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As the weeks passed, more people kept talking to him, and Walt was nice to them. He wasn’t charming like he’d bragged about in the earlier days.

He was just nice in a way Hollis wasn’t.

Walt shared their homework with a shrug. He answered when people asked him for the time. He held doors open for people, said excuse me when he passed them.

There was always this look of shock and defense on people’s faces, but it was starting to melt away. People were starting to expect this of him, and it had been only two and a half weeks.

He sat next to Timothy every day now, and Tim hadn’t changed seats. The sneer he gave when he handed papers to Hollis on the first day had mellowed into a neutral expression. Walt had kept his own promise and didn’t talk to Timothy at all. Didn’t ask him for anything or look at him more than anyone else.

There was another girl in chemistry who had started talking to him more too. Clementine. She was blond with big watery blue eyes. She kept giggling at him and forced them into being partners for most situations when they needed one.

Hollis thought she was annoying, but Walt insisted that it was good to have at least one person other than Yulia and Annie who other people consistently saw him being nice to.

PE was also different.

Walt was athletic. He was using Hollis’s body, but he had the muscle memory to sew and the muscle memory for softball too apparently. Hollis didn’t say anything to him about it, but his heart burned with jealousy and sorrow.

Walt did not ignore it.

You could have been good at this.