A/N: I truly was not expecting so many reviews! Thank you all so much, and I'm sorry for the delay in updating. I was having uploading problems...

Disclaimer: I do not own: The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, The Catcher in the Rye, The Lord of the Flies, Hamlet, or Oliver Twist.

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It was early in the morning and he didn't feel like hanging out in front of his locker. Last night his mom had gone out on a date with a man named Jacob and Cody had spent the entire evening talking about his favorite subject in the world: school.

Zack had nodded mostly, said little, and didn't really pay any attention.

Mostly just watched.

Cody had proceeded to inquiring after Zack's friend David, Zack's ex-girlfriend Janelle, Zack's grade in Ms. Lewis's American History class…

Zack answered fine to all of them.

Lying was a hell of a lot easier than telling the truth, but being honest didn't hurt so much when people believed you.

What he'd written on the bathroom wall? That was being honest. When he had made up that story about goofing off with David in math class? That was a lie.

Naturally.

So now he was back in the back bathroom, backpack slung over one shoulder and book under an arm. He'd taken to reading in here to pass the time, and his newest endeavor was J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. It was a fascinating novel; one he was finding immense difficulty in putting down.

The main character was Holden Caulfield and at first Zack had found him disgusting and crazy (which was probably the point; Zack hadn't read the intro), but as his year of solitude went on he found himself liking this guy more and more. For one, they were exactly the same age, and two, Holden wasn't so crazy.

He was…Confused.

Zack didn't think himself confused, he thought himself lonely which actually tended to add up to one and the same, but who was counting anyway?

Anyway, Holden spent a lot of his time lying and being intrigued by sex, and though Zack really had no interest (or chance) in terms of romance or what happened in bed, he was getting astonishingly good at lying. So good, in fact, that he found himself studying Holden's techniques, and then when Holden's lies became less like Zack's opportunities he moved on to Charles Dickens and William Golding and then even once or twice to Shakespeare; though lying with thee's and thy's was a bit phony. Holden Caulfield hated anything phony and that's where Zack related to him the most. In the hatred of the fake.

He hated how his old friends were phony and how their games and their taunts were so phony and how society itself was based on principles so phony they reeked of it.

Sometimes it made him sad, sometimes it made him hopeless and desperate and he wanted to cry, cry, cry and just disappear from this world called High School.

And sometimes, like this time, it made him angry.

He reached into his pencil pouch and whipped out a sharpie, uncapping it viciously and crouching down by the wall again, prepared to spell out how much he deeply loathed humanity. Yeah. Humanity. Everyone but Holden Caulfield, Jack Merridew, the Artful Dodger, and he supposed Hamlet, too, at times. And his mother.

And himself.

He didn't hate himself because at present he was his own best friend, and as corny as that sounded (way too Hollywood for someone who hated society) it was true and though he'd been a fan of lying, the truth was important to at least remember. He wondered briefly if he hated Cody; if he hated his own brother but a voice inside him reminded him that if Cody really cared Cody would know what was going on, and Cody did or knew neither.

He leaned in to write the words, but drew back at the sight of the wall. Frowning, he peeked in for a closer look.

There: his words from the day before, I, the lone wolf, am no longer king. That was fine and good and very true, but then there was something else. More words written neatly below his; words he didn't remember seeing before. Words that said:

Hello, lone wolf. Are you not king?

He blinked. That was a bit odd. There was no denying that he'd missed it the day before because that was a direct response to what he'd written. He'd thought he was the only one to ever come into this bathroom, but apparently he was not.

Frowning a little in unease, he stood up and glanced in both stalls, feeling Goosebumps spring up on his arms. He was alone. For now.

At the same time he was feeling a bit creeped out, he couldn't deny the fact that a little seed of excitement had been planted in the pits of his stomach because somebody had actually cared enough to write back.

Pointing his sharpie back at the wall, he decided to continue the conversation he'd apparently begun. A rush of thrill spread through his veins as he touched the marker to the cold, unforgiving grey wall.

Once I was king. Now I'm alone.

He checked his watch and realized he'd missed the first ten minutes of his first period class. Readjusting his backpack, he put away the pen and left the bathroom.

He unconsciously began to call the other writer Holden in his head.

He hid in here a lot.

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To Be Continued