❛ Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Let's do it, let's fall in love. ❜

DEAD POETS SOCIETY
chapter twelve

"TO CHRIS," KNOX began, looking up from his paper to find Eliza staring encouragingly in the chair she had pulled into the sea of boys. He took a deep breath, nodding to himself before continuing. 

⠀⠀⠀"I see a sweetness in her smile.
⠀⠀⠀Bright light shines from her eyes
⠀⠀⠀But life is complete; contentment is mine,
⠀⠀⠀Just knowing that..."

⠀⠀⠀A couple of his friends snickered at how caught up he'd gotten over a girl.

⠀⠀⠀"Just knowing that..." Knox tried to continue, but the boys continued to laugh over him. Discouraged, Knox flung his hand to his side out of embarrassment, finishing, "she's alive." He crumpled the poem up and turned to Keating, "Sorry, Captain. It's stupid."

⠀⠀⠀Knox walked back to his desk, Eliza taking his hand in reassurance as he walked by, and Charlie slapped him on the back reassuringly when he slumped onto his desk.

⠀⠀⠀"No, no, it's not stupid. It's a good effort. It touched on one of the major themes, love. A major theme not only in poetry but life," Keating assured Knox as he walked down the aisle, standing at Richard Hopkins desk, looking down at him. "Mr. Hopkins, you were laughing. You're up."

⠀⠀⠀Richard stood languidly from his desk and took his place center stage. Slowly, he unfolded the paper from his pocket and read his poem with no urgency at all.

⠀⠀⠀"The cat... sat... on the mat," he read, shrugging his shoulders as he walked back to his seat as his friends snickered and nodded in approval as if the stupid attempt was at all cool.

⠀⠀⠀"Congratulations, Mr. Hopkins!" Keating cheered, making his way back to Richard's desk. "Yours is the first to ever have a negative score on the Pritchard scale," he informed, gaining a loud laugh from the boys. "We're not laughing at you. We're laughing near you," Keating assured with a smug smile. "I don't mind that your poem had a simple theme. Sometimes the most beautiful poetry can be about simple things, like a cat, or a flower, or rain. You see, poetry can come from anything with the stuff of revelation in it. Just don't let your poems be ordinary."

⠀⠀⠀Richard nodded his head, suddenly looking disappointed in himself. Keating, although, moved on, his eyes set on his niece.

⠀⠀⠀"Eliza, why don't you show them how it's done!" Keating cheered, pointing to her as she froze in her seat.

⠀⠀⠀"What?" she asked.

⠀⠀⠀"Come on, you're part of this class too," he stated. He walked over to Eliza's chair and pulled her up from the cushion. She stood along with him but looked like a fish out of water.

⠀⠀⠀"I didn't do this," she whispered to John hurriedly.

⠀⠀⠀The students around the room watched the two with amused smiles as Eliza floundered while Keating reeled her in.

⠀⠀⠀"Well, why not? I gave it Friday," Keating continued to pull her towards the front, a disappointed arch of his eyebrows sent her way. "No matter, you'll just have to do it from your head," he stated.

⠀⠀⠀"I—I can't do that in front of everyone," Eliza whispered, her eyes flickering towards Charlie for a moment before returning to John.

⠀⠀⠀"Fine, recite it to me," John told her, turning her away from the class so that her back was facing the boys.

⠀⠀⠀"No, that's embarrassing," she squirmed, trying to leave the room.

⠀⠀⠀"Fine, fine," he muttered, growing impatient with her sudden shyness. He thought he'd only have to do this dance with Todd Anderson today. "Mr. Overstreet!" he called to the boy, waving him over.

⠀⠀⠀Knox was beside the two within seconds, and Keating positioned him to stand right in front of his niece.

⠀⠀⠀"You'll do fine. Just say what is on your heart," her Uncle said to her with kind eyes. She smiled hesitantly and nodded, trying to muster up the courage to speak.

⠀⠀⠀"How do I love thee?" Eliza began, although one of the boys had dropped a book onto the floor, interrupting her and bringing her back to reality.

⠀⠀⠀"Eliza, don't even try it," John scolded, folding his arms from where he stood in the back of the classroom. "You are not Elizabeth Browning. You are Eliza Keating, now, do your best."

⠀⠀⠀"How does Love speak?" she continued, catching herself reciting work again. Then she turned to John, grimacing as she whispered. "Sorry, I'm panicking!"

⠀⠀⠀"It's alright, Eliza. Poetry isn't just something you can make up on a whim, it has meaning and heart and soul melded with it, but words allow you the chance to hide the true meaning."

⠀⠀⠀Eliza took a deep breath, staring at Knox as the words formed in her head,

⠀⠀⠀"Falling, falling, falling.
⠀⠀⠀I am endlessly falling
⠀⠀⠀Into the dark chasm
⠀⠀⠀Of my mind
⠀⠀⠀As I endlessly escape
⠀⠀⠀To the broken pieces
⠀⠀⠀Of that night. 

⠀⠀⠀Dark halls and dark eyes
⠀⠀⠀And dark minds.
⠀⠀⠀Entranced, entrapped,
⠀⠀⠀And encased
⠀⠀⠀In everything I wanted,
⠀⠀⠀And yet I pull away.

⠀⠀⠀My hand in his grip
⠀⠀⠀no longer as I slip
⠀⠀⠀Falling back into
⠀⠀⠀The dark chasm.
⠀⠀⠀To look over my actions
⠀⠀⠀And my words once again,
⠀⠀⠀never escaping, never ever. 

⠀⠀⠀Always stuck in this tired mind,
⠀⠀⠀This endless mind of tricks
⠀⠀⠀And traps and wanting
⠀⠀⠀To find you once again
⠀⠀⠀Where it all began
⠀⠀⠀To bludgeon
⠀⠀⠀My fragile heart."

⠀⠀⠀The room was silent after she spoke, the boys all holding their breath as she stared at Knox. His warm honey eyes were smiling, pooling with excitement and softness. Although everything seemed to rush into her again, unable to find the words or the motive to keep going with this act that everything was fine.

⠀⠀⠀"Oh, God," Eliza muttered to herself. She looked behind her for only a moment to see Charlie watching her, his face much softer and kinder than she had ever seen. Then, in an instant, she darted out of the room with Charlie quickly behind her.

⠀⠀⠀Eliza had made it out of the building and across the lawn to the large lake outside Welton. The boys would practice their rowing, and from time to time, where she would watch. It was fascinating how smoothly the boats could go and how their oars all lined up in time.

⠀⠀⠀Now, Eliza could only watch the still water laid out in front of her, swaying slightly with the breeze and twinkling with the Sun's rays. She wished she could be as calm as the water as she sat with her legs out in front of her and her mind running a million miles a minute. Eliza didn't know what to do, what to think. She didn't even know what to eat. All she could think about was Charlie and that night under the staircase and his dark eyes and his pink lips and how she wished she would have just damn well kissed him!

⠀⠀⠀"It's beautiful out here," Charlie sighed as he sat beside her, a coolness that radiated as if nothing had happened.

⠀⠀⠀Eliza turned to him, her green eyes trained on him as he watched the lake. He looked to be entranced by the water, too. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing as her.

⠀⠀⠀"Yeah," she agreed, turning her head from him and back to the water. "It is."

⠀⠀⠀It was silent besides the squawk of the geese roaming around, and the boys, a few feet back, headed to the dining hall. So Charlie and Eliza were wrapped up in their own thoughts. They didn't talk for a few minutes.

⠀⠀⠀"Listen, about Thursday," Charlie began, Eliza shuffling a few inches away from him at the mention of it.

⠀⠀⠀"No, it's alright. It's my fault," Eliza stated, laughing loudly and off-key. "I shouldn't have—I should, uh, yeah."

⠀⠀⠀"You shouldn't have?" Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow at her. She didn't respond or even look at him, so he sighed. "Please, Eliza, I read things wrong. I didn't mean to get in the way of you and Knox or anything," Charlie said. Eliza's attention was caught immediately at his words, the hair on her neck standing on in, but he kept on rambling. "I know he's like in love with Chris, but you have a chance! I mean, you're beautiful and intelligent, and you actually know him and—"

⠀⠀⠀"What the hell are you talking about?" Eliza asked him, deadpanned.

⠀⠀⠀Charlie turned to her finally, his brown eyes big and stupid.

⠀⠀⠀"Well, I stayed up all that night thinking of why you didn't want to kiss me. I mean, look at me," he laughed, trying to keep things light, but it didn't seem to help either of them. "And we had been getting on so well, I didn't realize..."

⠀⠀⠀"I'm not in love with Knox," Eliza laughed, holding a hand over her mouth, suppressing the laugh trying to explode out of her mouth.

⠀⠀⠀"You're not?"

⠀⠀⠀"God, no! Why would you think that?"

⠀⠀⠀"Well, I mean, today you told him all that stuff, and I mean, you guys are always hanging out," Charlie explained, his eyes trailing away from hers.

⠀⠀⠀A little lighter now, Eliza laughed as she watched Charlie ramble and blush and become an overall giant dork. "That was because my Uncle put him there to help calm me down. That poem was definitely not about him!"

⠀⠀⠀"No?" Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow, a hopeful smirk coming up to his face as he came back to himself.

⠀⠀⠀"No," she agreed. "I don't know how you would get that, but everything I said was about Thursday."

⠀⠀⠀"Well," Charlie said sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders. "I was more focused on how you two were looking at each other."

⠀⠀⠀"You didn't even hear the poem?" Eliza asked, shaking her head.

⠀⠀⠀"No, but I would be willing to listen to any poem you'd like to write for me in the future," he assured her.

⠀⠀⠀"I never said it was about you," Eliza corrected.

⠀⠀⠀"Oh?" Charlie asked, a smirk coming up to his lips.

⠀⠀⠀"Cameron, obviously," Eliza stated.

⠀⠀⠀"Cameron?"

⠀⠀⠀"Oh, yeah. He's cuter than any boy here at Welton, and he has a great personality," she explained with a laugh, standing to her feet and holding a hand out for Charlie.

⠀⠀⠀Charlie pulled himself up with her help, towering over her as he did so, his eyes trained on her as they both stood silently. Charlie's hand moved up so that he held her steady by the forearm, his other hand slithering to her neck.

⠀⠀⠀"Cameron may be cute and have a great personality, but Birdie, there's no one better than me," Charlie whispered, leaning in closer once again. "Is this alright?" he asked her, halting just before her lips.

⠀⠀⠀"Yeah, I think that's alright," she told him, staring up at him through his lashes.

⠀⠀⠀Charlie grinned ear to ear as he leaned in to kiss her, milliseconds away, when the hoarse voice of Doctor Hager screamed across the courtyard for them to hurry in for lunch. Charlie had his back to the school, and by everything, he hopped Hager didn't realize what was about to happen or else he would get paddled. Eliza sent far, far away from him and Welton.

AUTHOR'S NOTE —

So, here we are... I was thinking of trying to keep the angst in here but I'm too much of a romantic to do that. Plus, I would have to reformat all the chapters I have written already and that's a lot of work! I really love this chapter and I hope you do too!

POEMS: Knox Overstreet, "Chris" // Ashley F. / Peachpick, "The Dark Chasm"

SONG: Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love) by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Thank you for reading! Leave comments telling me your thoughts on this chapter, but however you interact, know that I really appreciate you reading. I hope you enjoy, and until the next one.