He shakes his head with a slow smile. You'd better be right. If the phone rings, I'm unpluggining it, I swear to God-“ You'd do that to your five-year-old sister?“ I gasp in mock outrage. For one whole night alone? Jesus, Maya, I'd sell her to the gypsies!

Otherwise I'll fall apart. I'm going to fall apart. I am falling apart.

Trying to describe my life and feelings to you is like trying to describe coulours to the blind, or music to the deaf. It's simply not possible.

I might appear confident and chatty, but I spend most of my time laughing at jokes I don't find funny, saying things I don't really mean - because at the end of the day that's what we're all trying to do: fit in, one way or another, desperately trying to pretend we're all the same.

The words fire from my mouth like bullets, ricocheting off the walls before I can even register what I'm saying.

What else could he possibly have done? What choices did he ever have?

He will think Lochan wasn't loved, but he was, more deeply than most people are in a lifetime.