“In normal families, unbroken families, the mother and the father are like two hands cupped together, and held by those hands are the children. In my family, the hands have pulled apart and the children have been dropped. If one parent isn’t looking after you, they just assume the other one is. You find out you don’t really belong anywhere.”

“I’ve worked out a tattoo – if I had one” says Ryan. I look at what he’s done. He’s got the outline of my hand over his heart and in it he’s written, Her...”

“I don't want romance and stolen kisses and sweetness and hand holding. I want something so big it's like two planets colliding, with an aftershock that I feel for the rest of my life.”

“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.”

“Anna’s one of those people who get fired up about injustices in the world; quick to quiver with rage because other people don’t ignite like she does.”

“I bury my face in my hands. And then Ryan does such a nice thing. He wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in against him. I can feel his body heat through his cotton T-shirt, and directly in front of me are the worn, faded knees of his jeans. But most of all, I can smell him. And he smells sandy-warm, like a beach. No one can see my face in there protected by his chest. Which is good because I can’t stop crying. I mean, I’m really going for the world record in terms of an inappropriate public breakdown. But it doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter. I’m sheltered.”

“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”