Jake’s probably angry at him. David would be, in his place. He didn’t expect it to be this hard. Or maybe he did, because he wasn’t even considering coming before the distance between him and Jake felt like a thread that was close to snapping.

He didn’t want it to be this hard. It’s not the Lourdes, he knows it isn’t, they’ve been nice and welcoming, if overwhelming. It’s David who’s messing this up.

Just one more night after this, David tells himself, alone in Jake’s bed. The pillow and sheets smell like detergent, not like Jake. Not even like the detergent Jake uses. He can hear someone talking in the hallway, nearby but not near enough to hear the words themselves, then Jake’s voice, muffled. David wonders if they’re talking about him. If Jake’s apologising for David being a terrible guest.

David knows the right manners — they were drilled into him from a young age — but the Lourdes aren’t anything like the people who’d come by their house when David was growing up, or his apartment with his mother after his father went west, aren’t anything like the people they’d visit. His parents usually socialised without David, but sometimes they brought him when other children were coming, or sometimes if the events were on Sundays, which his nanny Mary Anne had off. They either took him along, or they hired a babysitter, someone who worked in the government under his mother, an intern, David thinks, who ignored David the entire time and let David ignore her.

The disconnect reminds David a little of his billet family in Québec City, but at least with them there was a language barrier; they spoke good but not perfect English, and David spoke adequate but not good French. Well, eventually he spoke adequate French. He went to Québec armed with As in his French classes and thought that meant he’d be able to communicate effectively, but he was wrong.

He had As in his English classes too. He’s still missing something, always missing something, in a way other people don’t seem to. Jake probably got Cs at best, but he still seems to understand things in a way David doesn’t, doesn’t even think he’s capable of. What people mean, maybe. David has a hard time with that. No one ever means what they’re saying. Neither does he, he supposes. People wouldn’t like him if he said what he meant. Not that people like him anyway: he knows they don’t.

The door opens almost silently, and David sits up in bed, pulling the covers over his chest, even though he’s wearing a shirt.

“You good?” Jake asks, peeking his head in the door. “Need anything? Another pillow? Towel for the morning?”

“I’m fine,” David says. “I brought my own towel.”