What she felt was a lighthearted sort of compassion, almost like laughter. A swish of tender hilarity, getting the better of all her sores and hollows, for the time given.

Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later.

I began to understand that there were certain talkers - certain girls - whom people liked to listen to, not because of what they, the girls, had to say, but because of the delight they took in saying it. A delight in themselves, a shine on their faces, a conviction that whatever they were telling about was remarkable and that they themselves could not help but give pleasure. There might be other people - people like me - who didn't concede this, but that was their loss. And people like me would never be the audience these girls were after, anyway.

The conversation of kisses. Subtle, engrossing, fearless, transforming.

She would live now, not read.

So what about me? Would I always have to find a high horse? The moral relish, the rising above, the being in the right, which can make me flaunt my losses.

A story is not like a road to follow... it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside it altered by being viewed from these windows.