( you can be lonely in the biggest crowd, sylvie thinks. you can be lonely, because 'alone' is a mindset. it's an experience instilled in you, and it doesn't easily go away, once it's been planted there. she had friends at boarding school, but they're all so far away these days. letters, she gets letters. but no phone calls. the distances that could have been bridged, well, they aren't. she blinks a couple of times as she listens to rita talk, happy to hear she has friends and a boyfriend and people she cares about.

more than she wants to be someone who has people to care about, sylvie wants to be someone someone cared about.

besides armand, of course. )

Armand's... he's the nicest, brightest, duckiest guy you could imagine. He sets me free, and I think... ( her voice trembles for a second, but on her next breath she's tempered it again. ) There's nothing more you can want from another person than that, is there?