Never Have I Ever...Been Real

I stayed for the company.

Holden looked his newfound companion up and down with judgmental eyes. He always prided himself on being able to read people, after all, and Ben Gross on paper seemed like the phoniest of phonies. Canada goose? Columbia boots? He was one of them, one of the people he fled Pennsylvania through New Jersey from to come back home. Yes, Ben Gross would fit right in at Pencey Prep. 

But there was something in his eyes that his peers lacked. Like a moth to light, his eyes were for sadness what the chandeliers in the dining hall were for light - you weren't supposed to look in them too long, or your vision would get blurred, whether with tears or blindness. His lonely, lonely eyes. That was his motive. Not mockery, companionship. 

"You're alone, on Christmas." Holden blurted out. Brutal honesty was instinct, and he regretted it when he saw Ben's eyes even more wounded, but that didn't stop him from asking, "Why?"

Ben stumbled backwards a foot or two, but regained his composure, and with false confidence, replied assertively, "I could say the same for you." 

"Touche." Holden smirked. "Well, I have nothing to hide. I ran away from boarding school." 

Ben could not hide his shock. In his land of academic excellence and love of learning, he could never imagine such a feat. "W-w-why?"

"I flunked out and couldn't stand being around those phonies for another couple days before break." It wasn't boasting if it was fact, right? "But I passed English."

And it wasn't boasting if the other person viewed it as a reason for pity, not pride. Ben was at a loss for words. In his high school years, he would have mocked such a cause. (Read: Trent.) But with Holden, and with the wisdom of a semester at the school he had worked so hard to get into, he didn't feel that instinct to mock or ridicule.  Luckily, he didn't need to fill the silence, as that was Holden's specialty.

"My brother Allie always liked writing compositions. I wrote this real good one about his baseball glove, it had all his poems on it." Holden went on a tangent about his brother.

"Well, why don't you spend Christmas with him?" Ben asked innocently, trying to regain his footing.

"My brother's dead." And suddenly that footing was stripped from both their feet. 

After a pause, Holden dared himself to look into Ben's eyes. "Walk with me?"

Ben nodded. "To where?" 

Holden replied, "I want to see the ducks." 

Ben's instinct was to reply with the facts. Ducks migrate. They're not around this time of year. But he felt inside that Holden had to see that for himself.