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His phone was ringing.

Hollis scrubbed his hand across his face, then sat up, pulling the phone out of his pocket.

It was Yulia.

“What do you want?”

“Where are you?” she snapped. “We’ve been calling for hours.”

Hollis checked the time—11:39 p.m. Twelve calls from Annie, seven from Yulia, and two from his ma at around 11:00 p.m.

Shit.

“I’m sorry. I’m fine, I’m out in the woods just... being a baby, I guess.”

Yulia scoffed. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Hollis sighed and stood up to stretch. “Trying to have a nervous breakdown in peace. I fell asleep. You know, like, everyone got suspended because of Friday, right?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Worse for you though.”

Hollis chuckled and looked up. The woods were so dark, he couldn’t even see the moon.

“How much trouble do you think I’ll be in if they clear my name and then I stab Jorge for real the instant the charges are dropped?”

“Too much. Don’t be an idiot. And don’t sleep in the woods in winter unless you want to die.”

Hollis’s throat tightened. A fresh wave of pain swept over him, and he was quiet until it ended.

“You don’t want to die, Hollis,” Yulia said after a minute. “You’re just very sad right now, you know that.”

“Yeah.” He looked down at his shoes. “Yeah...”

Yulia was always soft toward his sadness. She knew what he needed to hear, they’d been through this already in his darker years.

“Call your ma, she loves you,” she said.

Hollis turned toward where he came from and squinted at the light.

“Okay. Can you tell Annie I’m all right? I don’t want to talk to her right now because I don’t want to make this whole thing about me. I’m sure she’s already feeling fucked-up enough.”

Yulia sighed hard.

“Tell her yourself,” she said, and then hung up on him.

Hollis rolled his eyes and put his phone back in his pocket.