"How much have you had to drink?" He laughed.
"Hadley!" He pleaded, his brow furrowing and his eyes glassy with desperation. "This is exactly what I'm trying to talk to you about. Meet me halfway here, man! Come on!"
"Okay," he began, trying to straighten his face and fighting the urge to grin. "Okay. I think what you're saying is that just because we change as we grow up and we might become different to each other in some ways, doesn't mean that we're different in every way and just because we might have shifting  interests or values or ideas, doesn't mean we can't still understand each other on some level."
"Yes! Thank you! Exactly!"
"So why didn't you just say that?" He cried, a laugh escaping him.
"I don't know!" Isaac told him, burying his head in his hands. "Sometimes I don't think you want me to understand you."
"Why would I not want to be understood?" He scoffed.
"Don't know," he muttered, shrugging stiffly and dramatically, "but you don't tell me stuff anymore. Not about Elodie or- or Spencer or your parents or anything. Like that day you were really angry about the weird statue in your living room. I felt like— god, how do I say it? I felt like you were trying to tell me something, but I couldn't figure out what it was. So maybe I don't understand you right now— I don't know what's goin' on 'cause you don't just come out and tell me stuff anymore— but I still know you and I'm not going to let you take that away from me. Stay inside your little head-house as long as you want. I'll get a deck chair and camp out on your lawn." 
All at once, the string around his heart seemed to pull so tight that he could hardly breathe over the ache of it and, before he knew he was going to say it, he felt a lump in his throat and he blurted, "I love you."
He shook his head disapprovingly and scoffed, rolling his eyes and glaring at him but without malice, "Don't be like that."
But when Hadley threw his arms around his shoulders, Isaac hugged him back.
"I don't want to grow away from you," he said quietly, his cheek pressed against Isaac's. His voice wavered and his lower lip trembled, his eyes beginning to sting. He could see the outline of Jensen's porch and a patch of the night sky, his chin pressing into Isaac's shoulder blade. "But I don't know how to say things anymore. I don't know why. I don't know why." He tightened his grip around Isaac, their faces pressed together until it hurt. "You were laughing earlier and I didn't recognise the sound of it."
"You're not slipping away," Isaac promised in a low, soft voice. "There's distance right now, but that doesn't mean we'll always be distant. Maybe I'm just not the right person or something. Maybe I can still know you as I've always known you, and still realise that maybe— for whatever reason— Spencer understands what you're going through better than I do. Maybe he just knows what to say to make you feel better. I don't know. I don't hold it against you."
He buried his head against Isaac's shoulder and Isaac held him as the breeze rushed through them, rustling the leaves and brushing through the blades of red grass. The night was quiet, and their breathing came soft and hushed, the porch light and moonlight washing over them, but Hadley was so stuck on the feeling of Isaac's sweater, his hard cheekbone and cold cheek, that he didn't hear the door opening.
"Sorry," Spencer began, standing in a pocket of light. "Am I interrupting?"
"Why is he everywhere?" Isaac whispered into his ear.
As they pulled away from each other, he snickered.
"You're okay," Isaac assured, turning towards him with a wry smile.