my annoyance and anger at him, and there he was—the guy I’d been truly friends with for a year. “But—why were you even with her? I thought she was going into the city to have dinner with her dad.”
I shook my head. “Her dad cancelled,” I said. Beckett rolled his eyes, like he wasn’t surprised by this. “He had to work. So we were going to take the reservation, but then…”
“Wait, how are you guys still separated?” Beckett said, frowning. “Why didn’t you just call her?”
Just like that, I remembered that Beckett was from the Before Times, a world where everyone had a cell phone and could receive things like calls and texts. “I left my phone back in Stanwich,” I said. “And… I broke Stevie’s phone.” I hadn’t planned on saying this, but the second the words left my mouth, I knew they were the truth. Why had I been pretending otherwise? Who did that help? I had been taking her phone all night, not even really asking. I’d grabbed for it and sent it flying—this was on me.. “It was my fault. And that kicked off our fight. She left me behind and ended up with Brad.…”
“Brad?” Beckett’s eyebrows flew up, and there was a touch of jealousy in his voice.
“Mallory’s Pomeranian,” I explained, but judging by the expression on Beckett’s face, this hadn’t cleared anything up.
“God.” Beckett shook his head, his eyes wide. “You’ve been having quite a night.”
“You can say that again.”
“You’ve been having quite a night.” He said it with the exact same intonation, and even though I didn’t want to, I smiled. This was the kind of dorky humor I remembered. Before everything had changed.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, looking around. “I thought you were going to your parents’ play.”
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.