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It was.

People started talking to him more as the week went on. Clementine asked him if he was interested in helping with the school paper. Joe picked up his sweatshirt when he dropped it in the hall and jogged over to hand it back to him. Marika said, “You’re good at this, huh?” when Walt raised his hand to answer a question correctly.

Some part of it made Hollis angry. He didn’t like the idea that Walt could do more with the raw material of his body and face than he could. Other parts of this just filled him with wonder.

The amount of times people smiled at him or held the doors open for him was baffling. Even teachers were being a little different. It was confusing and sad.

It made him want to pull deeper into himself. Hide more, even though he knew this was better than what would have happened if he came back without Walt at the wheel. He thought about what Annie said.

“They don’t know you like we do.”

He thought about Walt’s reaction to it. Walt had refused to explain himself, shutting Hollis out for a full hour of silence when he pressed too hard. Even pointing out that he’d been given back control for a bit didn’t faze Walt.

Walt just said, Thank you for saving us .

Then went back to bleaching and dyeing all Hollis’s red, orange, and yellow clothes the “appropriate” colors, since they couldn’t afford new ones.