“Shows character, I think,” I said. “Realizing where you were at, where you were headed, and changing course.”

“I don’t have character,” Fume Hood said. “It was selfish and self-centered. It was me, me, me, I’m bored, I’m done with the drugs, I’m scared of being caught by angry people, I want this deal, I want some education. I don’t and I never cared about that pregnant idiot.”

She met my eyes as she said that last bit.

Challenging me.

I spun the glass on the countertop again. “The community service hero stuff?”

“Me, me, me,” she said, her voice quiet. “I thought it gave me the best chance of dodging any lingering heat. Ha.”

I took my finger away from the glass. It spun in a circle before settling with a rattle.

“I don’t buy it,” I said.

She shrugged, tossing the glass into the air, catching it.

“You said before that you have real regrets,” I said. “And you can call yourself selfish, but I think the dots connect here. Your reasons, your regrets.”

She tossed the glass into the air, caught it.

She did it a few more times.

“We should go,” she said. “Check on the others. Do our part.”

“We should,” I said.

The water from the faucet we’d used deposited a fat droplet on the metal bottom of the large sink, producing a hollow sound. Neither of us budged.

“I got friends into the soft drugs and I egged them on instead of stopping them when they got themselves into the harder stuff. I regret that, I turned myself in for that, even though I was supposed to be serving the punishment for the pregnant woman. For other stuff, more on that level. I turned myself in for the”—she took a deep breath, as if to signify magnitude—“years of being a low to mid tier nusiance. For being tiresome. And because I was tired of it.”

“I’m not a priest,” I said. “I don’t have the power to say some words and absolve you. It’s up to society to decide how angry they are and how they come to terms with it. It’s up to you to decide how willing you are to face your deeds. When it comes to me… I can say I respect a lot of what you’re saying. I definitely think you should own up more to what you did to that woman, stop calling her stupid. It’s not a point in your favor.”

Fume Hood nodded.

“Honestly,” I said. “I really like the community hero idea. I’d really like you to try it again, after a bit. For that to be your way of working through it all, from influencing your friends to hurting that woman. We’re dealing with blame, not hate, and blame finds a place to roost eventually. There has to be another shot at making this happen.”