“Their bedroom has always been our sanctuary. Sometimes at night we'll end up on their bed just talking. My dad will be snoring and Mia will say, "Turn around, Bobby, you're snoring," and he'll turn around and for a moment it'll be silent. Then he'll erupt into a massive snore and Luca and I will kill ourselves laughing and my dad will wake up and bark, "Get to bed!" and not even a second later he'll be snoring and we'll kill ourselves laughing again and Mia will say, "What is this? Grand Central Station?”

“But it was definitely a car trailing me and quickly I prepared myself for a great dash. I began quickening my step and when it stopped alongside me I could stand it no longer."My father's a cop and he'll kill you," I screeched without looking."No, he's a barrister," I heard Michael Andretti say in a calm voice, "and he'll kill you if you don't get into this car.”

“And if I get a little chemically imbalanced in the head, like we all know I tend to get sometimes, and I don't want my parents or brother knowing, Will's like, 'We'll deal with it.' He's never said, 'I'll fix it up.' He just says, 'You're not up to going back to uni to finish your Honours this year? Big deal. There's next year. We'll deal with it.'" She nods. "That's what he does well.”

“This is the best night of my life," Raffy says, crying."Raffy, half our House has burnt down," I say wearily. "We don't have a kitchen.""Why do you always have to be so pessimistic?" she asks. "We can double up in our rooms and have a barbecue every night like the Cadets."Silently I vow to keep Raffy around for the rest of my life.”

“I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.”

“The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.”

“I stand up, sure of one thing and one thing only. That my father will come and get me. He won't give me a lecture, he won't try to teach me a lesson. He won't ask a thousand questions or ask me to apologize. He'll just come and get me. "Just tell me where you are.”