Alice Oseman

My name is Victoria Spring. I think you should know that I make up a lot of stuff in my head and then get sad about it.

Sometimes I think people only pretend to like each other.

I begin to laugh, or maybe I’m crying. Maybe I don’t care anymore. Maybe I’m going to pass out. Maybe I’ll die when I’m twenty-seven.

. I am aware that I feel sadder about things now. A lot of things around me have been very sad, and I seem to be the only one who can see it.

Everyone is okay with hurting people. Or maybe they cannot see that they are hurting people. But I can.

Friends are important. People who are alone are usually the antagonists.

Nothing’s going to change until you decide you want it to change.

There comes a point, though, when you can’t keep looking after other people anymore. You have to start looking after yourself.

have been reliably informed that post-Christmas blues are entirely normal and that we should expect to feel somewhat numb after the “happiest” time of the year, but I don’t feel so different now to how I felt on Christmas Eve, or on Christmas Day, or on any other day since the Christmas holidays started.

I deflate into a chair and nod philosophically. “It’s funny because it’s true.