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436 pages, Paperback
First published November 8, 2012
"Men who are hopelessly hung up on someone else tend to make crap boyfriends..."
"All I can say is, if you were my girlfriend, I'd certainly be desperate for you to take them off"
"I don't know what Ben saw in you"
I stop, think, turn. "...Himself?"
❝I was right I couldn’t fall in love with you. Because I never fell out of love with you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s true,’ Ben says, cheerfully. ‘Seems once was enough to infect me. From then on you’ve been lying dormant, like a virus. Or an incurable chronic condition that flares up from time to time.’
A long pause, where life transforms from black-and-white to colour.
‘I’m eczema?’
Ben beams. ‘Eczema of the heart. That’s it. Psoriasis of the soul.❞
"I think of Ben's mum's easy laughter when she met me, and for a split second imagine a parallel universe where I'm her daughter-in-law and Abi was my bridesmaid, and how well we'd get along. More of my fantasy fiction: I should throw in a few elves as ring-bearers."
"You have the hunted, wary look of the serial monogamist who's unexpectedly stumbled back into the singles jungle and forgotten she needs a machete."
"The problem is, after all these years, I can't think of anyone I'd more like to slowly go off, see get senile and die than Ben."
"Some people end up with their soul mates, like Mindy and Ivor. Some people end up with partners they can work at being happy with, like Caroline and Graeme. Some get second chances at getting it right, like Rhys and Claire. Some people get who they deserve, like Lucy and Matt....Other people, of which I might be one, end up on their own. And that's fine. I'll be all right."
"The whole world is one table by a window in a café-bar in Manchester and the person sitting opposite me. If joy could be seen by the Hubble, tonight scientists would record a peculiar iridescence on an island north of the equator."