“You don’t know me, Roz.” Inhalation – that glorious, rich, bitter smoke I’d always been so determined not to become attached to. “You don’t know what I’ve done…Jesus! Sometimes I wish that I could see their faces, you know? Like they say in the films. But I gave up the luxury of guilt a while back. See, I had the choice between feel and freeze. And it’s getting cold out here.

“I’m tired. That’s all that’s left to life when you take away the heartbreak and fear, the anger and pain and ecstatic joy – tiredness. And you take a step back, a leap, and you think: when did everything get so fucked up?”

The rail was icy under my wrists, rain piercing invisible holes into my skin. A meat tenderizer to my back.

“There isn’t a way to be good again. There isn’t any point in trying. There isn’t a time in my life at which I can look back and think: God! I wish I was there again. So yeah, maybe I do deserve this constant abuse. And the most tragic part of it?"

“What?”

“My world is ten times more beautiful than yours.”