It was raining outside. The sky was painted grey as if it was in mourning.
Charlie stood outside Neil's door. Leaning one hand on the door's frame.
"Damn it, Neil," he said, "You need to talk to him,"
Charlie Dalton, rebellious slacker and flirter with both boys and girls, didn't elaborate on who 'him' was. He didn't need too. Neil knew anyway.
Neil shook his head. Sitting cross legged on the window sill, he was working his way through his part for 'Midsummer night's Dream,' Mouthing each word and trying too commit it too memory. For him there was something about Shakespeare's, if not ease, flow of writing that made his word's fun too read. Even if he had to read it a hundred times over.
"That's rich," Neil said. Neil looked up at Charlie, raising one eyebrow.
"It's been five months and you haven't talked to Knox about it yet?" He asked. Charlie bit his lip.
Charlie wished 'it,' wasn't what it was. 'It' could have been murder. Why wasn't it murder?
"So I'm no better at it than you are," Charlie signed, tongue in cheek. Neil nodded. He made a small noise of agreement under his breath and went back to reading.
"OK. So we make a deal. You tell Todd, I'll tell Knox. Dead Poets honour," The smile that snaked onto Charlie's face was a smug one. Neil thought about it for a second. He couldn't turn Charlie down, he wouldn't hear the end of it.
"Contract signed," Neil mused, "Dead Poet's honour," He said the words differently to the way Charlie had said them. They slipped off his tongue like honey. Resonating through the hollowed room.
"Don't break it," Charlie warned and with that he turned and walked away. Closing the door lightly behind him.
Sitting in the comfort of his room, Neil turned his head. He stared out of the window. The rain thundered down, wrecking everything in it's path.
With a shiver, Neil drew his tweed jacket further up his bruised shoulders. His lips fell open.
"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind," he said. Nobody heard him.
The punters were yet to clap.
