I appreciated her faith in me. Anyone's faith in me, really, but I think Faye's had been there from the start. She was the first person in Darrow to know where I'd come from, both what I'd lost and was about to lose. So it meant a lot coming from her, no matter how blunt.

I suppose everyone I lived with at Hailsham and the Cottages was a bit like family, but Tommy was more than that. I'd always been intrigued by him, by his rages, when he was younger, and it was him that I developed my first crush on. But I hadn't acted on it for the longest time, and by the time I did some might have argued it was too late. But wasn't everything too late, for us? Our lives were about counting down, not counting up. "I've mentioned him before," I said. "I think. His name was Tommy."

I hesitated before I spoke next. We'd gone to see Madame to have our love validated, and instead had our lives shaken up with the knowledge so many thought we were soulless. Incapable of love from the very start. "I'm still not sure what love is, but I know we were in it."