“Er,” I said, “not really.”

This was done as a character study for a larger story I’m writing, to try to get familiar with one of the tricky ones I just couldn’t seem to get under my thumb. It’s told from the point of view of one main character, describing another, and about the friendship between the two boys. I didn’t intend to post in anywhere at first, but then I read it over and over and over until I finally sort of kind of liked it, and thought that if I did, maybe someone else will too.

Mainly what I'm looking for (from a review standpoint) are your impressions on the characters, etc. I want to make sure I'm getting these people's personalities near to what they're like in my head, because often they come out all wrong on paper. However, I'm open to full critiques on anything you find.

Also, I'm a bit new at this, and not sure I'm putting this in the right category...?

For a bit of background to clear things up, the narrator is attending a private boarding school on scholarship, and the other boy’s parents pay tuition.

He is everything that is loud, obnoxious, and exasperating, and somehow incomprehensibly valuable to me. At every moment he is there, even when he is the last person I want to see. I can’t stay angry with him for more than a day.

From what I don’t know of his past, he is the most spoiled person I have ever met. But of what I do know, he is the most neglected. He won’t tell me much about his family; I take it he’s not on good terms with them. I do know he has two older brothers and his mother and father, but after that the subject changed much too quickly for comfort.

He tells me he liked to ride, at home. He has a mare, and from the way he described her she seems to be the most lovable beast on earth, but from what I know people tend to be ridiculously fond of their pets; especially those people who have no one else to be ridiculously fond of.

He doesn’t want to be here. He mentioned once that a public secondary school would have suited him more than anything else, but that he at least convinced his parents out of sending him to Eton. From that, I take it his parents must be a hell of a lot richer than mine.

He acted oddly when he found out I was here on scholarship. “So you’re one of the few who actually deserve to be here,” he said, jokingly but not.

“If you put it that way,” I replied, “only sixteen out of one thousand and twenty-three do.”

He shrugged and turned away. “Sounds about right.”

I’ll admit it now—I couldn’t stand him when I first met him. We were paired together for a joint essay (which is the most ridiculous idea on earth) and he was so different from me I knew our opinions were going to clash. As it turned out, they didn’t. I wrote the essay while he was slumped over a chair, asleep. I preferred it that way, honestly. After the essay was finished, we didn’t even speak to each other for weeks, perhaps months. It wasn’t out of dislike for each other; merely indifference. He hung out with his friends, and I sat in my room and did my homework. Then one day in the library he sat down across from me, grinned, and said, “I take it you’re a lot smarter than you let on.”

“Er,” I said, “not really.” And then he pulled out his English lit essay and began to complain about all the bits he didn’t understand, and when he began to read it aloud it was so painful and pitiful I couldn’t help but correct the major points. After that he began dropping by for tips weekly, and then daily, until he was almost a constant presence. It was annoying, trying to get something done when his head was always popping in the door. Then one day he sat next to me at lunch, closed the book in front of me and said, “You know, this might all go a bit easier if we give it up and call ourselves friends.”

And we have been since.