1
I can't believe I said it out loud. The truth doesn't set you free, you know. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed and defenseless and red in the face and horrified and petrified and vulnerable. But free? I don't feel free. I feel like shit.Melina Marchetta
2
It's like you have a plan and someone comes along and makes you want to change it all, but you still like your first plan, no matter how fantastic the second one makes you feel.Melina Marchetta
3
A piece of me is gone, " she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.Melina Marchetta
4
The music department is going to do a musical next year, " he tells me, rolling his eyes like I would. Justine is running toward me, and I can tell by the look on her face that she's found out about the musical, too. I sigh, shaking my head. "I have to give Justine a lesson in holding back, " I tell him. "She's just way too enthusiastic". She grabs my arms in excitement. "We're doing Les Mis."I scream hysterically, clutching her as we jump up and down. .Melina Marchetta
5
We approach the house and I wave at Jimmy. "And if he thinks he's eating with us, he's got another thing coming, " my dad says. Jimmy approaches us and takes the shopping bags from me, looking inside them." Lamb roast. Am I invited?Melina Marchetta
6
So I ring Justine Kalinsky and I say, "It's Francesca Spinelli, " and she says, "Francesca, you've got to stop using last names. How are you doing?" and I say "I feel like shit", and I don't know how it happens, but by eight o'clock that night I'm lying next to her on the couch with Siobhan and Tara and we're eating junk food and watching a Keanu movie. And I want to stay on that couch for the rest of my life.Melina Marchetta
7
Do you want to hang out? At your place or something?" Hanging out with Jimmy Hailler will mean that I have to say hello to him every day. I'm not ready to say hello to him every day. Too much commitment. It's bad enough that I'm sharing chocolate brownies swith him. I shake my head. "Not today.Melina Marchetta
8
The people I'm stuck with in my life now aren't sucking the life out of me, they just suck.Melina Marchetta
9
The depression belongs to all of us. I think of the family down the road whose mother was having a baby and they went around the neighborhood saying, "We're pregnant." I want to go around the neighborhood saying, "We're depressed." If my mum can't get out of bed in the morning, all of us feel the same. Her silence has become ours, and it's eating us alive.Melina Marchetta
10
I remember passion.Melina Marchetta
11
I need voices of reason and of hysteria and of empathy. I need to have an Alanis moment. I need advice from Elizabeth Bennett. I need Tim Tams and comfort food.Melina Marchetta
12
I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I'm sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, "Frankie, you're silly, you're lazy, you're talented, you're passionate, you're restrained, you're blossoming, you're contrary." I want to be an adjective again. But I'm a noun. A nothing. A nobody. A no one.Melina Marchetta
13
Just ask how I'm feeling, I want to say. Just ask and I may tell you. But no one does.Melina Marchetta
14
Sometimes you don't let us talk about how we're feeling. If we feel scared, you say, 'Nothing to worry about, guys, ' but that doesn't make it go away. It makes it grow.Melina Marchetta
15
It's Thursday afternoon, and we have sports. These are the choices for the girls: watching an invitational cricket game; studying in one of the classrooms; or watching the senior rugby league. As you can imagine, I'm torn.Melina Marchetta
16
His voice is deep and gravelly. I once heard one of the girls say that he had the voice of a sex god, but because I've never really heard what a sex god sounds like, I can't verify that.Melina Marchetta
17
He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine.Melina Marchetta
18
It’s not as if he’s good-looking, because he’s not. Sometimes he’s so plain that he looks bland. But it’s his voice and his mannerisms that fill him with some kind of color. I listen to his voice and its resonance hooks me in. The worry lines on his forehead, his expression when he twists his face into a smile, and the way his whole face lights up when he laughs those short bursts of laughter.Melina Marchetta
19
You blame me for this, don't you?" he says." I don't need to. You're doing a better job.Melina Marchetta