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Charlie sat alone at the bus stop; it had started raining as he cycled there, he had bought them tickets for the late bus, and he had used the cover of darkness to sneak away, climbing out of his window and retrieving his bike from the side of the garage where he had left it ready for him to leave. He sat tapping his foot on the ground anxiously as the rain fell around him, and caught his reflection in a puddle, Charlie allowed himself to smile slightly at himself, sheltered slightly under the cover of the bus stop, Charlie considered the future he was about to step into. There were fifteen minutes left until the Greyhound for New York would arrive and he and Knox would climb aboard and begin their new life, leaving Vermont behind for good. He had left most of what he owned at home, travelling light was essential, but he carried with him his saxophone in its case and a suitcase too, and atop his head, he wore the black beret that Knox had once told him he looked handsome in. The streetlights glowed along the street and Charlie found himself oddly comforted by their presence like they were lining the streets to say goodbye to him. For a moment it felt like it was all going to be okay.
It had been Charlie’s idea to leave, he had always wanted to get out of Vermont, had never really felt like it was truly his home. When they were just kids, he would invent all these ideas about how he and Knox, and at the time Neil too, could leave behind the state they grew up in. As children it meant abstract imaginations about how they could be astronauts or cowboys in the Wild West, now it meant simply packing up and leaving quietly in the night, seizing the day and heading into the city. More mundane than what he had dreamed as a child, but exciting, nonetheless.
He had smiled up at Knox and said, “I’ve got a plan to get us out of here” and Knox had given him a loving smile back, chuckling slightly, he replied a little sarcastically, “You always have a plan for something, Charlie.”
Knox was not as idealistic as Charlie, perhaps it was because of the way they grew up; Charlie’s mother had come from new money and the West Coast, she had a more relaxed view of life and the Dalton’s would be happy no matter what Charlie did with his life. But the Overstreet’s were old money, and with old money came the responsibility for Knox to fill the shoes of his predecessors and make it big in the world. They had talked about it before, leaving and going away together, just them against the world. But now it was perhaps more complicated by the fact that Charlie was not the only person in Knox’s life anymore. Knox had a girlfriend now; he and Charlie had always been a secret thing, and no one ever knew the extent of their relationship, not even Neil- though Charlie realised later that he probably suspected. Even if they were not something official, just one-off trysts and arms to fall into on bad days and quiet nights, it still hurt when Knox began to talk of the girl he had met.
Charlie had been in love for as long as he had known the other boy, and gradually over time they had edged closer and closer together until they eventually did collide. Sometimes Charlie felt so close to Knox that he thought they were the same person, as though they had merged into one being. Knox wouldn’t admit how he really felt though, and so they lived on a knife-edge, constantly looking over their shoulder so as not to be seen and Charlie would have to pretend it didn’t hurt when Knox would act like he didn’t know his darkest secrets or the freckles on his back and how his arms would shiver with goosebumps whenever Charlie ran a hand down them.
They continued like this even while Knox was chasing after Chris. He understood it to an extent, they had never really talked about feelings and Charlie had made no claim on him. But it sometimes made him feel like he was just something Knox could use and move on from.
“I’m serious this time, we could go.” He had looked down at his feet, it was a rarity for Charlie to ever be unsure of himself, he was normally so confident and self-assured, and he never faltered in his step. But something about that moment had felt monumental, like the question he was asking Knox would determine the route their lives took. And it was true, for the first time he really meant it, he really wanted to leave Vermont behind and go to the city where they would be free to be themselves. It was because of Neil, of course, his death had put a lot of things into perspective for Charlie, Neil could not do what he wanted but Charlie still could do it for him. “I think… I think Neil would want us to seize the day.”
“Neil’s gone, Charlie.” Knox spoke softly, and the words had put a metallic taste in Charlie’s mouth, like blood, he was still not used to any of the Poets acknowledging so directly that they had lost one of their own. It didn’t feel right that they should experience the death of a friend so early in their lives, they had barely even stepped foot into the world, and they had already felt the full power of its cruelty. Neither of them liked to linger on thoughts of Neil too much, they were as thick as thieves, all of them were, and he still felt a little hollow whenever the boy was mentioned.
“Even more reason to do it, because he can’t” Charlie knew all Neil had wanted to do after graduation was move to New York and pursue a career on the stage, endless sleepovers over the decade they had known each other had been filled with long conversations about their dreams and goals in life, to the point that Charlie felt he knew Neil’s soul like it was an extension of his own body. It had been weighing on him, since his death, this phantom limb of longing for something new. He felt a responsibility to his friend to fulfil his dreams and seize all the days that he couldn’t.
Ever practical, Knox asked the all-important question, “What would we do?”, they would be eighteen-year-olds alone in a city they had never been to before, Charlie might get some money from his parents somehow, but Knox would have to cut off contact or they would come and have him shipped home. And while deep down Knox loved Charlie, he was not sure he was ready to give up the stability he was provided in Vermont, he had a girl and he and Charlie were continuing as normal.
Knox did not like to consider the morality of seeing both Charlie and Chris simultaneously, he had meant to make a decision that December about who he was going to choose. If he was honest, Knox was never going to choose Charlie, it was going to be Chris who he chose when the snow started to cover the ground, but then suddenly Neil was gone, and he was not ready to risk losing Charlie too by ending it. If anything, they fell more into each other’s arms for comfort, Chris could only understand so much- she had not known Neil personally, and so often the two boys would find themselves curled up together, consoling one another and one thing would lead to another and Knox just could not let go.
Charlie had continued to lay out his plan, “We would get jobs, an apartment too… see what it’s really like to live, to be alive”
“Can we not” Knox made quotation marks with his fingers “‘be alive’ here? They’d send people looking for us.”
“My parents wouldn’t, they would get it.”, He looked at his feet again “Why I want to go.”
Knox shuffled his feet then, “Mine wouldn’t understand.”
“Screw them Knox!”, Charlie said with a little too much force, “There is a lot about you they wouldn’t get, if we go- if we go to New York, it won’t matter that they don’t understand, because we would be free!”
Knox had given in then, and Charlie assumed that he had begun to see that perhaps this was an option. But he didn’t know that it would be different if Neil was still around. Charlie was aware that Neil’s death was the catalyst for his decision to take this plan seriously for once, and that if it hadn’t happened, he would still be content to stay in Vermont, if only for Neil’s sake. But he didn’t know that Neil’s death affected this in another way, Knox was planning to end it with him before that December night. So, when Knox caved in and said yes, he didn’t question it. He didn’t think that there was any uncertainty left, perhaps it was naivety or perhaps it was just blind love, but he thought that this was Knox finally choosing him, and maybe he was too overjoyed to see the cracks already present.
In Charlie’s eyes, Knox was now allowing himself to accept what Charlie was to him. In New York it was possible for them to reinvent themselves, and no one would know who they were or who their families were. In particular, no one would know who Knox was, and Charlie knew that would be liberating. The Overstreet’s were well known around their town and Vermont, everywhere he stepped someone would recognise him, but in New York? Well, the two of them would be practically invisible.
So that was how the plan had begun, and over the next few months they had slowly put it into action. They began earning money by doing odd jobs, Charlie stored all that he had earned in a biscuit tin he kept under his bed, pushed right up against the dorm room wall so that it escaped detection during room checks, and every night he would count the money out to make sure none of it had gone missing.
They carried on as normal, and Charlie thought it was finally going to be just him and Knox, at least until Todd arrived in the Autumn for college- they had asked him if he wanted to come, but oddly he had said no. Charlie thought it was because he wasn’t ready to leave Welton and the last few traces of Neil behind yet, no matter how much he hated it. In his mind, Knox was going to end it with Chris before they left. But as time went on, and the Easter break got nearer and nearer, and Knox was still going out to see her every other night, but he would always come back to Charlie’s arms at the end of the evening. He let it slide, even though it hurt because he knew Knox loved her too and he might as well let her have these last few months. He just trusted that if it came to it, Knox would choose him.
Well, how wrong he was. Perhaps he should have known sooner, realised when Knox began to pale at any mention of their plans. They stay up talking in bed and Charlie would begin to think up all sorts of ideas for things that he wanted to do in New York, the museums he wanted to see, how he wanted to skate at the Rockefeller centre at Christmas like he had seen Truman Capote do in LIFE magazine, but Knox had started to steer the conversation away from New York more and more. He had also begun to see Chris more, now he went to the Noel’s almost every night after school- they let him because the Noel’s were a respectable family and Knox’s father had a word with Nolan about it, about how Knox needed to make connections. Again, Charlie chalked it up to Knox just wanting to spend his remaining time with her, and once again he convinced himself he was okay with that. He would have Knox forever after this, this would all feel as short as a blink in five-years’ time.
But here he was, sat alone on a damp wooden bench beneath a bus stop shelter and Knox was nowhere in sight. They had agreed to meet here, and Charlie had faith Knox would come. After all, Knox had never told him their great escape wasn’t going ahead. They decided to leave during Easter break, it would be easier to slip away from their own homes and it would not cause as much of a scene, Charlie didn’t care much whether a scene was caused or not, but Knox knew if he snuck away from home his father would look for him less openly, thus buying them more time, than if they snuck away from Welton where all their classmates and teachers would know as soon as dawn broke. His father would want to keep it under wraps and not cause a scandal, and he wouldn’t be able to do that if Welton knew- someone would snitch to their parents the ‘gossip’ and then the whole of Vermont would know about the missing Overstreet kid. So that was why they had waited, but deep-down Charlie also suspected it was for Chris also and he felt a little bitter that they had had to wait longer.
The bus would be there in five minutes and Knox had still not arrived, Charlie tried to rationalise it all, maybe he had taken a wrong turn on his bike and got lost, maybe he had been caught. But the more he thought about it to more the idea that Knox was abandoning him crept into his mind, and soon Charlie was piecing together all the moments over the last few weeks where Knox had seemed more distant and closed off. He began to realise that he was, in fact, being abandoned and that in the end, Knox had chosen this life of conformity over him. He cursed himself slightly was having so little faith in his lover, but he couldn’t kid himself any longer, he was always going to be second best.
It wasn’t too late; he could pick up his belongings and return home- creep back in and pretend nothing had ever happened. But the humiliation was setting in now and Charlie knew he could never face Knox again, and he would have to if he stayed in Vermont.
So, when he heard the low rumble of the bus as it turned the corner onto the street, he stood up from the bench and adjusted his beret, the tears on his cheeks looked just like the rainwater that was soaking him to the bone, and he wiped unsuccessfully at them to try to dry them away before he picked up his suitcase and saxophone from where they rested against the foot of the bench. As the bus pulled to a stop in front of him, he took in a deep breath and whispered to himself those sacred words Keating had taught them, ‘Carpe diem’, before the doors open and he climbed aboard.
The window fogged up as he watched the bus stop and Vermont disappear, the raindrops sliding down the window mirrored the tears that were still falling on his face, but he closed his eyes and forced himself to think of the better days to come.