"I think sometimes people need more than that." To keep them together. If she hand't had Connor when she'd taken things too far she wasn't sure what would have happened to her. The others cared in their own dysfunctional ways but not like Connor. They cared in that way people care for their old favorite broken toy. Do you play with it again and risk it breaking more? Do you lock it up somewhere safe to keep it from getting another dent or scratch? Or do you pretend the accident never happened and then just forget about the toy? It was hard to know which one. Connor hadn't done any of those things though. He'd just continued to treat her like a person. People needed friends for times like that.

"Hello, Jane. I'm Arkady." She smiled brightly again.