Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.

She is the elephant’s eyebrows,” Evie whispered appreciatively. “Those jewels! How her neck must ache.” “That’s why Bayer makes aspirin,” Mabel whispered back, and Evie smiled, knowing that even a socialist wasn’t immune to the dazzle of a movie star.

Adina appealed to the sky. "We asked for rescue and you sent us incompetent rockstar pirates with a broken ship and perfect abs?" "Thank you, God," Petra said.

Did they find something wanting in you, Gemma, at the party? You didn’t speak too freely or behave…strangely?” I grew claws and bayed at the moon. I confessed that I eat the hearts of small children. I told them I like the French.

It occurs to me that cricket is not the true sport in London - gossip is.

In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice... No one can live in the light all the time.

Just once, she'd like to be the exciting one, the girl somebody wanted.