EVERMORE | DEAD POETS SOCIETY

SEVENTEEN!

"TODD! TODD!" Rebetta bursted through their apartment with papers in her hand. Todd's head rose up from the kitchen. He knew Rebetta always got this excited, that was just how Rebetta is. "Come to the living room, quick!"

Ten years had passed since Todd Anderson and Rebetta Carmichael met at the deranged Welton Academy. After they graduated, both of them attended NYU along with Charlie. All three of them were worried about drifting away from each other. But turns out that never happened. Even though Charlie was a business major and the other two were English majors. They always made it work.

Of course they all had their different friend groups, but they always knew where their priorities lay. The three of them had a bond like no other, all of them had been through the same situations, the same kind of struggles. One thing that Rebetta found out in the last ten years was the fact that she loved New York City.

It was nothing like Vermont and it most certainly was nothing like Iowa. It felt like that's where she belonged. Todd thought the same thing. He felt a bit more open there, like he could be himself. He had an estranged relationship with his parents, as he tried to hide his sexuality away from them.

It was 1969. Homosexuality was still a big no no. A lot of people in his society looked upon it as a disease, some kind of... problem. But Todd never understood why. He just wanted to love who he loved. He always knew he liked boys, way before he moved to New York. He knew all the way back when he was attending Welton.

The first person that Todd came out to was Rebetta. It was in the spring of 1961, their freshman year of college. He knew he couldn't bottle it up anymore, so he wanted to tell the person that he could trust the most. His best friend.

He did fear that Rebetta wasn't going to look at him the same. He feared that he was never going to talk to him. But, when he told her, She just shrugged her shoulders and smiled. He questioned her, wondering why she wasn't freaking out or unfriending him. She didn't care. She loved Todd for who he was, she didn't care about who she loved. That was his choice and it didn't bother her.

In Rebetta's love life, it was somewhat complicated. She had a few boyfriends throughout college. There was James, who she dated during her junior year of college. She broke up with him because she couldn't imagine a future with him. Then there was Richard, her current boyfriend at the job she currently worked at. He wasn't the best, however... he made her somewhat happy. She didn't make her feel alive like she wanted to feel.

She hadn't seen Neil Perry in a decade. None of them had heard from him since the play at Henley Hall in 1959. As the years went on, Rebetta held onto hope. But the hope was slipping away. Maybe the universe was telling her it wasn't meant to be. That maybe, Neil Perry moved on with his life. He probably found someone new, got married, had a few kids and now was living in the suburbs while he finished up medical school. Maybe, Mr. Perry finally got what he wanted and brainwashed his son.

Todd carried his glass of wine in his hand as he walked into their shared living room. "What Betta, did you like kill someone?" He asked, looking at her with crazy eyes.

    "Even better." She smiled. "I'm going to sneak my article into the New York paper."

    He spit some of his wine back into his glass and looked at her. "You? Sneak your article? Into the paper?" He asked and she nodded with excitement. "Betta are you serious?."

    She sighed, plopping her body on the couch. "Okay. Maybe it's a bit crazy and unethical.. But they refused multiple times to put my article in the paper because my boss says that nobody will care that I am exposing a boarding school. Well. All I have to do is put it underneath a different alias."