"No," Isaac replied swiftly, looking out across the red lawn. "No."
"Never?" Hadley pressed, angling his body towards him. His chest felt heavy, but he tried to ease himself into it like wading slowly through cold water.
"Do you..." He began, looking at nothing in particular as his face drew into a frown. "Do you feel like I don't know you? Do you feel like you don't know me?"
"I don't know," he admitted with another small shrug, clasping his hands together tightly between his knees. He pressed his fingers so hard against his knuckles that they began to ache and he had to struggle a few times before he could get his words out. "I guess I feel like we used to be so similar. I feel like we used to be closer."
"We were," Isaac agreed, glancing at him. His gaze was clearer than it had been before— sobered— but his words were still mostly graceless, still tumbling. "And then towards the end of your relationship with Elodie it was like you built this house inside of your head and now you never leave it. Maybe come out and knock for me one time, and you'll remember we aren't strangers."
"But it feels like you are turning into a stranger," he mumbled, a string tightening around his heart.
"I'm not," he insisted, shaking his head. He raised his head to look up at the sky. "I don't feel like I am. I still feel the same about you as I always have, but sometimes it's like you go too far in one way that I can't follow and I have this– I don't know what to call it. What's that word? Like, when you understand something."
"Know? Realize?"
"No."
Hadley scratched his forehead and frowned. "Recognise?"
"Maybe," he said, his face hardening. He shook his head and waved his hand dismissively, a stern frown on his face. "Doesn't matter, can't find it. Sometimes you go in a direction and I can't follow you, and I have this feeling that I don't understand you. Maybe I don't always get you, but I still know you. It's like– let me think." He stopped. "It's like if you showed up at my house dressed like a choir boy or a pirate or something, maybe I'd think 'why the fuck is Hadley dressed like a choir boy?' Or 'when did Hadley become a pirate?' And I wouldn't get it, but I'd still know you, you know what I mean?"
Hadley grinned at him. "No."
"You're the same guy!" He stressed with an exasperated huff. "You're still you underneath the choir boy outfit!"
"Or the pirate outfit," he chimed, biting the inside of his cheek and trying to concentrate on Isaac's face.
"Or the pirate outfit," he agreed with a solemn nod and a severity in his eyes. "Exactly. Does that make sense now?"
He cupped his hands over his face, his index fingers touching at the bridge of his nose, but his snicker gave him away. 
"You don't even know what I'm saying!" Isaac cried. "Look, forget the analogy! It's a stupid analogy!"
"You're a stupid analogy," he muttered, quieting his laughter.
"Okay!" He began loudly, sitting up taller and raising his palms flat. "It's like maybe your ideas change, right? Maybe your... your values change or some part of your identity changes or you start going to church—"
"What's with all the church talk?" He frowned.
"Shut up, I'm talking," Isaac warned, continuing, "or you wanna move to France or you dedicate your life to... To the teachings of Descartes or become... Become a communist or something— I don't know— it's like, yeah, okay, maybe I don't get that. Maybe I don't wanna start going to church or studying Descartes or whatever, but just because those parts of you have changed, doesn't mean you're all gone."