He takes out a cigarette and offers one to me. "I try not to indulge. It's a filthy habit," I tell him. "I love that word filthy. I love the way you force it out of your mouth like it's some kind of vermin you want to get rid of." "You've had vermin in your mouth?" "You're mean in that way, you know. You don't let anyone get away with pathetic analogies.

And I hear nothing because it's like the volume button has been turned down on our lives and nobody has anything to say anymore." "I want to be an adjective again. But I am a noun.

Promise me you'll never stop dreaming.

If something happened to me, whose face will be on the front page of the paper begging for me? Is a person worth more because they have someone to grieve for them?

According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I'll thank him for the advice.

So, like I asked, what’s with the nightie?” “It smells like what I always think mothers smell like,” I tell him honestly, knowing I don’t have to explain. He nods. “My mum has one just the same and you have no idea how disturbing it is that it’s turning me on.

I think if I'm ever asked to recall what Year 12 was all about, I'll remember it as one big cappuccino experience.