Page 75 of Gambler's Fallacy

Vortex seems like he’s about to retort with something I’m sure would piss me off even more, but instead, he looks at Seven. “Do you want to leave?” he asks curtly.

Seven shakes his head. “You should probably go, though,” he tells Vortex, then he comes to stand directly in front of me, stupidly without fear despite the fact that he had to have heard me yelling like he had. He has to see how pissed I am.

I don’t know if it’s his strange mood lately that has him so brave or his desire for me to fuck him senseless, but either way I have the urge to wrap my hands around his arms and squeeze as tight as I can.

“You should stay,” I tell Vortex. I howl again. “Fuck! Why the fuck won’t she fucking leave him? How many times does he need to hurt her for her to grow a fucking spine!”

Vortex doesn’t look particularly comfortable, but he stays in the room.

It’s Seven who speaks. “Maybe she can’t.”

“Can’t?” I ask, clenching my fists. “I’m here! I told her, I’ve got a place for her to stay, I’ll take care of her, I’ll help her move out! There’s no reason for her to stay except that she’s a fucking idiot!”

At that, Seven flinches. He shrinks in on himself, biting his bottom lip.

“You know how often the neighbors called the cops on us?” I askhim. “Every fucking time, my mom would be there, defending that asshole. After a while the cops would just knock on the door and roll their eyes. I always heard them afterwards, complaining about my mother and all other women like her who stay with theseassholes?—”

“So you think it’s dumb to stay in a bad situation?” Seven asks quietly. “That she’sdumbfor not feeling right about leaving?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Vortex wince.

“Yes!” I answer, and I know it’s the wrong thing to say when Seven shuffles away from me. I can’t calm this helpless rage, though. “The door isn’t locked! He doesn’t have hertrapped. She could walk right out and I’d be waiting with my car and she wouldn’t have to deal with all that shit ever again!”

Seven blinks several times. “Exceptshewould have nothing.Shewould be completely dependent on someone else.Shewould still feel trapped, just by different circumstances with someone else.” He straightens. “My room was a revolving door,” he says, so quietly I almost can’t hear him. “People in and out, all the time. And someone…”

He lets out a strangled sound, and Vortex goes to him. He starts to wrap Seven in his arms, but Seven shakes his head.

“No. No, he needs to hear this. I need to say this.” Seven’s voice is shaking, though, and he’s pale. “One of my… my uncles. He offered to take me away. And I wanted… I wanted to go so bad but Ididn’t.” He looks at me, his expression bleak. “Do you think I’m dumb for staying?”

The anger shatters.

I stare at him, my body suddenly numb. “No, Seven, not you. That’s different.”

Vortex hovers right behind Seven, looking for all the world like he wants to intervene, but Seven only wraps his arms against his own chest and focuses all of his attention on me.

“How is it different?” he asks. “You think she’s dumb for loving him, right?” His laugh is as wobbly as his voice, with no humor in it. “Then you probably think I’m really, really stupid for lovingher.”

Her. His own mother, the woman who’d done worse to Seven than the Step Asshole is doing to my mother.

My throat is dry, and I don’t know what to say to that.

Yes, he’s an idiot for still loving somebody who abused him like that.

No, I don’t think he’s weak or dumb.

“You—It’s different,” I repeat. “You were a child.”

Seven lets out another huff that might be an attempt at a laugh. “I’m not a child now, Havoc.”

I feel like the idiot now, for hurting Seven with my careless words. “But you got out,” I point out weakly. “You made the effort. My mother…”

“You have no idea,” Seven whispers, “how many times I could’ve left.” He’s trembling, and this time, he does turn to Vortex — and it hurts that he wraps his arms around Vortex instead of facing me.

“Why?” I ask hoarsely. “Why didn’t you leave before? I don’t understand. If you had the chance, if you could end all the hurt and suffering, why stay?”

I need to know. I need to understand why my mother is still with him, despite all the years of pain and misery, of how many times I’ve tried to make her see how bad he is to her.

Vortex squeezes him tight, and I can barely hear Seven as he replies, “Because she wasn’t always that way.” He swallows audibly. “Because I love her, Havoc. And if I don’t believe that she loves me back…” He trails off, then a sob wracks his body. “Then what will she do when she has me again? Because I amso damn scaredof what she’ll do when she gets me back. Because…” Another sob, and he turns away from Vortex to look at me when he says, “Because… she is going to. One way or another, she’s going to get me back.”

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