She's looking down at her tuna salad sandwich her mom packed for her and doesn't have the appetite to take even one bite. She's thinking about her conversation with Steve last night, which consisted of Steve reassuring her he was okay and Nancy not even close to believing him.

"Nance," she hears Jonathan say from their small table in the corner of the cafeteria. "You need to eat."

She registers what he says, but chooses to ignore it. "I can't stop thinking about him," she discloses softly, then realizes how that must sound. "I mean, not in that way, but…"

"I know," Jonathan says quickly, reaching across the table to rest his hand on hers. "I can't stop thinking about him either."

"Did he see the news this morning?" she asks, because all the local channels were covering the story of Henry Harrington's apparent suicide. Nancy's entire family had been glued to the television screen that morning.

Jonathan shakes his head. "He was still asleep when I left this morning."

"Good." Nancy glances around the cafeteria, wonders how many conversations are involving Steve and his overdosing, big-time-lawyer father. "When's he coming back to school?"

"I don't know," Jonathan tells her. "I think he'll need some time. He's staying with Will today… My mom couldn't take off any more work."

"That'll be kind of weird, won't it?" Nancy asks. "He barely knows Will."

"He barely knows any of us," Jonathan points out, and Nancy realizes it's the truth. The Byers kept to themselves and liked it that way, and the only time Steve ever really had any sort of interaction with them was when the world was about to end. "But he still showed up on our doorstep Sunday night," Jonathan says. "Which when you think about it, just shows how desperate he was."

Nancy's stomach sinks. She doesn't want to think about that. Steve used to have dozens of friends… before her. Before she turned his life upside down (quite literally) and then stomped on his heart like it didn't even matter. Since, Steve has lost friends like Tommy and Carol and all the people that came along with "being on the top." He's no longer King Steve, and no one who used to have his back does anymore.

"Anyway, it shouldn't matter about Will," Jonathan continues, breaking Nancy out of her pity session for Harrington. "Steve's good with the kids."

I may be a pretty shitty boyfriend, but turns out I'm actually a pretty damn good babysitter.

Nancy feels her lips curve up a little bit. "I know, right? Who would've guessed?"

"Not me." Jonathan gives her a sad little smile then squeezes her hand. "Will you please eat something?" he presses again. He nudges his tray closer to her. "Just some of my fries or something, Nance. Please."

Nancy knows he won't let it rest so she grabs a couple of his fries to satisfy him. As she chews, her eyes wander to two tables away, where Billy Hargrove is sitting by himself. He normally sits with Tommy and Carol, but they're nowhere in sight today. Billy doesn't have lunch; he's working on something. Homework maybe.

Nancy wonders if he'd been listening to their conversation. Hargrove always seems to be lingering around them these days. He's always just there. But he's left them alone, kept his trap shut.

Until today.

xxx

She closes her locker to find Billy leaned up on the other side, smirking coolly, despite his busted and bruised face he'd been sporting the past couple of weeks.

"Jesus, Harrington. Did you really do that much damage to Hargrove's face?" Jonathan had asked on their first day back. "He looks worse than you."

"I don't really remember it, Byers. But… I don't think so." Steve shrugged it off. "He gave me what-for for essentially no reason, so it wouldn't surprise me if he got tangled up in another fight."

"Probably got what he deserved," Nancy had agreed, and that had been the end of it. Billy Hargrove was so far down on their list of priorities that it was almost laughable.

"What do you want?" she asks Billy now, clutching her books tightly to her chest.

"Just wanted to get something straight," he answers.

"And that would be…?" Nancy's eyes flicker to the doorway of her next class. She does not have time to be standing here and talking to this low-life.

"Did I seriously hear that Harrington - your ex-boyfriend - is shacking up at your current weirdo boyfriend's house?"

Instead of dignifying him with an answer, Nancy exhales loudly. "You are such an ass," she tells him pointedly.

Billy raises his eyebrows, amused by her remark. "No arguments here," he says, almost proud. "But you do realize that's gonna be weird, right?"

Yes, Nancy does realize that, and maybe that's why she feels heat on her cheeks. "What's it matter to you?" she challenges. "Why do you care?"

"I don't," Billy says through gritted teeth. "I just—"

"What?" Nancy asks, taking a step closer to him, and makes her voice as threatening as possible. "You just wanted to come over here and make fun of his screwed-to-hell situation at my expense? Don't you think you've done fucking enough?"

Billy's face clouds over with something Nancy can't quite put her finger on. Regret? Guilt? Whatever it is, it doesn't last. "Just because his dad decided to off himself, it doesn't change the fact that Harrington had what was coming to him," Billy growls at her.

"So that's it, huh?" Nancy says, her chin jutting out a little. "Not even an ounce of remorse?"

Billy shakes his head, tightens his jaw, won't look her in the eye.

Nancy lets her gaze linger on him a moment longer. When he doesn't cave, she says, "I'm not scared of you Billy Hargrove. And I don't buy this act your selling."

She walks past him then, doesn't plan on giving him any more of the time of day. But…

"You should be scared of me."

He says it softly. Sadly. It's not hostile or intimidating and it sounds so unlike Billy Hargrove that Nancy wonders if she was meant to hear it at all. It stops her dead in her tracks.

When she turns around, he's making his way out the front doors.

He doesn't look back.