’ve left them behind after all. His thoughts are so loud, he doesn’t hear Todd approaching until he moves into his line of sight.
Neil rubs the heel of his hand over his eyes to smear any dampness. Todd moves closer, arms hanging at his sides. They’re both quiet for a moment.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it,” Todd whispers.
Neil is already shaking his head. “Your poem was good. It was really good, Todd.” He lifts his gaze and finds Todd’s expression just as fraught as his own. He sniffles. “Nolan asked me to spy on Mr. Keating.”
“What?”
“I—I’m supposed to tell Nolan if he does anything to…influence students.”
“Neil.” Todd’s breath shakes.
Neil seizes Todd’s sleeves and pushes into his space, suddenly frantic. “I wouldn’t say. I’d never tell them about this, please don’t think—”
“I know. I know. Neil.” Todd’s voice falters. He curls his fingers under Neil’s arms, holding him there. Tangible and deliberate. “You have to tell Mr. Keating.”
I’ll sit you down among my scripts, my costumes, my makeshift props. They’re in a pile on the floor, crumpled and dirt-stained. It might be uncomfortable, but it’s the only place no one’s touched yet. I don’t know where else you can go.
It’s snowing outside. Frost crawls across the windowpanes. The cold drifts in like a phantom passing through the walls. The dorm radiator has been running for an hour, but the blades are still lukewarm, and Neil can’t feel any heat where he’s perched at the end of Todd’s bed.
“…Neil?” Todd asks.
Neil wrenches his gaze away from the window and looks at him. Todd sits against his pillow, cross-legged and raising his eyebrows over the top of Neil’s script.
“Sorry,” Neil says. “Can I have the cue again?”
Todd’s eyes drop to the lines Neil can’t see. “Uh. Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.”
“Oh—Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook…” He recites Puck’s stanza with half-hearted inflections, leaving his hands on the blanket instead of gesticulating like he does in rehearsals.
Todd nods along with Neil’s lines and replies, “Thou see'st these lovers seek a place to fight…and the rest of it. Then, From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.”
“My fairy lord, this must be done with haste—” Neil glances out the window as he collects his next words. “For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger—” He pauses again, watching snow flurries distort the shadows beyond the glass. He frowns. This time, he can’t find the words anywhere.
“Come on, I’ve heard you say these lines in your sleep,” Todd murmurs.
“I know.” Neil covers his face with his hands. “And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger…”
Todd hesitates. “We said one read-through with no screw-ups.”
“I know.”
“Do you—do you want to start again?”
“No,” Neil says, more forceful than he wanted.
Silence gathers in the creases of Todd’s blanket, just as it does in the creases of Neil’s mind. No matter how much he calls for it, his next line won’t answer. He thinks about tomorrow night, standing on stage before a full house, seeing his father’s face in the crowd. Would it answer him then?
Something shifts over the mattress, and Todd’s foot presses soft against his thigh. Neil looks up. Todd’s doing that thing where he finds poetry in him that Neil didn’t know he could speak. But Neil doesn’t want to hear it.
“This is pointless,” he says, pushing off the mattress. “I should be sleeping.”
He wrestles out of his sweater, which he’d worn over his pajamas to keep warm, and throws it unceremoniously into his shelves. He can still feel Todd staring. He only turns around after he checks the time on his alarm clock and pulls back his blankets.
“Can I have the script back?” he asks, one hand outstretched.
Todd doesn’t move. “Your father was here,” he says quietly.
What little warmth Neil has left pools at his feet. He turns away.
“What did he do? Did he say anything to you?”
“I thought everyone was at dinner.”
“I—I saw him leaving. Neil—”
“He found out, alright?” Neil blurts. “He knows all about the play. He doesn’t even care that I got the lead. ‘You’re through with it,’ he said.”
“But you’re still going.”
“Yes. I don’t know.” He paces without rhythm or thought. “I can’t damn well quit on them, can I? There’s no understudy. No one else knows my lines.” He glances at his script, and a strained laugh comes out of him. “I suppose you do.”
“Don’t be stupid. Here.” Todd holds out the booklet. “You have to do it, Neil.”
“And what, he finds out I lied a second time? Someone’s going to tell him I performed.”
“You said he’s in Chicago for a week.”
“So what?” Neil’s laughing again, and he’s not sure if it makes him feel better or worse. “People will still talk when he gets back. You know what it’s like—everyone’s favorite topic of conversation is whatever their sons are doing.”
Todd doesn’t have anything to say to that, and Neil takes unwelcome pleasure in it. He scrapes a hand through his hair. “He’ll know,” he mutters. “He’ll know, and he’ll take it away like he does with everything else. Maybe—maybe if I quit, if I just leave it alone, at least it’s still there.”
“What are you saying, then? It’s not worth it?”
“Not if I don’t get to keep it,” Neil says vehemently, rounding on him.
The emotion on Todd’s face retreats, and he looks just as small and impassive as he did when Neil first shook his hand. Suddenly, they’re not talking about the play anymore.
“I’ve tried to,” Neil adds, desperation pushing the words out of him. “I hold on, but he’s—I can’t keep anything from him. He doesn’t listen, it doesn’t matter to him, he—he gets the last say every time.”
“Neil.”
“He takes everything I care about.” He’s pacing again. Hunching his shoulders. Pressing his nails into his palms. “Nothing is ever mine. It’s his. It’s his. And I’m so tired—”
“Neil.”
“—but I can’t let him take this too. I can’t—If he—If something happens—God, he’d kill me. I need—I need to—” He needs to breathe something other than stale school air. He needs a way out. His fingers find the windowsill, the rusted latch, and he pulls.
“Goddamn it, why won’t it open?” he cries, thick and trembling. “Todd, I can’t get it open—”
But Todd's hands are reaching for the hem of his sweater, tugging, grappling, manhandling him onto the bed. He’s still trying to talk, but he’s trying to breathe too, and Todd is saying his name over and over, and the sound of it makes him sob. Todd pulls him in with startling ferocity. After that, Neil can’t do anything else but cling to Todd’s sweater and say Todd’s name and hope it’s enough to keep him there.
There’s no room for you in the house. I’ve got no choice but to put you outside in the snow. I’ll draw the curtains so my father can’t look through the windows, and I’ll come out and see you. I think it’ll work. I think you’d stay out in the snow for me.