I saw a version of this post were someone said they maybe purposefully didn’t make him write a letter to show that he wasn’t thinking straight when he died and didn’t consider how his suicide would affect the people around him, especially Todd, Charlie and Mr. Keating
So, I thought I’d write a little something about how this might have gone (tw: attempted suicide, gun usage)
Neil Perry is walking down the stairs of his parent’s house. They are asleep. He can’t wake them up. Not now. Not now that he made his decision. He tries to remember which steps squeak, where the carpet ends and where the light switches are. Neil Perry can’t navigate his parent’s house in the dark. You should know every corner of your home, shouldn’t you? But he stoppes calling this place home years ago.
He still knows where his father keeps his gun. He always has. Why keep a weapon in your desk? he used to ask himself. When he was younger, he sometimes dreamed a madman would break into the house and kill all of them with the gun. But those times are over.
Neil Perry moves like a ghost. He sits down on his father’s chair. He takes the key and slowly turns it around. In the drawer is his escape plan. His one way ticket out of this mess. It’s the only solution. Neil can’t do it. He can’t be who his father want’s him to be. Neil won’t waste his life. If he can’t live for the applause, thousands of great lifes, if he can never see the other poets again, then he doesn’t want it. He takes the gun out of the drawer. It feels so light in his hands.
Shouldn’t his heart be racing? Shouldn’t his hands shake, shouldn’t they try to stop him? It’s the only way. Slowly, calmly, Neil curls his finger around the trigger. He moves the hand up to his head. The barrel touches his crown, Puck’s crown. Neil won’t return it. He will stay Puck forever.
Puck, not Neil. He can’t be Neil Perry anymore. Neil Perry is trapped.
Soon, he will be free. Straight and fast.
He feels the cold metal on his temple. He closes his eyes.
He opens them again. His father has a desk set. What is it doing, sitting here, bringing memories?
Todd, standing outside the theatre, snow falling around him. Growing smaller and smaller, fading away. Neil wishes he could have seen him, stood infront of him, heared his voice. One last time. But now, it’s too late. Just another thing that went terribly wrong.
His finger is still curled around the trigger.
Todd Anderson hated his desk set. Todd Anderson was always writing, back then, when he was Neil Perry and as free as you can be. Todd Anderson left notes on his desk, gave him short poems to keep in his pocket. He traced words on Neil Perry’s back and wrote on his arms. When Neil Perry looked at Todd Anderson’s messy handwriting, it felt like a kiss.
He can’t leave without saying goodbye. He grabs a pen and his father’s stationary. Perfect, expensive. He will ruin the plain surface with egoistic ink. How fitting.
He doesn’t know what to write. Goodbye, maybe. I hope you understand. This is the only way. Sorry for leaving.
Because that’s what’s going to happen, right? Neil Perry will be gone and Todd Anderson’s room will be empty when he wakes up.
It’s the only way. But Todd won’t like having to wake up alone.
He finds words. Stupid words. But it’s like he can see them all one last time, and by the time he’s done, his hands are trembling.
I wanted to live deliberately.
He is done saying goodbye.
His heart is beating faster now. Straight and fast. He won’t have to feel this pain. No more. Cold metal on his temple, his finger around the trigger. Feeling numb.
Neil is sitting at his father’s desk.
Pain. Why isn’t the pain gone? It was supposed to. Straight and fast. He doesn’t understand.
A man. His father. Why is he running? Why is he screaming? Why is he still here?
Neil missed. There is a bullet in the wall and Neil is still alive.
His parents are crying. They are reading the note.
Not for you, Neil thinks. For Todd.
