“So you’re just gonna get on a bus to Trois-Rivières?” Molly asks me. “Like a normal person?”

I shift my duffel bag up higher on my shoulder. “That’s the plan.”

A few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought there was anything weird about me taking a Greyhound, but Molly’s surprise kind of makes sense now. Sherbrooke Station mania is getting more intense by the day. I never used to have to deal with getting recognized unless me and the guys were all hanging out together, but lately I’ve been stopped by fans on the metro at least once every few days.

It’s still rare enough to be fun for me—I usually do a little air piano solo for them after I sign whatever they want me to sign—but I know Ace is having a shit time with it. He and Stéphanie literally got mobbed leaving the dive bar last week and had to order a ride instead of walking home.

“Luckily no one at the bus station can possibly be a bigger Sherbrooke Station fan than you,” I tease Molly.

“What can I say? I have good taste,” she shoots back, popping one of the bus station doors open with her hip and leading us inside.

It’s late Friday afternoon, and the place is bustling with people leaving and arriving for the weekend. I can barely make out what the French voice on the speakers is saying. We walk over to one of the boards listing the upcoming departures and find our gate number.

“We’ve still got half an hour,” Molly announces. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

I grin at her. “I brought snacks.”

She smirks and rolls her eyes. “Typical. Is it chocolate pudding cups and ham sandwiches?”

I gasp like I’m shocked. “Madame, how did you know?”

In truth, I am a little shocked. I only met Molly in September, and we can already predict each other like a weather forecast.

She can’t have everything figured out, though. Not yet. There are parts of me I haven’t let her see, and we’re about to get on a bus that will take us straight to most of them. It hits me then that I have no idea what our return trip is going to be like. Right now, she’s sitting with her legs thrown over my lap, chewing on a ham sandwich as she laughs at me impersonating the voice on the intercom, but come Sunday, we might not even be sitting next to each other on the bus.

Molly still knows me as the funny guy. She likes the funny guy. I’m starting to think that one day, there’s a possibility she might even love him. There’s a big chance that letting her see the not-so-funny side of my life is going to blow up in my face.

Still, she said she wanted everything, and I said it right back. She wanted a new role in life, and she was brave enough to go out and get it. I owe it to her to at least try and do the same.

Our bus pulls up on the other side of the sliding doors, and soon everyone is getting in line to board. Molly goes to claim a pair of seats near the front, but I wave for her to follow me all the way to the back.

“Back of the bus is for the cool kids,” I explain.

She shakes her head. “We’re not in elementary school. The back of the bus just means it’s going to take longer for us to get off at the end.”

She still sits down next to me. We peel open our pudding cups and spoon chocolate into our mouths as the streets of downtown Montreal slip by. Soon we’re out on the highway, the sun sinking out of sight in the sky.

“So I have some news,” Molly tells me, after we’ve been quiet for awhile. “Shayla offered me a full time job at Metro Records.”

“What?”

She nods. I can tell she’s trying to play it casual, but she can’t keep herself from beaming. “She wants me to be the head of graphic design. I mean, I’m the only one doing graphic design—for now, at least—but she said I’m...”

“Go on,” I urge her. “You can brag.”

“She said she always knew I had the talent for it; she just wasn’t sure about the whole interpersonal skills thing, but she said I’ve become a real leader at Metro Records and an important part of the team.”

“Fuck yes you have!” I grab her hand and wave it in the air, shouting loud enough that a few rows of people turn their heads. “Mesdames et monsieurs, we have a real leader here with us today!”

“Stop it!” she hisses, snatching her hands back. She’s still smiling, though.

“Wait.” I cock my head at her when the realization catches up with me. “What about school?”

That knocks the grin right off her face. She turns to watch the endless miles of darkening forest we’re flying past.

“That’s the question. Shayla wants me to start in January, so I have until the end of term to decide. I’d have to leave school.”

“I mean...you can always go back,” I point out, “if the job doesn’t work out. McGill isn’t going anywhere.”

“I know.” She sighs. “It’s just scary, giving something up like that. My whole life, I’ve been told university is like, the key to a secure and successful future. It’s always been my path. If I take this job, I’ll be striking out on my own into the unknown.”

I reach for her hand where it’s resting on her seat between us. “Wouldn’t be the first time you went off your ‘path.’ It didn’t go so bad with us.”

She gives my fingers a squeeze and jokes, “Not yet, at least.”

Yeah, not yet.

“If I’m honest, the hardest part isn’t even making the choice,” Molly continues. “The hardest part would be telling my mom. She...I don’t even know what she would do. I just know it would be catastrophically bad. What was it like for you, when you dropped out of UQAM? Did you ever fix things with your parents after?”

I slip the hand that’s not holding Molly’s into my pocket and flex it around the familiar shape of mon truc.

“Well, ah, I think to fix things, they have to work in the first place. Things with my family have never been all that great. They aren’t...what did you call it? Catastrophically bad—they aren’t that, but they aren’t great.”

She shifts a little closer to me. “Why not? You’ve been cryptic about your family. What exactly am I walking into here?”

She stares up at me with those big, round eyes, and I think about telling her right here. Right now. I could let it all slip out on the backseat of a bus. I want to tell her about my medication, the doctor visits, all those years spent in detention at school. I want to trust her with the knowledge—with my biggest secret. My biggest weakness.

That’s what it is: a weakness. That’s why my dad always told me to hide it. That was my path. I want to follow Molly’s lead and step into the unknown with her; I just don’t think I can do it right now.

So I’ll start with baby steps, although introducing her to my family feels more like a giant leap.

“Well, you know mon père is a member of the Parti Québécois. He was actually elected as an MP one term when we were kids. Whenever Sherbrooke Station plays a show in Trois-Rivières, the guys all joke that I must be the most popular guy in town because everybody knows me, but really people know me because of my dad. He’s like a superstar in Trois-Rivières. He really like, believes in it, you know? In the city. In Quebec. In our culture. He raised us to feel the same way.”

“Do you?” Molly asks. “Feel the same way?”

I nod. “I’m proud to be Québécois, sure. We’ve been treated like shit a lot by this country, and I think it’s important that we hold onto our culture. We’re more than a national joke. We’re worth some pride. My dad’s just... extreme about it. He always had these expectations for us, that we go off and become important, impressive people to prove that French Canadians can do anything les anglophones can.”

“So...being in a platinum selling rock band that’s sold out shows all across North America isn’t important and impressive?”

I shrug. “It doesn’t involve business or politics, so I guess not.”

“Should I be worried?” she asks, laughing a little to cover up how nervous she actually is. “About you bringing an anglophone home with you?”

“Nah,” I tell her, swiping away that strand of hair that’s always falling into her eyes. “It might be a little awkward, sure, but it will be fine.”

I really hope I didn’t just lie.

“Oh by the way,” she says, jerking her chin towards a seat a few rows ahead of us, “that girl there has been taking photos of you the entire time we’ve been on this bus.”

I crane my neck to get a look at the person she’s talking about. “No, she isn’t. She’s just taking selfies.”

Molly shakes her head. “That’s what she wants it to look like. Trust me, this is an established technique. I can tell she’s a very big fan.”

“Takes one to know one.”

She plants a kiss on my cheek. “I guess that’s true.”

“Do you always stay at a four star hotel when you visit your family?”

Molly’s gaping at the polished lobby of the hotel in downtown Trois-Rivières. I take our key cards from the receptionist and lead the way over to the elevators.

“Not usually,” I admit. “I just wanted to treat my girl.”

I bop her on the nose, and she scrunches her face up.

“Ew. Since when do you talk like some sleazy dude from the fifties?”

I laugh as the elevator dings and we climb inside. The truth is that my parents don’t even know I have Molly with me. I didn’t know how well they’d take the announcement, and the house will be packed with my siblings and their significant—or insignificant—others anyway. It just seemed easier to tell them I was crashing with a friend and cut down the amount of time we’ll all have to spend together.

Without even discussing it, the first thing Molly and I do when I open the hotel room door is drop our bags and belly flop onto the bed.

“Oh my god,” Molly moans. “It’s so comfy.”

“Like a cloud,” I agree, “only less...damp.”

She rolls over and wraps herself around me, laughing at my expense. “Great comparison.”

I start to rub her lower back, and she hums against my neck. We haven’t even taken our jackets off yet. I slide my hand underneath her pea coat and then start to inch her shirt up. Her spine arches when I trace it with my thumb.

“Don’t get me going,” she warns. “We have to leave.”

“Do we have to?” I ask, making myself sound whiny. “We could just stay here, order a pizza...”

She groans. “Stop making that sound so good. I’m going to make a bad impression if we ditch family dinner tonight.”

We’re going to my parents’ place for a late supper. I tried to get out of it, but they insisted, saying it was the only time we’d have the whole family together, other than at the gala tomorrow. I’m sure my dad is probably just using tonight as a chance to make a speech about how important the gala is and how we need to ‘represent the family well.’ Back when I still regularly got invited to these things, he would make the same speech every year.

Molly sits up, laughing as she pries my hands off her waist when I try to pull her back down. She gets off the bed and starts digging around in her bag.

“Do you guys dress fancy for dinner? I only brought one fancy outfit, and I wanted to save it for the gala.”

“Wear whatever you like,” I tell her. “You always look ravissant.”

“Flirt,” she teases. I see her blushing, though.

She grabs some things out of her bag and heads into the bathroom to get fixed up. I eventually find the will to get up off the not-damp-cloud bed and pull a fresh shirt out of my duffel. My pill bottles rattle as I’m digging around for it, and I make sure they’re pushed down out of sight.

Molly comes back out wearing black pants and a peach-coloured shirt that has this little flouncy thing at the neck. She looks sweet and fresh, like a bit of springtime. The only thing in the air tonight is winter, though.

I get us an Uber to my parent’s house. It’s the same house I grew up in: a big two-storey building with stone walls and a brown tiled roof, on a quiet little cul-de-sac down by the Rivère Saint-Maurice.

“It’s so cute!” Molly babbles, as we pull up to the driveway. “It’s like a cottage.”

Yeah, on steroids. The fleet of expensive cars lined up outside kind of kills any chance the place has at being ‘quaint.’

I texted my mom to say I’d be bringing a friend with me, but the shock on her face when she pulls the door open tells me she wasn’t expecting my friend to be a girl. She pats my arm—she’s more of an arm-patter than a hugger—and we kiss each other’s cheeks.

“And you brought a friend, Jean-Paul!” she exclaims in French. “Who is this young lady?”

“This is Molly,” I answer in English. “She’s still working on her French.”

Molly offers her hand and stutters a quiet, “Bonsoir, Madame.”

Maman takes it and goes in for a cheek kiss. Molly starts to pull away after, but Maman is going for the whole double kiss thing, and they end up bumping their faces together. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so nervous. I flex my fingers around mon truc in my pocket.

“Entrez, entrez,” Maman urges, shooing us in the door. “So, Molly, you will meet most of JP’s brothers and sisters tonight. Everyone is waiting for you in the salon.”

The living room is full of people balancing plates of appetizers on their knees while a fire roars in the woodstove. The first thing I notice is that my dad isn’t in the room.

“Jean-Paul est ici!” Maman announces.

Everyone turns to look and wave, eyeing Molly like she’s some kind of exotic pet I’ve brought along.

I raise a hand. “Salut, famille.”

“Ouais ouais, enough about you, Poisson,” Geneviève’s twin, Carol, calls out in French. “Who’s the girl?”

I place a hand on Molly’s shoulder and introduce her in English. “This is Molly. She’s coming to the gala tomorrow night. She doesn’t speak much French, but”—I put my other hand on her back and twist her into a sudden dip—“she’s a very good dancer.”

The awkwardness eases a little after that. Molly and I get loaded up with appetizers, and I introduce her to the crowd: Geneviève and Carol, plus Lucille and Thérèse, plus all their boyfriends, fiancées, and husbands. Molly looks a bit overwhelmed, and I whisper in her ear to let her know she shouldn’t worry.

“I mix them up all the time. Lucille has had so many boyfriends I don’t even bother remembering their names anymore.”

I find we’re all waiting for Papa to get back from work. It’s almost eight-thirty already and Maman says he still hasn’t left the office. My family does their best to remember to speak in English, and while they keep giving me confused looks about her whenever they get a chance, they don’t make too much of a scene about Molly.

So far, things are going better than I thought they would. No one burst out laughing and started making fish faces at me. We’re in the middle of looking at some photos Alain sent over from Thailand when the sound of the front door crashing open interrupts me making fun of his tan lines.

“Finalement!” Maman sings out. “We can eat! Come to the table, everyone.”

We all move into the dining room and take seats at the massive table that’s been set with cutlery and plates. Carol is serving everyone salad when my dad walks into the room, still dressed in a suit and tie, his face red from the cold outside.

“Papa!”

Carol kisses him on the cheek before he moves around the table to kiss the girls and shake hands with the guys. When he finally reaches me, he eyes my man-bun like I’ve got a dead squirrel on my head.

“Jean-Paul, you made it,” he says in French, stating the obvious like usual, “and I see you’ve brought a stranger into our midst.”

“This is Molly,” I say in even English, as the rest of the room goes silent. “Molly, this is my father, Marc Bouchard.”

He hesitates for a second, then offers Molly his hand. “C’est un plaisir de vous rencontrer, Mademoiselle.”

“B—bonsoir, Monsieur Bouchard. C’est...C’est...nice to meet you.”

She laughs off her struggle with the language, but nobody else joins in. Carol freezes with the salad tongs still hovering over Lucille’s plate, her eyes glued to my dad. Everyone else is equally frozen, like a sheet of ice just swept in to blanket the room.

“Molly is still learning French,” Maman says in quiet English.

Papa’s jaw twitches. He doesn’t follow her lead in switching languages.

“Well, this is a French household. I think we can speak French at our own dinner table, don’t you?” He turns to Molly again and says in strained English, “We will speak French now, if you don’t mind.”

She gives him a wide-eyed little nod, like a terrified private responding to a drill sergeant, and he takes his seat at the head of the table. Carol goes back to dishing out salad, and Maman pulls off the towel covering a basket of bread. The conversations that were going on before Papa arrived resume, but nobody makes an attempt at bilingualism now. Molly wraps her hand around my clenched fist under the table and shoots me a reassuring smile.

I wish I could ease up enough to smile back. This is why my father has done well in politics: when he walks into a room, he owns it. He sets the mood to whatever he wants it to be. He leads, and people follow. You can hate yourself for it all you want, but you can’t stop craving his approval.

Somehow, we get through the rest of the meal, although it seems to last for hours. It’s only when Maman ducks away to get dessert ready that Papa shifts his chair back a little, the sure-fire sign that he’s about to make a speech.

“So, as you all know, the Parti hosts the Christmas charity gala every year, and it’s one of the most important events in the city...”

I tune the rest of what he’s saying out, picking a piece of bread apart in front of me until I feel Molly nudging my foot with hers. I look up and realize everyone is staring at me.

“Poisson rouge,” Geneviève mouths from across the table.

I cross my eyes and stick my tongue out.

“Jean-Paul!” Papa repeats, for what I realize is probably something like the seventh or eighth time. “While you were busy playing with your food, I told you that Gabriel Laframboise’s daughter doesn’t have anyone to go to the gala with. I let him know you would arrive together.”

Great. Not only is he refusing to talk to Molly in English, he’s also refusing to acknowledge she exists.

“I already have someone I’ll be arriving with.”

His grip tightens on his fork. A shriek from the kitchen saves things from getting any uglier.

“Maman!” Carol cries. She’s closest to the kitchen door, and jumps up to run and see what’s going on.

“Ҫa va, ҫa va.” We all hear Maman groan. “I dropped the cake.”

She comes into the dining room, gesturing at the smear of pink icing that’s streaked down her shirt.

“I’m so clumsy,” she mutters in French. “Lucille, why don’t you help Carol clean up the floor, and I’ll start serving everyone ice cream? I haven’t managed to drop that yet, at least.”

The distraction seems to have eased everyone else’s edginess a little, but I’m getting twitchier by the second. It always gets worse when I’m in the same room as Papa. He sets me off until I can’t focus on anything but the need to move—away from him, preferably.

I’m not going to force Molly to sit here eating ice cream with a bunch of people who are too chicken shit to even talk to her, and I’m not going to force myself to stay still until I explode.

I jump up from my chair. “Actually, we have to go, Maman. We have...a thing.”

Maman gives me a look filled with more understanding than I expected. “Are you sure?”

I nod, then motion for Molly to follow me.

“Peace out,” I say to the room at large, pausing in the doorway to sweep my hand in an overdramatic wave. I don’t even look at Papa.

“C’est...C’est...bon,” Molly squeaks. “Merci!”

We don’t speak again until we’re standing out in the driveway, waiting for our ride back to the hotel to arrive.

“So...what the hell was that?” Molly demands.

“That,” I answer, “was my family.”