Bb

The stone walls of Welton Academy did not just hold up the roof; they seemed to press down on the lungs of every boy unlucky enough to walk its halls. For Karis Aydın, the air in Vermont was perpetually thin, tasting of old paper, floor wax, and the bitter copper of suppressed rage.

It was mid-February, and the snow outside was a cruel, pristine white that mocked the darkness boiling in Karis’s chest. He sat in the back of John Keating’s English classroom, his fingers gripped so tightly around his pen that his knuckles were the color of bone. He hated this room. He hated the way Keating spoke of passion and Carpe Diem as if the world wasn't a cage designed to crush anything beautiful.

Keating stood at the front, his eyes bright with a fervor that Karis found exhausting. "Mr. Aydın," Keating said, his voice cutting through Karis’s internal monologue. "You’ve been remarkably silent during our discussion on Tennyson. What do you see when you look at the 'dark broad shoulder of the world'?"

Karis didn't look up. He looked at the wooden desk, scarred by decades of boys who had likely gone on to be the same hollow lawyers and bankers his father worshipped. "I see something that wants to crush you, sir," Karis replied, his voice flat, devoid of the lyricism Keating encouraged.

A few boys snickered. Knox Overstreet turned around with a sympathetic, if confused, grimace. But Charlie Dalton—the resident rebel, the boy who wore his tie loose and his wit like a weapon—didn't laugh. He was staring out the window, his leg bouncing with a frantic, nervous energy that Karis recognized all too well. It was the rhythm of someone who wanted to run and had nowhere to go.

"A cynical view," Keating mused, undeterred. "But perhaps an honest one. We must acknowledge the weight before we can find the strength to lift it."

Karis tuned him out. He thought of his ballet slippers, now likely rotting in a trash heap in Connecticut, discarded by his father like a shameful secret. He thought of the soccer field, where every kick of the ball felt like a strike against his own soul. He was a dancer forced to be a soldier, and the friction was turning his heart to ash.

When the bell rang, Karis was the first one out. He didn't want the camaraderie of the hallways. He didn't want the "Tradition, Honor, Discipline, Excellence" slogans shouted into his ears. He headed toward the old stone bridge near the edge of the woods, a place where the shadows were long enough to hide in.

He wasn't alone.

Charlie Dalton was there, leaning over the stone railing. His blazer was tossed onto the snow, and he was gripping the freezing rock so hard his hands were shaking. He looked sick. The swagger that usually defined Nuwanda was gone, replaced by a raw, jagged desperation.

Karis stopped a few feet away. He intended to turn around and leave, to preserve his own isolation, but Charlie let out a sound—a choked, stifled sob that he tried to turn into a cough.

"You're going to get frostbite," Karis said, his voice harsh to mask his discomfort.

Charlie jumped, spinning around. His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale against the darkening sky. "Mind your own business, Aydın. Go practice your headers or whatever the hell you do."

"I hate soccer," Karis said, stepping closer despite himself. "And you look like you're about to jump."

"Maybe I am," Charlie snapped, his voice cracking. "Maybe it’s better than being a goddamn freak."

Karis narrowed his eyes. He knew that tone. It was the sound of a man trapped in a burning building. "What happened? Did Nolan catch you with a girl in the dorms?"

Charlie laughed, a bitter, jagged sound. "A girl. Yeah. I wish. That would be easy, wouldn't it? A few licks with the paddle and a lecture on morality. I could handle that."

He turned back to the water, his shoulders heaving. "It’s not a girl, Karis. It’s... it’s everything. It’s the way I look at—at people. The way I looked at him today in class."

Karis felt a sudden, sharp stillness in the air. The pieces clicked together—the way Charlie’s eyes lingered a second too long on a certain classmate, the way he overcompensated with bravado and talk of "dames."

"You’re talking about a boy," Karis said quietly.

Charlie spun around, his face contorted in a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. He stepped toward Karis, his hands balled into fists. "Don't you say it. Don't you dare say that word. I’m normal. I’m a Welton man. I’m going to be a success. I’m not... I’m not one of those."

"One of those what?" Karis challenged, his own anger rising to meet Charlie’s. "A human being? Someone who feels something they didn't give you permission to feel?"

"Shut up!" Charlie lunged, grabbing Karis by the lapels of his heavy coat. He was shaking violently now. "You don't know anything! You’re just the weird kid who hates everything. You don't know what it’s like to have your own mind turn into a traitor. To look at a friend and want to... to..."

He couldn't finish. He slumped against Karis, his forehead dropping onto Karis’s shoulder. The defiance broke, leaving only the wreckage of a seventeen-year-old boy who had been told his entire life that his heart was a sin.

Karis didn't pull away. He didn't know how to be a friend—he had spent months building walls to keep people out—but he knew what it was like to be forced into a mold that broke your bones. He reached up, awkwardly patting Charlie’s back.

"I wanted to be a dancer," Karis whispered into the cold air.

Charlie stiffened but didn't pull back. "What?"

"A ballet dancer," Karis repeated, the words feeling like glass in his throat. "My father found my shoes. He called me a disgrace. He told me he would beat the 'softness' out of me until I was fit for the bar. He sent me here to turn me into a stone. Just like you."

Charlie pulled back slowly, looking at Karis with wide, wet eyes. "It’s not the same. Being a dancer isn't... it’s not against the law. It’s not a sickness."

"Isn't it?" Karis countered. "In their eyes? Anything that isn't 'Tradition' is a sickness to them, Charlie. They want us to be rows of identical trees, trimmed and straight. But roots don't grow straight. They grow where they have to. They grow where the water is."

Charlie wiped his face with his sleeve, looking exhausted. "I fell for him, Karis. It’s not just a thought anymore. Every time he laughs, I feel like I’m dying. If anyone finds out... my father would kill me. Literally. He’d rather have a dead son than a queer one."

"Then don't let them find out," Karis said firmly. "But stop trying to kill yourself from the inside to save them the trouble. You aren't 'not normal.' You’re just not what they ordered. And thank God for that. Look at this place. Who would want to be what they ordered?"

Charlie leaned back against the bridge, the wind whipping his dark hair across his forehead. For the first time since Karis had arrived at Welton, the mask of the class clown was completely gone. "How do you do it? How do you stay so angry? It’s like you have a shield."

"It’s not a shield," Karis admitted, looking out at the frozen woods. "It’s a fire. I stay angry so I don't stay sad. If I’m sad, they win. If I’m angry, I’m still me."

Charlie looked at him, a small, tentative smile touching his lips. It was a sad smile, but it was real. "A ballet dancer, huh? Nuwanda and the Nutcracker. We’d be quite the pair of disappointments."

"The best ones in the school," Karis agreed.

They stood in silence for a long time as the sun dipped below the horizon, turning the snow into a bruised purple. The cold was biting now, but neither moved. For Karis, the simmering rage in his gut felt a little less like a poison and a little more like a hearth. For Charlie, the secret that had been a noose around his neck felt, for the first moment, like a weight he might be able to carry if he wasn't doing it alone.

"Who is it?" Karis asked softly.

Charlie hesitated, then whispered a name. It was a boy they both knew—a boy with a kind smile and a gentle way of speaking.

"He’s a good choice," Karis said simply. "Better than the girls you usually pretend to like."

Charlie let out a genuine laugh then, a short, startled sound that echoed off the ice. "Yeah. He is."

"Come on," Karis said, pushing off the bridge. "If we miss dinner, we’ll get detention. And I’d rather not spend my evening listening to Nolan talk about the virtues of a well-cooked potato."

Charlie picked up his blazer, shaking off the snow. He looked at Karis, really looked at him, seeing past the scowl and the silence. "Thanks, Karis. I mean it. I thought I was losing my mind."

"You are," Karis said, starting back toward the dorms. "But so am I. It’s the only way to survive Welton."

As they walked back toward the towering, gothic shadows of the school, the lights in the windows looked less like beacons and more like the eyes of a beast. But as Karis walked, he didn't feel the weight of the stones as much. He walked with a slight lift in his step, a ghost of a dancer’s grace, and Charlie Dalton walked beside him, his head held just a little bit higher, his secret tucked away not as a shame, but as a quiet, flickering truth.

They were still in Hellton. They were still trapped in 1959. But for the first time, the cage felt a little larger.

When they entered the dining hall, the roar of a hundred boys hit them like a wave. Keating was at the faculty table, catching Karis’s eye and giving a small, knowing nod. Karis didn't nod back—he wasn't ready to be a member of the Dead Poets Society just yet—but he didn't look away either.

He sat down at his usual table, and to the surprise of everyone around him, Charlie Dalton sat down right next to him.

"Pass the salt, Aydın," Charlie said, his voice regaining a hint of its usual bravado.

Karis handed it to him. "Don't get used to this, Dalton."

"Too late," Charlie grinned, though his eyes remained serious. "We’re the disappointments now. We have to stick together."

Karis felt a flicker of something that wasn't anger. It was faint, like the first stirrings of a dance he hadn't practiced in years, but it was there. He picked up his fork and began to eat, the stone walls of Welton feeling, for the first time, like they might eventually crumble if you just hit them in the right place.