SING ME TO SLEEP -- neil perry

chapter eleven: what if i'm worthless?

First of all, thank you to my wonderful friend @glassferns for editing this when I literally had no energy to. this chapter would not have come out today without her help :)

Second, fair warning: this chapter is a sad one

tw // depression, self-harm, anxiety, panic attacks, child abuse

I want you all to take care of yourselves, please don't read unless you are completely sure you're going to be okay because this is some heavy content. 

summary of the chapter for those who don't feel comfortable reading- Neil receives a letter from his father telling him to bring his grades up and that there is a girl who he thinks Neil should meet and possibly end up with. Neil gets extremely upset and panics. He's unable to think, but at the end of the chapter,  someone comes into the room and calms him down, then lies down next to him when he falls asleep.

Neil looked down at the address on the letter he'd received that morning. Mail was delivered to the students every day, but Neil's mother had already written to him recently, so why..?

Neil turned the envelope over to look at the sender's name, and his blood ran cold. Neil only ever received mail from his mother during the school year, and he always gladly responded to it. They loved each other after all, even if the overbearingness of his father made it harder to show.

However, the letter in his hands bore the return address of "Thomas Perry" on a little sticker. His father hadn't even bothered to handwrite it, it seemed. Neil's hands shook as he opened the letter. Receiving a letter from his father like this in the middle of the school year could only mean one of two things; either he'd found yet another extracurricular activity that would "look good on his transcripts," or Neil had managed to mess up yet another thing without even noticing. He seemed to be doing that a lot, lately. Mr. Perry liked to be kept very informed about his son's life, and had even asked Mr. Nolan to keep personal tabs on him. Neil had seen the letter on his principal's desk one day for a consultation, with "Mr. Thomas perry" written in neat ink on the front. It had made his stomach churn.

Neil's mind raced through all the misdemeanors he could have possibly committed that year; surely it wasn't about grades. The worst grade he had gotten this year was an 89 on an AP Biology test, and everyone knew that was the hardest science class that the school offered. A brief moment of panic flashed across Neil's mind as he wondered if he'd been spotted sneaking out for one of the Dead Poet's Society meetings. They had had three meetings at this point, although the weather was getting colder and the early December wind made sitting in the drafty cave hardly enjoyable. Charlie insisted they keep the meetings going though, and his only explanation when Meeks and Pitts had protested had been to yell "Dead Poets honor!" and whoop loudly. The panic about this passed quickly though, when Neil realized they would have spoken to him first if this was the case and he would be receiving far more than a letter. Mr. Perry himself would have surely shown up at the school in all his pomp and class and Neil probably would have been expelled. He couldn't let that happen.

The not knowing what could possibly be in the letter somehow made it worse. It meant that whatever he read was going to be something that his father had schemed up all on his own, and was therefore going to be extremely evil. Probably some sort of medieval torture-- Neil laughed to himself at this, even as his palms began to sweat. After staring at the letter in his hand for several more moments and considering simply ripping it up and throwing the pieces in the communal fire, Neil decided he had stalled long enough and opened the letter.