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Hollis didn’t know any other way to be.

He had a temper. Not the kind that makes you lash out at your friends and family. But... his mouth got away from him. You couldn’t be like that when you were like him. It bucked the social order.

He wasn’t a loser. But if someone popular asked to copy his homework, he shouldn’t just snap “Go away” at them if he didn’t want problems. If he missed a shot in gym and one of the jocks called him “butterfingers,” he shouldn’t whirl on them and ask about their parents’ divorce. But he did.

James Miller was tall, blond, popular, and had about fifty pounds of muscle on Hollis.

Hollis told him he was going to die in this town.

No one’s parents had much money for college, very few people figured out how to leave, but James was trying and trying hard. Punching Hollis into a brick wall a few times was the correct response to hearing his greatest fear tossed right in his face.

Annie was right, he was an asshole.

Not to her and Yulia, of course, but the fact remained.

Hollis turned on his side and coughed hard. He swallowed his own blood, wiped his tears on his sheets.

It was ironic though. That James was so scared of never leaving this place, when Hollis was sure he’d make it out.

Hollis would have to stay though.

His bones belonged to this soil.