It's not that I'd been looking for a fight. But I did feel a bit like a matador who'd shown up at the arena only to have the bull politely ask if I needed it to hold my cape.

I was too shocked to be angry, too angry to be depressed, and too depressed to be shocked.

His thumb traced gently across my knuckles like we had all the time in the world and nothing mattered more than this conversation right now.

The thing about our friendship group - and I very much included myself in this - was that we were always helpful but rarely useful.

There was a silence where you would very much hope there would not be a silence.

And that's what death is really, isn't it? A lot of things you'll never know.

If I'd been in a poetic mood, I'd have said the rain made it feel like the sky was doing our crying for us. But this was Britain. Rain was just another fact of life. Like taxes. Or the other thing.