“I saw you do it, and I thought that maybe you were messing around with your own drink. Sometimes I play with those little packets of sugar if they’re on the table. I thought it could have been sugar, but the package was the wrong color. And right after you did it, you left the table.”

Because I’m a coward, I think.

Nick looks down at his shoes. “So I went over there and checked, and yes, it was pepper. Billy even turned to pick it up, so I just grabbed it and gave it to a waiter who was cleaning up dishes.”

“It was you! You stopped him!” I gasp, part of me angry again, that Nick would interfere. “This was none of your business, Nick. You shouldn’t have—” I sigh. “Okay. That was probably fine.”

The tram arrives. Everyone around us surges toward it.

Nick gazes at it thoughtfully. “This morning there was a woman who was struggling to get her stroller on the tram. Billy saw her and got off and lifted it on for her, and then he gave her and her baby his seat.”

I wince. “That doesn’t prove anything. Everybody likes babies.”

“I saw him at lunchtime, too. He found a tiny spider on his table and he used a napkin to carry it outside.”

“That doesn’t make him a saint,” I say stiffly, struggling to hold on to the image I most want to forget: Billy and my mom in the dark hotel room. Cheating on us all. “And now that spider is probably going to bite a person, thanks to Billy.”

The tram leaves.

Nick’s eyebrows squeeze together. “I don’t get you. Billy’s the best.”

“Then maybe you should sleep with him!” I stand up and walk away like I’m going to leave, then change my mind and come back. “I have a good reason to not like him, Nick, and I don’t have to tell you what it is, because I don’t owe you anything. Can’t you just—I don’t know—trust me?”

But even as I say that, I think, But why would he trust me? He’s never seen me save a bug’s life or help somebody in need.

Another tram arrives. “I should go,” I murmur.

We both stand up.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“I get it. You don’t know me, either.” I get on the tram. The doors shut between us. Nick steps back and watches as I’m spirited away.

I’m angry as I walk back from the tram to the room. Not at Nick. At Mom. Still. Again. Perpetually.

I’m quiet as I enter the room, in case Afton went to bed early. Monday night, I went to bed early. Just to get that horrible day over with.