“The sea was my first home...Now that I had nowhere else to go, this was the last place I felt safe.”

“I closed my eyes and he kissed my eyelids, barely brushing them with his lips. I felt safe, at home. I felt as if here, against his body, was the only place in which I belonged. The only place I had ever wanted to be. We lay in silence for a while, holding each other, our skin merging, our breathing synchronized. I felt as if silence might allow the moment to last for ever, which would still not be enough.”

“If you can't go home, there is nowhere to go, and nowhere is the biggest place in the world-indeed, nowhere is the world.”

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

“Joss's ears perked up. He loved libraries. Nowhere else in the world felt so safe and homey. Nowhere else smelled like books and dust and happy solitude quite like a library did.”

“For the first time in months, I felt together. Sharp. In hurting myself, I had at last found a way to release the pressure.But it was more than that. I was now different. I felt different. I’d discovered a way to control my feelings. Just because self-mutilation wasn’t deemed an acceptable coping mechanism didn’t mean I was going to stop doing it”