He's used to keeping his thoughts to himself under lock and key--has kept them hidden for too long to truly know how to express them. That's what keeps his mouth zipped shut around his roommates and everybody else.
When his parents come to visit him, they cry mainly and ask awkward questions in awkward tones and make awkward eye contact as if they're talking to a stranger as opposed to their own son. Maybe they think they are. Maybe they think that those thoughts he's kept hidden in his chest, buried underneath his heart, have kept the real him from them. Maybe they're right.
Austin doesn't really warm up to him over the next few days, but they get stuck hanging out with each other because Alex and Jake are lost in their own world most of the time, in that phase where it's just about eac
