I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right.

A moment passed, perhaps half a second when their faces said what they felt, and then Emma was smiling, laughing, her arms around his neck.

I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right.

I think you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it's easier, isn't it? Failure and unhappiness is easier because you can make a joke out of it.

It's hard to overestimate the teenage appetite for high drama.

A joke was not a single-use item but something you brought out again and again until it fell apart in your hand like a cheap umbrella.

You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle