Status Updates From The Benefactors

«[…] I got to the stage of life where, if it's not about love to some degree, then I don't want to know. I just don't. Bands, films, TV, what have you, I'm done with people shouting about disaffection or alienation or exploitation or angst or whatever. I don't want to fucking hear about it anymore. That's not to say I'm looking for some Hollywood feelgood bullshit. I'm talking something harder. Love.»

«School, never a priority, retreated into dim insignificance. On one of the last days a teacher, dopey cow, gave out a worksheet and it said on the front, The Future is Yours, with the Yours in massive letters.
That seemed strange because it wasn't just hers: it was everyone's. The worksheet then asked her to list her strengths and how she was going to maximise these aspects of herself.»

Well actually, listen to this, Frankie. If being a bitch means […] that I am setting healthy boundaries with toxic people, then I am so glad I am a bitch!'
She looks at Frankie expectantly.
"That's not what she said. She said you were a boring bitch
'You're meant to be on my side.' Nina's eyes go glassy.
'You are meant to be on my side?
'But I am,' Frankie says. 'I was just pointing out what she actually said?

„The weeping cherry is, to my mind, the most elegant tree. Its double blossoms are magnificent, the masses of deep pink flowers concealing branches which, come winter, possess a bare and spectral beauty. There is one in the neighbouring front garden. Sad to say, in that house some boys are meant to have taken advantage of a young girl. But a tree of such grace, the weeping cherry.“