#holdlo

Normal guys don’t go to Wellston Private High. That’s the rule of nature. Normal guys don’t go to one of the most prestigious high schools in the country without some kind of innate talent, but Holden is significantly More Normal than the rest of the school. He stays comfortably at a high position; not high enough to be a subject of gossip through the rumor mill, but enough that if he stares at someone for long enough, they’ll move out of his way or nervously say hi to him.

His best friend is his forever King of the school. His best friend is pulling away from him, more and more, with each passing day. He’s said his best friend’s name less this week than he has passed him in the hallway. 

Holden sees his best friend in class, ghosts under his eyes, beneath his hands when he writes. Arlo fidgets uncomfortably with the dog tag necklace he keeps under his button-up when he thinks no one is looking. Holden thinks that one day, soon, Arlo will blink without opening his eyes ever again. Thinks that soon, he’ll have to submerge himself in the tub and make himself an ice bath for the Authorities. 

Guys like Arlo are sufficiently Not Normal. Arlo couldn’t kill a man, but could maim someone without blinking an eye in the past. But, he frowns at overblown, unnecessary displays of cruelty now, picking it out of his nails with a pencil instead of digging into it, blood and teeth and all. Holden likes the less cruel Arlo, who's softer with his words and hands, but misses the boy who cracked down on chaos with smooth fists. And he's seen the way Arlo looks at Remi nowadays, the distance between them only multiplying with each rotation around the sun.

But, in those rare moments that they spend together, Arlo looks almost the same as before. The smallest, briefest of smiles on his face from minutes of talking to each other, the kind only a best friend could get.

The smiles get smaller, the frowns get larger, and Holden imagines Arlo's hands dripping black, blood as dark as the Bureau itself. It must be, because why else would ghosts rest on his body with no other footrest? Why else would he flinch when his phone buzzes, looking at the screen like he wants it to crack?

(One day, he gets Arlo coffee, and Arlo looks like he might cry.)

Then, he looks at Arlo. And Arlo looks back at him, through him, like he's a mirage in the snow. Never here.