The world works like this: you meet your rich friend at a fancy restaurant. He's late—he's always late—so you stand in the foyer (silent “r”) and compare the cut and sheen of your suit to that of every other person who walks in. Feel their eyes on you. Your friend (sometimes you despise him so much it turns your stomach, and sometimes it's yourself you despise, but the only way people will ever remember your name is in connection with his) strolls in and smooths your lapels, straightens your tie. He cheerfully informs you that you need a new suit, maybe one your dad didn't die in. You remind yourself this is what passes for affection between you.

You own two suits. It's all you can afford.

Sometimes at dinner you stare at the prices on the menu, remember your mom paying bills when you were a kid. The line of her mouth. Always at dinner you count his drinks. Keeping the bill in mind; keeping his moods in mind. He's unpredictable, but at a certain threshold—four or five—he'll become expansive, reckless. Cruel. You smile apologetically at the waitstaff. He has money, charm. His name. It's rare that you're thrown out.

Usually he pays. Sometimes, though—there's no reason to it, and if there's a rhyme it's one only Logan can hear—he'll slap on a smile and say, just a little too loud, “Billy's got this.”

You'll hand over your credit card, wondering how the hell you're going to buy groceries this week.

He doesn't say that. It's not his world anymore, and it's not the point. He tosses the bloody pillowcase to the bed—the urge is to fold it first, but she'd hate that. She hates everything he hates about himself, which is, in its way, a relief. “Tess,” he says, “you're never gonna find someone who gave up as much as you.”

It's hard to pin down, his tone. Rueful, admiring. Sad. “When'd you learn?”