Page 117 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

“He’s always listening, did you want to talk to him or—?”

“No. It’s . . . you used to make this face at me. Your eyes would get kind of . . . soft, and you looked like you weren’t sure whether to smile or frown.”

“Wistful?”

“Something like that. You used to do it all the time, you did it for years, and then you did it less and less and then, eventually, you stopped.”

“I’m sorry,” Hollis said.

“No, it’s not that, it just . . .” Annie burrowed even closer, spoke even quieter. “You started doing it again, but not at me. You do it when you think you’re alone, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. What should I make of it, Hollis?”

Hollis stared into the darkness between them.

“Don’t tell Yulia.”

Annie closed her eyes.

“I won’t,” she said. “The whole time I’ve known you, you’ve liked dangerous things.”

Walt flinched, and Hollis didn’t like that.

He rolled over onto his back, curled his arms behind his head, and decided to be kind instead of nice for the first time in ages.

“I won’t tell her either.”

“What?”

“Yulia. I won’t tell her about the way you feel. But you should, Annie. We have five months left until graduation. You’re brave enough. Make them matter.”

Parking Lot

They got on the bus early, groggy and full of Christmas cookies.

Yulia really liked Walt’s gingerbread brownies, to her chagrin and Walt’s delight. She brought a hefty chunk of them with her to snack on.

Hollis had been to a large city before. His pa brought him up to Chicago for a birthday a few years back. He would never get used to how tall the buildings were or the press of so many people close by.

Annie and Yulia seemed much more in their element. Annie kept making them stop to look into store windows as they walked from the bus stop.

The library was huge, with a giant domed ceiling and multiple floors. Hollis felt small and out of place. Yulia asked the librarian about records and archives. Then led them up to a quieter space where they were located.

Walt’s anxiety had been slowly growing throughout the day, but now that they were there, he was making Hollis want to pace.

Calm down, it’s fine.

I haven’t seen myself in ages. I don’t remember—well, I remember my own face, but not the details of it.

Walt, I wouldn’t care if you looked completely different than you described. As long as you didn’t lie about your age we’ll be okay.

“Ah, I think I went a bit too far. They’re talking about the mill closure though, so I think they definitely wrote an article about it,” Yulia said.

Walt swung them around so they were facing the wall instead of the giant clunky “microfilm viewer machine,” as Yulia described it.

We rode a bus for three hours in traffic, we can’t just turn around and avoid this.

We can do whatever we want. You’re the one who said that.

Hollis rolled their eyes.