Jake took a deep breath. He smiled nervously while looking somewhere in the distance. “David and I have been friends since childhood,” he said. “But I haven’t seen him in a while. I didn’t know he was keeping a secret from you. But there’s something else you should know.”
“David’s been struggling with some personal issues,” Jake said. “I don’t want to go into details, but I think that’s why he’s been distant. He’s been trying to deal with things on his own, but he’s not doing a very good job of it.”