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DRESS
(( — DEAD POETS SOCIETY — ))
—chapter xviii. of grief and persevering love
tw: mention of suicide and grief
LORAINE WASN'T allowed to go back to her room all day. nolan refused to let her out of his sight. even if thomas swore, in her place, that she hadn't planned to jump out of the window
nolan didn't believe him. loraine didn't say another word, not having the strength to discuss anything. and ultimately she didn't care if she was sitting in her fathers office or on her bed.
she later stayed the night in thomas room, her brother having to promise their father not to let her out of his sight. thomas nodded and repeated that he would take care of her, considering that nolan had enough to do already, making calls and arranging the schools own funeral and church service for neil.
thomas didn't want loraine sitting in the room where nolan was arranging a funeral.
it had been set for the next morning. and even though thomas did not believe that loraine truly tried to jump, he still thought it would be better to not leave her alone right now.
knox had shown up at his door in the evening, asking about loraine and thomas realized that more than just a few people had witnessed the window debacle and had spread a story of their own.
knox had also told him about charlie's state, after thomas had to swear to not mention it to anyone.
to knox' luck thomas was lenient considering what had happened these past few hours and he did not tell his father, thanks to knox giving him the alcohol.
he had assured knox, that loraine was alright. at least physically and even let him in, so he could check for himself. he had sat at loraine's bedside for half an hour, talking in a soft whisper.
thomas knew that loraine had great friends. but they really were great after all.
he had thought that he had had great friends too, but the moment that it mattered and life got hard, they had turned their back on him. even though he had only been sixteen at the time and really needed them.
loraine's friends on the other hand, seemed to be there even more during the hard times. especially neil.
thomas knew why loraine was taking all this so hard. not only was neil her best and longest friend, but he was also the person she most wanted to talk to when something awful happened.
now, something awful had happened to neil.
thomas felt like he had failed his role as a brother. he couldn't mend her pain and somehow he felt like he was also in some sense neil's brother. that was what knowing someone since their birth did to you.
knox kissed loraine's forehead, before he got up from the chair. he patted thomas' shoulder as he was leaving.
thomas caught knox' eyes, and for the first time he realized how unfair it was that someone who was still a kid, did already have to mourn his friends death. a friend that was still a kid himself
thomas closed the door behind knox and sat on the bed. he took loraine's hand. "i'm so sorry" he said "i'm not sure if i even said that yet"
loraine tried to smile and she nodded "thank you"
"he will be dearly missed"
"i know" her voice broke but she was able to hold back her tears. "welton actually felt like my home" she mumbled. thomas squeezed her hand. "now it's just a school full of boys"
"it is still your home" thomas assured "it just feels different"
"it feels unimportant" loraine said "neil was important. i didn't even notice how good we had it until now"
"i think a lot of people feel that way after time"
"death shouldn't be a possibility at seventeen" loraine mumbled "you feel invincible, because getting old and dying is so far away" she looked up to meet her brothers eyes "but death doesn't care about your age. otherwise neil would still be here"
"he was way too young to die"
"he died for nothing" loraine curled a piece of hair around her finger "everything is worse and he had so much to do"
"i don't think he thought the same" thomas said softly "you recognize his potential, because you love him, but it seems that in his head, there was nothing left"
"i was left" her voice broke and this time she wasn't able to hold back the tears "i know it's foolish and selfish to think this way, but he still had me, he still had us"
"it's not selfish" thomas mumbled as he squeezed her hand. loraine thought back to the night before in mr perry's car, when she squeezed neil's hand in a similar way, assuring that everything would be alright.
now nothing was alright, but when she closed her eyes, thomas hand felt a bit like neil's did. she tried to remember the warmth of this touch, and she wondered how you could so quickly forget something as important as that.
"i wish i could've helped him" loraine admitted "i feel like everything is frozen. if i could turn back time—"
"you can't" thomas shook his head "and i can't either. even though we all wish we could change things, it's not possible. and i know that it hurts even more when you think about what you could've done differently, over and over again"
"how do you know?" loraine whispered
"i know because of mum"
unlike loraine, thomas remembered his mother well. he had been sixteen, and there were things he could not talk about to this day, not even with his sister
"there are always things you regret when you lose someone" he explained "but ultimately nothing you could've done would have changed it, or prevented it"
"i don't know" loraine shrugged
"but i know" thomas nodded "it is not your fault, do you hear me?"
"i told him all my problems, maybe that's why he didn't tell me about his. he didn't even tell me about his father being against his acting, i thought mr perry had allowed it. that was what neil told me, and i believed him"
"he would've done it, even if you told him not to" thomas reminded "you knew neil, he was persistent and he would've done anything to get on that stage"
"you should've seen him" thomas noticed the far away look in her eyes. similar to this morning, like she was trying to remember something. but loraine didn't have to try. she could see it clearly. neil on the big stage, acting like he had never done anything else. "he was amazing"
"i know" thomas smiled and for the first time since she heard the news, loraine was able to smile back
"he would've been great" thomas was sure that neil's future would've been bright if there had been enough time.
"he would travel around the world, playing in movie after movie" loraine continued her thought "he would've had endless fans. everyone would've loved him, if love just could've saved him"
"you think neil did what he did, because he wasn't loved enough?" thomas asked surprised.
loraine shrugged. "maybe"
"that's not true" thomas shook his head repeatedly and loraine looked at him in worry by the sudden seriousness in his voice "neil was loved by all of you, so much, it would've sufficed for a lot more than just one lifetime"
"then why wasn't our love enough?"
"this isn't about love, lori" thomas brushed through her hair. it was almost scary how much she resembled their mother. and it were exactly those moments that he missed her most. she would've been able to tell loraine exactly what she needed to hear.
loraine was, after all, still just a seventeen year old girl. thomas did not know that to say to make it better, to make it understandable for her.
how do you explain a boys death?
"love is worth so much" thomas said finally "and he knew that you all loved him, lori" he nodded "but sometimes, for a short misguided moment, the distress is bigger than anything else. that does not make your love for him worthless or unimportant though. you can't look back and examine every moment you two shared with each other, the bad moments don't cancel out the good ones, but we tend to forget that it is the same the other way around. the good doesn't just make the bad vanish"
loraine nodded at her brother and for the first time she could understand, not that it was right, but that she couldn't change anything to fix neil, not right now. she had been his best friend, but she had also been a child, it hadn't been her duty to save him.
"love is persevering, that's why grieving hurts so bad" thomas kissed her forehead. "goodnight, lori"
loraine smiled softly and nodded. talking to her brother had just helped her so much in a span of minutes, making the concept of her grief tangible and real.
she clasped her hand around the ribbon in her hair. the braid had pretty much dissolved, just a single piece of hair still wrapped. it was one of the ribbons neil had given her a few days ago.
it was red and soft and it was everything she had from him right now. she took it out of her hair and knotted it around her arm. not too firmly to hurt, but firmly enough that it wouldn't fall of.
she held it to her cheek and slowly, but surely she drifted to sleep.
and in her dream neil was well. and even though it was just a dream, that was enough for her tonight.
A/N
writing these chapters literally made me mourn neil all over again, but at the same time it was so healing lmaooo
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