It’s quiet. None of them are rushing to answer my question.
I look at Theo.
He looks back at me steadily. Not flinching and not performing calmly. It’s unsettling.
"We play together," he says.
I look at him, confused.
"I play hockey," he says, "for UW."
The room tilts, but I realize it hasn’t. It’s just me.
I look at Cody.
He's looking at the window.
I look at Beckett.
He's looking at his hands.
I look back at Theo.
At the face, I have been reading for months in the library on the third floor, in the political science section. At the face I looked at across a table at Barnes and Noble with my knees pulled up in a chair. At the face I kissed in a park above the water while he read philosophy out loud and I thought — I genuinely thought — that this was mine. This was the one thing that was entirely mine. Outside of all of it. Not connected to any of it.
He's been on Cody's team this entire time, and I had no idea.
He’s known exactly who I am.
Every library meeting. The margin notes in the book. He knew exactly who was sitting across from him, and he sat there anyway. He wrote back anyway. He bought me a book and read to me in a park and kissed me and said this isn't a mistake, you'll see and he knew.
"The library," I say.
He watches me carefully.
"You knew who I was?"
"Yes," he says.
I look at him.
Then I look at Beckett.
I look at the two of them standing together. I think about a broken finger in the parking lot and the way Beckett went still when I told him I knew he set up that night. I think about how I let it go. How I filed it and told myself I didn't want to deal with it.
I'm not pushing it off anymore.
"The masked men." I look at Beckett first. His jaw is tight. His eyes are on mine. I already half knew. He confirmed it without confirming it. I move my eyes to Theo and back to Beckett. "Was it you?"
Theo doesn't look away.
"Yes," they say in unison.
The word lands in my chest like I just got hit by another car.
Not because I didn't suspect Beckett. Because they both admitted it directly. No performance, no management, no careful construction of a version of events designed to land softly. Just yes. Delivered with the same certainty, Theo delivers everything, like the truth is the only language he's ever been interested in speaking, even when the truth is this.
"You were in my room," I say.
