‘Mother and daughter laugh together, at the fact they can now connect.’

‘Cleaning delivered very little in terms of salary or cachet, but she could sleep well every night knowing that she had done something honest and good.’

‘You said the perfect thing that made me feel safe and loved and comfortable and forever. And I can’t remember what it was.’

‘This was the part of new romance that Layla loved—the part when she felt like a dog chasing a car, when all she wanted was a short, intense burst of closeness.’

‘Our society is so hell-bent on understanding the psychology behind the individual that we can’t even look our bully in the eye and get the revenge that we’ve been dreaming up for years and years.’

‘I’d done the due diligence, bought some bulbs, scoped out a plot and here I was digging myself a new flowerbed.’

‘At the bottom I found a thick sheaf of papers frozen together, the ice crackling and sliding off, the blue ink running melt-water into tiny blue stars.’

‘The body dropped like dirty clothes, brown hair knotted in a bun with an old tartan scrunchie. It’s a trip, seeing yourself from the other side.’

‘Out on the pier you look down at reflections of neon lights cracking and bouncing on the ocean’s black surface and wonder what it would be like to fall in.’