[ Sophie's mouth crooks again, a little less-guarded this time around, the expression more natural on her face, the faintest hint of white teeth showing between her lips. ] It totally sucks, doesn't it? [ The words come easily, almost conversational — like when she'd confessed to him that she couldn't go home or, later, that her mum had gone completely ballistic when she'd called. ] Having no one listen to you.

[ Maybe it's a case of apples and oranges, trying to compare one man's mental illness to a teenage girl's rebellion; but at the end of the day they'd both yielded the same thing. A loneliness that had sunk itself so deep inside them that nothing (not running away, not taking a blade to the man entrusted with his health) could scour it away completely.

But Benji had listened, in the moments when he'd been present for their conversations. Those moments when he'd looked up at her with a kind of distant attentiveness — a strange mix of amazement and confusion, like he was perpetually surprised to be having a conversation in the first place. ] Makes a person feel small or whatever.

[ Makes a person go crazy, only Sophie doesn't say that aloud. ]