Jenny Downham

“I like you," he said.He made it sound as if she was bound to disagree with him. She nodded. His face said he was telling her something very important.He said, "I mean it. Whatever happens, you have to believe that.”

“Do you want this to be a love story?”

“No, really. I free you.'I don't want to be free.”

“The light is heart-breaking.”

“It's as if a child with a brush and too much enthusiasm has been set free with a tin of black paint inside me.”

“I imagine horses in the engine, their manes flying, their breaths steaming, their nostrils flaring as they gallop.”

“Are you afraid, Tessa?”

“Three points for the dead slowly prising open the lids of their coffins. They want to hunt the living. They can't stop. Their throats have turned to liquid and their fingers glint under the weak autumn sun.”

“It's utterly beautiful not to know my own edges.”

“I want to die in my own way. It's my illness, my death, my choice. This is what saying yes means.”

“. . . my bones they'll burn or bury. It'll be my death.”

“That slow smile again. I love that smile! DId I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.”

“I don't give a shit, Dad!""Well I do! I absolutely give a shit! This will completely exhaust you.""It's my body. I can do what I like!""So you don't care about your body now?""No, I'm sick of it! I'm sick of doctors and needles and blood tests and transfusions. I'm sick of being stuck in a bed day after day while the rest of you get on with your lives. I hate it! I hate all of you! Adam's gone for a university interview, did you know that? He's going to be here for years doing whatever he likes and I'm going to be under the ground in a couple of weeks!”

“Moments. All gathering towards this one.”

“Hold my hand. Don't let go.”

“I love you. I love you. I send this message through my fingers and into his, up his arm and into his heart. Hear me. I love you. And I'm sorry to leave you.”

“Keep breathing. Just keep doing it. It's easy. In and out.”

“I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it'll be OK. I want you to say honest things.”

“I love you. It hurts more than anything ever has, but I do. So don't you dare tell me I don't. Don't you ever say it again!”

“We make patterns, we share moments.”

“Dust Glitter Rain”

“Dad, you played rounders with me, even though you hated it and wished I'd take up cricket. You learned how to keep a stamp collecion because I wanted to know. For hours you sat in hospitals and never, not once, complained. You brushed my hair like a mother should. You gave up work for me, friends for me, four years of your life for me. You never moaned. Hardly ever. You let me have Adam. You let me have my list. I was outrageous. Wanting, wanting so much. And you never said, 'That's enough. Stop now.”

“Instructions for AdamLook after no one except yourself. Go to university and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keyes. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Miss lectures. Be irresponsible.”

“I said I wouldn't leave her.”

“I'm here, Tess. I'm right here, holding your hand. Adam's here, too, he's sitting on the other side of the bed. And Cal. Mum's on her way, she'll be just a minute. We all love you, Tessa. We're all right here with you.”

“Sex," I ask her. "What does it mean?""Poor you," She say's. "You really did get a crap shag, didn't you?”

“Every few years we disappear, Zoey. All our cells are replaced by others. Not a single bit of me is the same as when I was last in this room.”

“I can see inside planes!' he yells. 'Come and look!'It's difficult climbing in a mini dress...I haul myself up even though my arms ache. I want to see inside planes too. I want to watch the wind and catch birds in my fist.”

“She'll understand what I already know - that death surrounds us all. And it tastes like metal between your teeth.”

“Adam strokes my head, my face, he kisses my tears. We are blessed.Let them all go.The sound of a bird flying low across the garden. Then nothing. Nothing. A cloud passes. Nothing again. Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me. Moments.All gathering towards this one.”

“Bye, Tess. haunt me if you like. I don't mind.”

“a little bird moves a mountain of sand one grain at a time it picks up one grain every million years and when the mountain has been moved the bird puts it all back again and that's how long eternity is and that's a very long time to be dead”

“when I was four I almost fell down the shaft of a tin mine and when I was five the car rolled over on the motorway and when I was seven we went on holiday and the gas ring blew out in the caravan and nobody noticedI've been dying all my life”

“Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I've got $260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it--lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding--sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don't scare Cal). Spend all the money.And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you're having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you're out in the garden. I might slip into a dream.Visit my grave when you can, but don't kick yourself if you can't, or if you move house and it's suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I'd like that.”

“And in bed, deep inside the building, are all the headaches that won't go away. The failed kidneys, the rashes, the ragged-edged moles, the lumps on the breast, the coughs that have turned nasty. In the Marie Curie Ward on the fourth floor are the kids with cancer. Their bodies secretly and slowly being consumed.And then there's the mortuary, where the dead lie in refrigerated drawers with name tags on their feet.”

“And now he's down this for me. He's made me famous. He's put my name on the world.”

“The shops in High Street still have their metal grilles down, blank-eyed and sleeping. My name is scrawled across them all. I'm outside Ajay's newsagent's. I'm on the expensive shutters of the health food store. I'm massive on Handie's furniture shop, King's Chicken Joint and the Barbecue Cafe. I thread the pavement outside the bank and all the way to Mothercare. I've possessed the road and am a glistening circle at the roundabout.”

“Her face crashes. She hasn't dealt with a single transfusion or lumbar puncture. She wasn't allowed near me for the bone-marrow transplant, but she could have been there for any number of diagnoses, and wasn't. Even her promises to visit more often have faded away with Christmas. It's her turn to taste some reality.”

“We said we'd be friends.'He looks confused. 'Yeah.'I don't want to be.'There's space between us, and in that space there's darkness. I take another step, so close that we share a breath. The same one. In and out.Tess,' he says. I know it's a warning, but I don't care.What's the worst thing that can happen?'It'll hurt,' he says.It already hurts.'He nods very slowly. And it's like there's a hole in time, as if everything stops and in this one minute, where we look at each other so close, is spread out between us. As he leans towards me, I feel a strange warmth filtering through me. I forget that my brain is full of every sad face at every window I've ever passed.”

“I made a fatal error thinking he could save me.”

“The inside of the door is glossy white. A total re-paint. I touch it with my fingers, but it stays the same. It's so bright it makes the room waver at the edges. Every few years we disappear.”

“There's a terrible stillness. I notice a small tear in the wallpaper above her shoulder. I notice finger marks grimed on the light switch. Somewhere down in the house, a door opens and shuts. As Zoey turns to face me, I realize that life is made up of a series of moments, each one a journey to the end.”

“I feel something very small growing inside me as I look at her, and I realize in one absolutely clear moment that I don't like her at all.'You know what?' I say. 'Forget it. I'll do the list by myself.'She stands up, swings her stupid hair about and tries to look offended. It's a trick that works with guys, but it makes no difference to the way I feel about her.”

“I shrug him off. 'Can't you just go away?"There's a moment. It has a sound in it, as if something very small got broken.”

“I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish he lived in the wardrobe on a coat hanger. Whenever I wanted, I could get him out and he'd look at me the way boys do in films, as if I'm beautiful.”