Lisa inhaled on her cigarette but didn’t invite me to sit down with her. I went inside, where Mel and Steph were silently putting the pizza into the oven.

“Hey,” Mel said, sounding relieved at my arrival.

“Hi.” I went over to the breakfast bar and leaned over it, asking softly, “Is Lisa okay?”

“She’s had a rough day,” Steph said shortly, but didn’t meet my eyes.

When Steph was turned away, Mel mouthed at me, They had a fight. I nodded and went to put the ice cream I’d brought—cardamom—in the freezer. When Lisa returned from the courtyard, we all tried to pretend as if everything was normal.

The movie could have been viewed as a campy comedy, with its 1950s-era robot named Robby, who was kind of a cross between a butler and an iPhone, but none of us laughed. The sole woman in the movie, Altaira, was the daughter of the scientist who had been stranded on the forbidden planet. She grew up with only her father for company, and when a starship full of young spacemen landed, she was immediately smitten by the handsome commander. Altaira was so innocent she didn’t know that skinny-dipping and wearing very short dresses was apparently inappropriate. The men couldn’t resist her allure, which was obviously her fault.

“How things have changed,” I said after the commander told her to dress more conservatively.

“Yeah, this is bullshit,” Mel agreed.

But the movie wasn’t only about slut-shaming. It turned out that the aliens who had once populated the planet had built a machine that could make the subconscious real. When the scientist interfaced with the machine, the monsters in his imagination stepped into the real world—and terrorized it.

Lisa watched the whole movie with her lips drawn into a flat line, saying nothing. I wondered if she had chosen it in advance or if it was a spur-of-the-moment choice.

After we cleaned up our plates and glasses, Mel said she was heading home early. I decided to go, too, since it didn’t seem like a great time to linger in Lisa and Steph’s apartment.

As Mel and I walked down the street to our cars, I asked, “Do you know what’s up with them?”

“Not really.”

“Is it about the concert? I was wondering if Lisa doesn’t want Steph to do it.”

“I don’t know.”

“I keep wondering why they’re still together if Lisa doesn’t support Steph’s music.”

Mel didn’t respond right away, and in that silence, I wondered if I had made a mistake. I was about to walk it back when Mel said, “Steph and Lisa have history together.”

“But you shouldn’t just stay with someone because you have history together.”