You hurt her by starving yourself, you hurt her with your lies, and by fighting everybody who tries to help you. Emma can only sleep a couple of hours a night now. She's haunted by nightmares of monsters that eat our whole family. They eat us slowly, she says, so we can feel their sharp teeth.

Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.

No, I am never setting foot in this house again it scares me and makes me sad and I wish you could be a mom whose eyes worked but I don't think you can.

I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page

Picasso.” He whispers like a priest. “Picasso. Who saw the truth. Who painted the truth, molded it, ripped from the earth with two angry hands.

I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn't perfect and that makes it just right.

I needed to hear the world but didn't want the world to know I was listening.