A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.

This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating.

I recognise Santangelo's dad, who saves police brutality for when he gets to his son.

Instinct tells me to go to Hannah's, but she doesn't live there anymore and that's when I realize the major difference between my mother and Hannah. My mother deserted me at the 7-Eleven, hundred of kilometers away from home. Hannah, however, did the unforgivable. She deserted me in our own backyard.

In the games of queens and kings, we leave our dreams at the door and we make do with what we have. Sometimes if we’re fortunate, we still manage to have a good life.

We spoke about our dreams and how we always felt safe in them, no matter how bad everthing else seemed. He told me it was one of the best days of his life and then he took out his gun. A .22 rifle. And he leaned forward and whispered, "Forgive me, Taylor Markham." Before I could ask how he knew my name and what I was to forgive him for he said, "Take care of my little girl." And then he told me to close my eyes. And I've been frightened to do just that ever since.

I'm not interested in those who do me wrong. There's not enough time in the day for them.