swigging wine from the bottle at house parties to cope. For seventeen-year-old me, who cried on the shower floor when her friends dropped her because she got sad. For eighteen-year-old me, who repeated mantras at night to shout over the realisation that she liked girls. For nineteen-year-old me in a tattoo shop. For twenty-one-year-old me, for whom every night out like this is a reminder that she is no longer fifteen and abandoned, that she has friends now, that she has love now. For twenty-one-year-old me, who’ s living for the hope of it all.
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