Lou delivers her presentation successfully and is shocked by the applause of her classmates. After she finishes, Mr. Marin discusses homelessness. Lou is exhausted and fades into sleep during class. Lucas wakes her up at the end of the lesson and notes that she is the first student to sleep in Mr. Marin’s class without getting detention.

On Tuesday, Lou tries to meet No, but she is not there. The woman in the newsagent shop asks if she is looking for “Nolwenn,” and Lou admits she is. Even though the lady says she likes No, she thinks it is unwise for Lou to spend time with her because No “lives in a different world.” Lou goes to catch her train, upset that No was not there and that she had not thanked her for her help with the presentation. When she returns home, Lou’s mother is sitting in her chair, and Lou thinks about her mother’s current expression and the softer one she wore before Chloe’s death. 

Lou worries that she will soon forget the face from “before” and will only see it in photographs. Her mother tries to engage her daughter and asks her how school was; as she does, Lou realizes how little sense of time her mother has. She reflects on how time passes, but “nothing changes.” Her father returns home, having brought Lou a book she has been coveting. When Lou goes to her room after dinner, she considers what the lady at the station told her and resents the idea of different worlds that are not meant to intersect. Instead, she longs for a world where groups of people are not divided into categories and wonders if something is missing in her that separates her from other people.

At school, Lucas is called to the blackboard; Mr. Marin is unhappy with his “mediocre” work and sends him off to the study room. Lou sees Lucas waiting for her at the end of the day, and he invites her to his house. She nervously turns down the offer and starts thinking about what would happen if they were to kiss. When she leaves to go home, she wonders if she has missed her chance. Lou walks home, observing the scenes around her but avoiding the station. She looks at the homeless people on the streets, including women with young girls. Lou feels guilty that No will be like these women and blames herself for not doing enough.

On the way home, Lou learns that Mouloud, a homeless man from Algeria who lived near Lou’s neighborhood for ten years, has just died of a pulmonary embolism. He never stayed in shelters because they would not allow his dogs. Thankfully, his pets are quickly adopted after his death, but this news causes Lou to wonder why society treats unhoused dogs better than unhoused people. 

People gather at the place where Mouloud most often stayed and set up a makeshift shrine; the newspaper runs a story on it. Lou’s dad tells her that the homeless problem, like so many other societal issues, is more complicated than each home simply taking in one person, and Lou bleakly wonders how such a technologically advanced world can still allow humans to die on the streets.

At Christmas, Lou’s family goes through the motions, decorating the tree and having relatives over for a Christmas Eve meal. Aunt Sylvie tells Lou’s father that Anouk needs to make more of an effort to pull herself out of her depression, and Lou replies by implying that Sylvie cannot understand, never having held her dead baby in...