“I want to tell her that I can't pull her down. I want to tell her that she has to let go of my hand in order to swim. I want to tell her that she must live her own life. But I sense she already knows that these options are open to her. And that she, too, has made her choice.”

“But I don't want to be fine, not if it means she's going to let go of my hand; not if it means we're going to go back to being polite strangers.”

“She can't just be a face, a body; there has to be more than that, some kind of connection. And I can't connect, don't want to connect, with anyone.”

“And the very important fact that I'm here to worry with you and go through all of this - every little bit of it - by your side, even your worst-case-scenario, should it somehow come to that. You wouldn't be doing any of it alone.'Her voice drops and she looks down at our hands, fingers entwined, resting on her lap. 'Whatever happens, there will always be us.”

“I want to go to the mother, take her hand, and tell her that although she and her daughter believe that every bad choice the daughter has ever made in life is her fault, it's not. It's really, really not.”

“Time has stopped; time is racing. Lochie's lips are rough yet smooth, hard yet gentle. His fingers are strong: I feel them in my hair and on my neck and down my arms and against my back. And I never want him to let me go.”

“At the age of five she has already come to terms with one of the life's harshest lessons: that the world isn't fair.”