I can’t believe how much damage has been done, just from teenage loves meeting again. People should never come into contact with their first loves, I decide. There should be some official form of quarantine. The rule should be: you break up with your teenage lover and that’s it. One of you has to emigrate.
He’s lithe and tanned and taut. But to my eye he’s lost something. He has a synthetic quality, like orange soda instead of freshly squeezed juice. It’s orangey and bubbly and it quenches your thirst, but it leaves a bitter aftertaste. And it’s not good for you.
I’m not quite sure if he’s talking to me or to himself, but every word he says feels like a drop of Wise Potion. I want to hear more. I want him to tell me all the answers to life.
The whole point about T-shirts is you choose them in the morning according to your mood, like crystals, or aromatherapy oils.
My phone’s my life. I can’t exist without it. It’s a vital organ.
You have no idea how many people there are in the world until you start getting freaked out by them.
You need some accessories. Some businesswoman-type accessories.” “Like what? A Filofax?
She has amazing eyebrows. Some people are just granted amazing eyebrows, and she’s one of them.
It won’t be forever. You’ll be in the dark for as long as it takes and then you’ll come out... My aunt grows special rhubarb in dark sheds. They keep it dark and warm all winter and harvest it by candlelight and it’s the best stuff... If rhubarb needs time in the dark maybe you do too.
People change. Life changes. It’s the way of the world. Maybe it’s meant to be.
But here’s the thing, if you’re responsible for someone’s money, you’ve got to be able to ask questions. Doesn’t matter if you sound stupid.
But you’re also fragile. Imagine a mended china plate which hasn’t quite set.
But I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and if you ask me, most people underestimate eyes. For a start they’re powerful. They have range. You focus on someone thirty metres away, through a whole bunch of people, and they know you’re looking at them. What other bit of human anatomy can do that?
Sometimes I worry my ideas might dry up’, he says, an odd tone to his voice. ‘I’m not sure who I’d be without them. Sometimes I think I’m really just an empty vessel floating about, downloading ideas and not much else.
I can’t move. I’m paralyzed in the middle of the street, like the donkey in that Aesop’s fable who couldn’t choose between the bales of hay. They’ll find me in years to come, still frozen to the spot, clutching my credit card.
When they expect you to give up, that’s when you should put your foot down and double speed.
I look along the endless line, squinting in the sunshine. I’m twenty-nine years old. I can go anywhere. Do anything. Be anyone I like. “There’s no rush,” I say at last, and reach up to kiss him again.
Family bloody first.
But life can’t be about holding on to the bad things. It has to be about grabbing on to good things and letting the bad things go.
But even bitterness fades away eventually. We both have to believE that. Don’t we?