That was until last Wednesday. After last Wednesday, something had shifted. It was like they had drawn closer to the edge of a cliff, like they had worried beforehand that he might do something dangerous but now they were actually watching him about to jump off. In their minds, punching Spencer meant that something inside him had snapped, that there was some repressed anger rising to the surface that they had to take care of before it swallowed him like a surging wave.
Since it had happened, they spent the first few days approaching him like he was some kind of wild animal, like he was a rabid dog that they were afraid might bare its teeth but as the days went by and his nonchalance remained the same, they began to relax again, they began to wonder if maybe they could mention her name without something terrible happening, without some ugly thing being exposed and making everything uncomfortable.
"Yeah," he shrugged as the lights changed. "She came over on Saturday morning to ask me something about Spencer. Only for twenty minutes or something, I think."
The air still had that same tense feeling, like a held breath desperate to be released.
Isaac watched him for a long, shrewd second and dared to speak. "Yeah? What did she have to say about Spencer?"
"She thought he was acting weird around her and wanted to know if I'd had something to do with it," he explained, cursing to himself about some asshole on the road who didn't know how to drive.
"Why would that have something to do with you?" Isaac frowned, shuffling around in his seat again, his gaze never breaking.
"Because I ran into him on Friday night," he replied, trying to stifle a yawn.  "Not like anything happened. We talked for five minutes and he gave me a ride home. I've not seen him since then."
"He gave you a ride home?" Evan asked, her eyebrows knitting as she glanced towards Noel, who was sitting contemplatively beside her. "Why would he do that?"
"It was freezing outside," he told her vacantly, "and I think he thought I was going to give myself pneumonia if I stayed there."
"Why were you sitting there in the first place?" Isaac pressed, his forehead wrinkling and his focus darting between the driver's seat and the backseat. 
"It doesn't matter," he replied as he pulled into his driveway. "I was just thinking, that's all."
"About what?" Noel inquired, leaning forward and peering round at Hadley curiously, his dark eyes slightly narrowed.
"About nothing," he said because he couldn't think of anything else to say to them and did not feel like trying to make himself understood. 

Without giving anyone the chance to ask anything else, he unbuckled his seatbelt, climbed out of the car and closed the door behind him, heading up to the front porch. He waited for them inside, waiting for Evan to slip in last before he closed the front door behind her.
She waited there, her softened blue eyes dancing towards him without ever quite meeting his eye. She ran her hand through her short wavy hair again and turned away.
"Hadley, honey!" His mom called from the living room. "Is that you!"
Isaac, who had been murmuring to Noel, stepped into the living room and flashed a bright smile, relaxing his shoulders, "And company."
Without waiting for an invitation, he took a seat on the sofa and Noel ambled in after him, throwing himself down in the space beside Isaac while his mom beamed and greeted them in her warm, elegant way.
In the dim hallway, Hadley could feel Evan's eyes on him, but when he turned to look at her, she was already slipping past him and sauntering into the living room. She stood politely behind the sofa and offered a small smile, "Hi, Mrs Elliot."