What We Stay Alive For

Chapter Three: The Previously Known

30 August, 1959. Later.

Once their suitcases are in hand and that once-there familiarity with each other begins to blossom, Todd and Neil go on to find their dorm room. It's easy. Todd remembers exactly where to go, what shortcuts are available, and how to miss the hallway it lies in completely. Because he is able to remember this, he assumes he may be able to find his classrooms as well. His anxiety towards this deplets.

However, Todd's natural anxieties towards most other social situations does not fail to show its ugly face. His feet drag more and more against the wood floor with every hit of his suitcase against his thigh. He gives sad, unneeded apologies to anyone he feels he is in the way of and gives tiny waves to those he remembers. He does so, despite them not knowing him yet and, yes, it results in receiving many weirded-out glances and confused waves back.

It might be the overstimulation and it might be his repressed anger or his apparent confusion but Todd has to stop walking. Neil doesn't mean to not notice this. Todd's positive that if he had noticed, Neil would apologize ten times over with the practiced politeness his father had taught him to have. Knowing this, Todd can't be upset that he doesn't.

He only needs to take a breath. That's it. But it's so noisy and that adds to the growing headache that pounds its cruel hello into his skull. He watches Neil smile at everyone that passes him. They don't look at him funny because they know that they know him. Todd wants to shout "hey! You know me too! You know me!" He doesn't.

Neil disappears into their room. A once-known, once-hated Richard Cameron enters Todd's view and leans into the entryway of the dorm. His wrist balances him by holding his position against the doorframe. He talks into the room, a grin to Neil that makes Todd feel queasy.

Todd clenches his fist tight around the handle of his suitcase, forces a short, tight breath out, and treads on. Cameron hadn't done anything yet, but Todd knew he would in four months. Was it fair to hate him already and risk the dynamic they once had? Probably not. Todd could play fair, but he wasn't going to let Cameron steal his time with Neil now.

Cameron doesn't notice Todd right away, blocking him from entering his own room. His grin has turned mischievous and he says the words that stung Todd all those years ago. "Hey, I heard you got the new kid. Looks like a stiff!"

In his twenty-seven year old mind, Todd would recall this memory and swear that it no longer bothered him. He was a bit stiff ast sixteen. And it's not like he ever saw or knew what Cameron went and did after they graduated. He didn't care and Cameron didn't matter. But, Todd wasn't once sixteen, right now he was sixteen. His emotions promised to match this born-again youthfulness. He feels like he could cry, Todd does. But he also wants to punch him.

Todd clears his throat and Cameron turns slightly to face him. His eyes go from suitcase to Todd to suitcase and, using his context clues, he gathers that this is the so-called stiff he was just poking fun at. "Oops." Cameron says like he'd never mean to hurt Todd at all and hurries away, assumedly to his own room.

Neil's smiling when Todd sees him. It's cheerful and committed to kindness. It's a smile to assure Todd and he knows it. Todd doesn't indulge him and passes by, not smiling back. Instead, he sets his suitcase on his bed and opens it, busying himself with his belongings.

"Listen, don't listen to Cameron," Neil explains, "he was born with his foot in his mouth." He hits Todd playfully with a bunch of paper he had tucked away in his blazer pocket.

"Must be a big foot." Todd says, unable to keep the quick-witted thought to himself like he, too, was born like that.

"Ha!" Neil barks out a laugh that doesn't feel like it's out of pity or well-mannered behavior. It makes Todd beam.