Cath Crowley

“The End of HerShe’s sitting on the hillHoping for a dayWhen her dreams don’t hit the roadShe’s throwing rocks and yellingAt the sky and at the weatherShe’s yelling at foreverThat’s been breathing on her neckShe can’t start with him againHe’s got the end of herHe can’t give her oceanAnd he can’t give her herHe’s staring where she satIt’s the plastic that reminds himOf something that they hadHe says, “I’d give up sex foreverIf she’d say we’re back together”But he’s making promises he knowsIt’d kill them both to keepShe can’t start with him againHe’s got the end of herHe can’t give her oceanAnd he can’t give her her”

“I didn’t tell her what I’d done; I told her he wasn’t who I thought he’d be. Mum stroked my hair and said, "Sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they make you vomit.”

“Ed? Are you alive?’‘Yes..and that’s genuinely surprisingsince your bike went over me abouthalfway down. You’re a very dangerousgirl to date.’'We’re not on a date.”

“Do you ever hear from yourdad?’ I ask.‘Uh-uh. Mum said they had the biggestfight before he left. She was sixteen and telling him about me and he left a dad shaped hole in the wall.”

“He looks so stupid that it cancels out mystupid so I give in and ride and he runsand gets on the bike after only two tries.”

“My dad was a magician too. Got in his car and disappeared.”

“Did you forget to evolve?”

“We didn’t have a date. A date ends in akiss, not blood and broken cartilage.”

“I know nothing about love.”

“All I can tell you is to have the relationship that's good for you.”

“She looked at me with those empty eyes, and I thought, I'm going to make sure I fill them up with something.”

“The course made me think a bit, you know. That we're smart enough to get out of here. We're just too stupid to work out a way.”

“I know a few things about ghosts. The only way to stop them getting inside you is to spend every second of the day thinking about something else. Fighting like that makes you tired, and it doesn't matter how hard you fight anyway. They chip till they make a crack, and before you know it there's a ghost squatter in your living room. It's hard to get them out. Hard because they settle in. Hard because you like the company.”

“Dad and I leave town in the early dark. It's the second Sunday of the holidays, and we pack up the old blue car with enough clothes for summer and hit the road. It's so early he's wiping hills of sand piled in the corners of his eyes. I wipe a few tears from mine. Tears don't pile, though. They grip and cling and slide in salty trails that I taste until the edge of the city.”

“I told him he was dreaming. He told me dreaming's the only way to get anywhere.”

“Love’s like an egg. Break it, and you might still have almost every bit of yolk and white, but there’s no way you’re getting that back in the shell. And even if you could, there’d be still all the cracks.”

“Humans are strong, but if you hit them at the right point, they destruct.”

“Don't go confusing stupidity with guts." -Bert”

“Love and romance are things worth waiting for.”

“It’s the time wasting that gets you somewhere.”

“ALYCE: 'Gracie's got brown hair, like me. She's about the same height, too. People notice her. I think it's her voice. It's always louder than you expect and covered with laughter.I was surprised when she said she didn't want to work with me. I don't know Gracie very well, but I remember once in Year 3 she gave me an invitation to her party. She spelt my name right. Everyone always spells it with an 'i', even the teachers. Ever since then I thought she would be nice. I never thought she'd look at me like I was nothing.”

“Have you ever done something that you were really ashamed of? I mean somehing so bad you felt sick just thinking about it?''Everyone has. Why, what'd you do?''I didn't say goodbye to Mum.''That's not so bad.''Did you say goodbye to your mum before she left?' I'd never asked Martin about this before. I didn't want to hear the answer.'She left before I had a chance.''Oh.''That's what I like about you, Faltrain.You always know just what to say.”

“How can I explain to her that I just can't come home? It's too soon, it's too late; I do want to be with Helen every second of the day but at the same time I don't want to be with her at all. I want to have back what I felt at the beginning. I could no more leave her then than leave my arms or legs. How do you find the beginning, though? There are no roads or signs. You start to doubt it even exists. The hardest thing isn't deciding that I want to go back to when Helen and Gracie and I were us. The most difficult thing is finding the map to get there.”

“I'm always looking for what will make me whole. What will make me happy? Somewhere along the way I started to think it wasn't Helen anymore. She hasn't changed. Her laugh is still the one I remember. Her finger is still the one I put the ring on all those years ago. I can't understand why I don't want to curve next to her, keep her back warm anymore. Surely you don't lose love like keys?”

“Luce,' she says, 'I don't want my diary entry tomorrow to be: Stayed out all night. Went to prison. I have this urge to go home and watch TV with my parents and be completely boring.”

“What are you doing?' 'Asking the universe questions.' 'The universe just dumped you over the side of a steep hill. You really want to ask it questions?”

“You can't drive them around in the getaway van.' 'How about we don't call it the getaway van? People might get suspicious.' 'So what should we call it?' 'How about the van?' 'It doesn't change what it is and that it's a shitty thing to do. Someone might see them in it.”

“Ed gives him a dirty look. Leo grins. Dylan twitches. It feels like something's going on, I think loudly, and I know that Jazz hears my thought because she gives me her serious look and blows a chewing-gum bubble in my direction.”

“She's the psychic but she can't see what's coming up: the intersection of hurt and more hurt. The blind spot there is a killer.”

“You say one more word to anyone and I'm telling people you cried in here tonight because you thought Daisy was breaking up with you.' 'You wouldn't.' Leo's phone rings. 'He would,' he says, laughing as he answers it.”

“What's up with you?" "I'm grounded," I say, just to say something real. "I told Mum to fuck off." He whistles. "Why'd you tell her that? Any other 'off' leaves room for parole. 'Sod off,' 'shove off'—even 'sock off' is still pretty satisfying." "You've told your dad to sock off?" "Once. He said, 'What the fuck is "sock off"? Be a man and tell me to fuck off.'" "So did you tell him?" "No. Because that was the trap. There's never time out for good behavior with 'fuck off.”

“Hi," I call as he walks out. "Hi, Rosie. I told Charlie we were camping before New Year's." I think about that for a second. "You told her we were going, or you invited her to come?" "Shit,”

“They can't see me but I can see them. I don't stand because I've been standing all morning. Plus, this is my small protest against Luke and Rose. I can't serve you if I don't exist. Get lost in that existential dilemma.”

“I've known Dave so long that I can tell what he's going to do before he does it. I don't want to meet the person who can predict what Luke's about to do; they'd have to be crazier than him.”

“Her eyes always bothered me when we were kids. They still do. They make mine ache trying to see where they end.”

“We said it was for art's sake. we said the more people who knew, the more chance the cops'd pick us up. We said it was you and me, no crew.'Are you I didn'nt say it was to score girls?”

“Go along with it, Ed. I am begging. I am on the ground begging you." "You're standing at a urinal about to take a piss." "Don't make me get on the ground. Do you know how many germs there are in a toilet?”

“I told her yeah, but there was no skin on my voice and she heard the bones in my words like I did. And I knew.”

“You grabbed my arse.''You broke my nose.”

“You threw eggs at her head. Odds are she's dumping you anyway.”

“We're not spending the night looking for ourselves.”

“We watch her walk into the spotlight she’s been been hiding from most of her life. Sure, friendship is all about believing in someone so hard they believe it, too. Sure, it’s about trust. But if anyone hurts her tonight, it’s about ripping them apart with my bare hands and really enjoying it.”

“I take my hands off the break and let go. The trees and the fences mess together and the concrete could be the sky and the sky could be the concrete and the factories spread out before me like a light-scattered dream.”

“You're always saying people don't like you but people can't like something that's not there.”

“I am trying to bend the laws of time so I can get here five minutes earlier”

“He's one of the good guys,' she always said.'Just sometimes he's working undercover”

“I spray the sky fast. Eyes ahead and behind. Looking for cops. Looking for anyone I don't want to be here. Paint sails and the things that kick in my head scream from can to brick. See this, see this. See me emptied onto a wall.”

“We'll meet and click and sit up all night and everything will tip out of me and into him and the other way around and while we're tipping the night will fade and the world will get pink and in that pinkness he'll kiss me.”

“I nod so much there's a nodding festival going on.”

“If you don't want a generation of robots, fund the arts!”