In this flashback, Daisy is busy volunteering after school, so Tom cannot walk her home. Instead, Tom walks with his friend Slug, who teases Tom about failing to "score" with Daisy and asks Tom to help him get a girlfriend. Tom reflects that girls have started noticing him, but Daisy is the only one he truly cares about.

As they walk, Slug talks about insects and anthills, showing the obsessive interests and odd habits that make other people uneasy around him. He then asks to come over under the pretense of doing math homework, though Tom knows Slug mainly wants to copy his work and eat their food. Tom agrees, and they head to Tom’s house.

When Tom arrives home, he finds his father there early, already drunk and leaving again. Tom’s contempt for his father is immediate and intense, and he privately wishes his father might die in a car crash. After Tom’s father leaves, Tom and Slug go into the kitchen, where Tom’s mother is washing dishes and trying to hide a split lip.

Tom quickly realizes his father has hit her again. Tom’s mother claims she hurt herself by accident and insists Tom not make a big deal of it, just as she has before. Tom remembers that he once called the police, only for his mother to deny the abuse and protect his father, leaving Tom powerless and angry.

Up in Tom’s room, Tom cannot focus on homework because he is consumed by the image of his father hurting his mother. Tom admits that he hates his father and then blurts out that he wants to kill him. Instead of recoiling, Slug calmly asks why Tom does not do it, arguing that killing someone who deserves it is not really wrong as long as Tom does not get caught. Tom is shaken by how easily Slug says this, yet he briefly imagines his father bleeding to death, revealing how close his violent fantasies feel to becoming real.