Conviction

by Denise Mina

Grief is a scar. The tissue is tough and when it’s cut again, it heals poorly.

sometimes you have to fit into life, or waste a lot of time and energy wishing it would fit in with you.

She took in the drama through her tight, botoxed face. We all had to pretend she hadn’t had a metric fuckton of bad surgery.

When I was small I believed stars were pinholes and their light was the brightness of heaven shining through. This is what his voice felt like.

I looked back and Fin was still there, still looking at me. ‘PLEASE DON’T LEAVE.’ He blinked. ‘I won’t leave.’ ‘I’M COMING OUT.’ ‘… There’s no need to shout.’ ‘… OK.’

‘Oh, hi, darling.’ She tried to smile wider but the top half of her face was frozen. She may have been trying to express empathy. Or sarcasm. Who the fuck knows.

But that’s part of being down. Empathy loss. I can’t imagine anything might be worse for anyone else, not really.

The modern mania for photographs is hard on those in hiding. If you have a friend with a thin backstory who always wants to take the picture or slides behind the heads of others in group snaps, be kind to them. Camera phones are a bloody menace.

‘The eternal companions of all clever women are mistrust and scorn.’

‘Personal fashion isn’t a celebration, it’s a defence. It’s the armour of everyday life.’

I told him if he fainted again I’d stop the car and roll him into a ditch and drive away. He said that seemed quite strict but entirely fair.

I suddenly wanted to talk to someone as flawed as myself. I took my phone out and called Hamish.

LOL

Self-pity makes tyrants, it’s the defining characteristic of brutal regimes,

You can’t arrest someone for being a turd.’

I knew he was dishonest and grasping, but he was also charismatic and charming, superficially lovely and I like shiny things.