wherefore art thou » dead poets society

salut d'amour

"eva have you heard?"

"stop calling me eva."

"have you heard?"

"heard what."

"knox is interested in a girl!"

"that's lovely for him."

"eva!"

she slammed her trigonometry textbook close with such vigor, the chipping ebony table groaned and shook violently. two pale hands slammed down upon neil's shoulders, gripping tightly until neil swore he felt bones snapping somewhere below the thick pullover he was wearing. he gulped nervously, eyes looking anywhere but into the black hole drawing him in.

"neil fucking perry. i do not appreciate you addressing me as anything other than evaline keating. if you continue to call me eva i swear on my mother's name i will gut you and feed your entrails to the watchman's dogs. am i making myself clear?" she barked with red-flushed cheeks and blazing eyes. her temper was already rising high thanks to the trigonometry work that was now lying in crumpled pages and a notebook that had been angrily thrown at the ground.

niel's shoulders were stiff and drawn upwards, brown eyes enlarged and staring, jaw dropped and frozen. evaline blinked several times, her hold on him loosening and she drew back like a scared animal at his response. he kept staring, eyes boring into her face as if he saw something there. like she reminded him of something and he couldn't quite place his finger on it.

but then he did.

"... you're keating's daughter...! that makes complete sense!"

realization is a funny thing. sometimes it dawns on you slowly, like the tide creeping up to you on tiny cat feet, all soft and gradual. other times it's like running right into a brick wall at full speed. evaline felt the latter at that moment as neil's unhinged jaw dropped even lower and began morphing, not unlike some mutated alien creature, into a wild grin. she wanted to wipe that stupid look off his face.

"shut up. you can't let anyone know."

neil leaned in keenly, eyes glittering and all, "you have to tell me about it."

evaline released a frustrated noise. with a swipe of her hand, she snatched up neil's wrist and began lugging the, quite frankly, much taller boy out of the room and towards the dorms and didn't stop until she reached her own room. the slammed the door shut and locked it, not once, but twice. neil pulled out her chair and sat himself down and for the longest time they just stared. her eyes bore into his and there was a sort of unspeakable peace in that moment as their eyes spoke. words were too loud for the serenity of the space and movement was too busy for the stillness of the space. eyes and expression — they spoke of things the english language could only hope to capture is mere letters. and at that moment, he understood the panic that flashed in her deep eyes. it came like a sweeping storm, churning up anything else that stood it its path and neil stood right in the middle of it.

"... my mother lives in london. she plays cello. i'm an only child. i came here after my father was employed as a sort of test run for nolan because... well... welton might start accepting girls, too, if all runs smoothly with me this year. i mean, i probably only got accepted because my father's a professor not because of violin or art. we were meant to keep it on the down low and that's why my father has been especially picky with me in class as to not let me off easy for being his child. if everyone finds out, my dad could get fired. it's practically signing my own expulsion papers. it's a jolly good time, i'm telling you. it's been god damn lonely not even being able to talk to my own father."

and neil swore he saw something in those eyes of hers. the glistening of tears beading along her lash line. she stared and stared and the storm kept roaring and screeching until he couldn't bear to watch the crumbling of her porcelain face. the cracks began to form and pieces started falling out of place until all he could do was hold them together. hold her.

"i'm scared." she seemed to say. and understandably so. certainly, very few children would want to be in a position of jeopardizing their father's livelihood - scratch that, their family's livelihood. and to look at your own father as if he were but a stranger was no easy feat for evaline keating who was raised on afternoon readings of walt whitman and her father's fire-place hot chocolate before bed type of caring. not so much in the case of neil perry who would much rather see his father as a stranger.

"hey, it's okay," he cooed, combing his fingers through her hair. she stiffened at his contact, freezing at his touch. she was stiff, awkward, as if she didn't know how to respond to this foreign contact. he was hugging wood, really. neil drew back and took one more look into evaline's eyes. "eva, do you trust me?"

"don't fucking call me that you absolute twat."

regardless of the tenseness that seized her shoulders, there was something comforting about his touch. it was something akin to toasted marshmallows on a cold day and warm beverages. something akin to soft blankets and a glowing fireplace. something akin to the comfort her father would provide her as a child. but also something akin to electricity, like hot lava. and evaline had a sudden craving for that warmth in neil's cinnamon eyes and honey-coated smile. she softened into his embrace and his arms tightened around her frame.

"i trust you, neil."

and somewhere in the dorms of welton, a couple rooms down, a heart was breaking. it was splintering and todd's heart was bleeding through his shirt and all over the pristine white bedsheets. unbeknownst to evaline and neil, his door was wide open and he witnessed, with a funny tightness in his chest he couldn't quite describe, eva running down the hall, hand in hand with neil into her room.

todd didn't know how to fix all the heartstrings in the chest that had been torn loose.