Sometimes I can see colour without opening my eyes. I saw that Billy's heart was no colour and every colour. Like water or diamonds or crystals, it's pure and reflects the light.

Then I kissed Max because I loved him, and everyone I had ever loved before had gone away and I had never kissed them goodbye

When the doors closed behind me I felt like a bird had got inside my chest and was beating its wings trying to get loose, and it wasn't leaving much room for me to breathe.

I didn't know what to say when someone's given you a small free kiss in the dark.

I know that sentence is long and has too many joining words in it but sometimes, when I'm angry, words burst out of me like a shout, or, if I'm sad, they spill out of me like tears, and if I'm happy my words are like a song. If that happens it's one of my rules not to change them because they're coming out of my heart and not my head, and that's the way they're meant to be.

Running away was easy; not knowing what to do next was the hard part.

I wasn't going to let things happen to me any more. I was going to make them happen.