The Fog Between the Walls

The evening's second half begins with a collision Jerome didn't seek. Walking into the chapel bathroom, he discovers Nate and Ryan in a moment of intimacy that Ryan immediately destroys with violence — shoving Nate away and fleeing. Jerome is left standing opposite a terrified boy in a building that would condemn him, and the memory of Luke rises unbidden: his half-brother who lives in Hobart with Jamie, who was quietly and systematically pushed to the margins by the same theology that built these walls. Jerome chooses compassion. He tells Nate he saw nothing.

But the choice doesn't free him — it loads him. Back in the cultural hall, Jerome carries what he knows alongside everything else accumulating tonight: more fragments of Bishop Hahn's guarded conversation with the grey-haired stranger, references to temple presidency and timelines and invitations kept close. He watches James Hahn perform the shift between two versions of himself the instant his father appears. He catches Nate's eyes across the room and holds the gaze just long enough. Megan Ashworth tries once more to reach him, but Jerome has no bandwidth left — he deflects with politeness that functions as a wall.

The drive home with Noah is pure Smith men silence: logistics and nothing else. Jerome sits in the passenger seat holding a bathroom secret, a half-understood conspiracy, and the growing awareness that the adults around him are all performing versions of themselves — and that he might be learning to do the same.