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Learning to Fall: who cares.
"Who cares, Terry?"
I'm glad Alex was there to say it, 'cause Terry looked like he was gonna' cry and that made me less angry at him for bein' a dick. We all made fun of each other, calling guys fags or homos, but the truth of it was that we didn't even know what it meant other than the whole "buggering each other" that gay people do. What's buggering mean, anyhow?
When Terry went to defend himself and his dad he tripped and fell on the floor and just like that he went from thinking he was funny and cool to laying face up with everyone laughing at him the way he wanted to laugh at me. I pitied him, but not so much.
"Fuck all of you guys," he was crying as he made it up to his knees. "Fuck you all to hell."
Mr. Magill was right on top of him with his big hairy knuckles, but Terry was already running and slipped through the Gorilla's fingers.
"He'll be back, N.B." Alex and Jillian each put an arm around me and walked me to my homeroom just before the bell rang. It was the first time I can remember Jillian touching me without pinching or swinging a hairbrush in her hand.
Sometimes, mostly weird and out-of-place times, I can imagine that she and I will be friends one day, maybe a hundred years from now.
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