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“How did you know?”
“Kendall, you’ve been glowing the last couple of days.”
“I have?”
“Did you not know?”
I thought about it. Despite how stressed I had been trying to figure out what I should do about Nero, I had been drunkenly happy.
“Maybe.”
“At least, you’ve seemed happier than you’ve been the two years I’ve known you.”
“I guess. But, I wouldn’t describe it as boy “problems”. I just can’t figure out what I should do.” I paused. “Wait, are you comfortable talking about this?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Cory asked confused.
“I don’t know how you straight boys work? Maybe this grosses you out or something.”
“Kendall, we’ve been living together for years. Do you really think you talking about something that has made you happy could gross me out? What is it that you think of me?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just get freaked about this stuff sometimes.”
“Fuckin’ Evan Carter,” he said waiting for me to follow it with my line.
“About that…”
“What?”
“So, I might have gotten closure on the Evan Carter situation.”
Cory sat up giving me his full attention. “How?”
“Did I mention there’s a boy?”
“I don’t understand.”
“If I remember my behavioral psychology class, I might have had something called, Learned Helplessness. It’s when you give up because you’ve decided that there’s nothing you can do to escape the bad situation you’re in.
“If you put rats in a cage and electrify the bottom of it, eventually they learn they can’t escape the shocks so they stop trying. So when you only electrify the small section they’re standing on, they won’t move. They’ve learned they’re helpless to escape their situation even though they’re not.
“That might have been what had happened to me with Evan Carter. His constant bullying had taught me that I had no control over my life and that I was helpless to all the bad things that could happen. I was stuck in mud. The boy helped me out of it.”
“How’d he do that?”
“He beat the shit out of Evan Carter,” I said worried what Cory would say.
“Oh!”
He leaned back and went silent.
“It’s wrong, right?”
“Well, it’s not like he didn’t have it coming. He did some shitty things to you.”
“I haven’t even told you the humiliating stuff.”
“There’s more?” He asked stunned.
