Stockholm Syndrome could describe a lot of Jude's life. The first few stages of adjustment always take so much energy, always exact so little change, always let people know what really gets to you. Better to skip to acceptance and bury the rest deep down, or forget it entirely.

He knows most people don't do that. Charlie hadn't, cracking and crying and drinking through the divorce, refusing to let Jude out of his sight even when his sight wasn't the model of parental supervision. It just seemed messy. It just seemed like a lot of smoke on top of a goddamn fire.

"This place is what you make it," he says, nodding at the inn up ahead. "There's food, there's shelter, the people are nice enough." And he feels saner in a place that shouldn't exist than he did on campus, which might just be proof that he's crazy, but he'll take what he can get.