“I had a fierce headache and (my parents’) soft conversation was like a light rain falling on the hot roof of my head.”

“I tried to whip some feelings up but the inside of my chest was as hollow as an empty rubbish bin; totally, absolutely dried up, with my poor, tiny heart lying at the bottom like a crushed coke can.”

“…round the back of my little heart I could hear a lonely breeze whistling away everything I cared about.”

“We're kissing in the rain.' Her voice was hard and soft at the same time. Like the velvet armchairs. Like the black rain inked on his hand.”

“Stung, I lifted my eyes to his and saw them as if for the first time. Eyes the color of rain, soft as dew and strong enough to etch a mountainside. Tears shimmered there — tears, ay Mother! Or maybe they were in my own eyes.”

“I stood there, my head bowed, my shoulders hunched. This is how it feels to be dragged from the cement shoes of a comfortable rut. The slow, steady strain on my legs became an excruciating amputation. My ankles pulled free from my feet. Bones snapped, cartilage tore, veins pulsed blood onto the soft brown clay of the yard. ”

“It was not like everyone had said.Not like being needed,or needing; not desperate;it did not whisperthat I'd come to harm. I didn't losemy head. No, I was notgoing to leap from a greatheight and flapmy wings.It was in factthe opposite of flying:it contained the wishto be toppled, to be on the floor,the ground, anywhere I mightlie down. . . .On my back, and you on me.”