He lifted up the pizzas in his arms. “Just picking some dinner up for the crew. It’ll be intermission by the time I’m back. Best pies around.”

“Sure,” I said. “Well, see you.” I gave him a nod and a tight smile and then started to walk away, being as curt with him as I always was. I hadn’t gotten more than a few steps, though, before I flashed back to what Stevie had said on the subway—the revelation that the truth of their breakup was not what I’d thought it was, that there was more than an outside chance I’d been a jerk to Beckett for no reason all school year.

I tried to remember the details of when Stevie had shown up at my door in floods of tears. Had she ever actually told me that Beckett had dumped her? I didn’t think so now—but she’d let me believe it, and let me go on believing it. If that was the case, it was the biggest lie of omission ever.

I turned around and walked back—Beckett was still standing there with his pizzas. “I—actually,” I started, then shook my head. I knew I had to be getting to Mr. Campbell’s play, but I also didn’t want to let any more time go by before fixing this, if I really was in the wrong, like I was afraid I was. “Stevie said something to me earlier. About how you weren’t actually to blame for your breakup?” Beckett looked down at the stack of boxes in his arms, not meeting my eye. “I guess I just assumed…”

“You know Stevie,” Beckett said with a shrug and a sad smile. “She doesn’t like to have the hard conversations.”

“Yeah,” I said, my head spinning. I knew that about Stevie—of course I knew it—but I hadn’t thought that this had extended to me, to not telling me basic truths. “But I’m really sorry.” I winced, thinking back to the last few months, how cold I’d been to him, how dismissive. “I thought I was defending my friend. What actually happened?”

Beckett took a breath, like he was going to say something, then shook his head. “If Stevie hasn’t told you, I don’t think it’s my place to.”

I nodded. That was fair. And that, I realized, was what Beckett had always been. He was a good guy—he hadn’t even called me on the fact that I’d been an asshole to him for months when he wasn’t in the wrong. “I should really get going,” I said, knowing that I should probably have already been inside the theater by now. I started to walk down the street, and Beckett fell into step next to me.

“Where are you going?”

“Mr. Campbell wrote and directed a play and it’s premiering tonight. On Fifty-First.”