The Friend

by Teresa Driscoll

Houses breed the delusion of more comfort indoors than out. And yet – see. Just look how wrong they are. How much they miss.

you must leave it alone. Walk away from it. Be strong, be sensible and above all else, be less bothered. Practise the art of ‘not caring’. There’s your solution.

I’m beyond caring what anyone thinks.

Not every hour is equal. Ask an insomniac how long the night is.

Some people you can know for years and yet not at all.

‘People tell you to try not to think about it. Your own instinct is not to think about it. But that doesn’t work,’ she said. ‘The trick is to learn to cope with thinking about it. To accept how truly awful it was.

Sometimes when we read back what we have written, we read what we intended to write, not what is on the page. And sometimes when we listen, we hear what we expected to hear and not what is being said

Love can do that. Make you feel safe

Extraordinary that you can know so little about a subject one moment and become an expert the next.

banks and bills don’t wait, whatever the tragedy.

houses and places and people can be happy again, even after something bad or sad has happened. It doesn’t matter what’s gone on in the past.’

the biggest shock and most important lesson was realising what other people are truly capable of. But – turns out there is a much greater and more chilling shock. Learning – in the face of evil and in the name of love – what you are capable of yourself.

The ‘problem’ with having a conscience is you expect other people to have one too, so you analyse and evaluate their behaviour according to your own standards. But true sociopaths have no understanding why we all worry about rules or laws . . . or the lives and feelings of others.