A boy called Ryan is the funny one — always joking, always making people laugh, never serious for more than a second. If a conversation gets deep or someone asks how he really is, he cracks a joke and deflects. Everyone thinks he's hilarious and totally fine. But you've started to notice that the jokes get fastest exactly when things get real. It's almost like the laughing is a door he keeps slamming shut, so nobody — maybe including him — has to look at whatever's behind it.