Your parents live apart, and — though you'd never say it out loud — you prefer one house to the other. One has your friends nearby, your stuff, the easier routine. The other feels quieter, further from everything, a bit lonelier. The parent at the quieter house tries so hard. You can see it. And you feel guilty, because your preference isn't really about them — it's about everything around them — but you worry that if they knew, they'd think you loved them less. So you fake equal enthusiasm, and the faking is starting to feel like its own kind of lie.