“I am sick of playing games where you’re not allowed to show how you feel. I don’t have to play anymore. He just won.”

“But I do agree with Mr Findlay about one thing: I am desperate to paint, so it’s probably time to start. Because you can plan all you want, but most of the time, the ideas come when you’re working. And no matter how much you try to control it, you’ll still paint it wrong before you paint it right.”

“Have people been staring at you?’He frowns. ‘I don’t know. I guess so. I forgot it was there. Can you really notice it?’‘Well yeah, but … I think it’s great.’ To me, Danny rocking up to surf with graffiti all over his face is magic. I want to tell him that I think he’s precious, that the fact he talks to me is a gift. But of course you can’t say things like that to people”

“Am I worried about the future? I don't know. When I think of the word it's like seeing a cavity, a space where a tooth used to be.”

“Jamie's eyes met hers and recognition passed between them. He wondered if that was how it was going to be for the rest of their lives. They'd talk as if they were just two people who used to hang out, but all the time their eyes would be saying, I know you well and I miss you badly.”

“Oi!’I drop in on him the first chance I get.Round three. There’s one coming on the inside and I start paddling for it. He starts for it too, telling me, ‘It’s mine, sunshine.’‘Get stuffed.’As I feel the surge take my board, he grins across at me. ‘Split it?’So we split the peak, he goes left and I go right, and I know, like me, he’s thinking, How good is this?”

“Ridiculous really, when you think that I come from a broken home and I probably have low self-esteem. But the way I see it, people who go around spending themselves easily don’t have low self-esteem. They have really high self-esteem. If someone like me tried to live like that, there’d be nothing left. I don’t know. It’s complicated. The girls who roll with guys like this are gorgeous. Somehow that makes them immune to being reduced.”