From "The Telling Error" by Sophie Hannah.
=========================================
London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2014


p.19:

[NP] The conclusion I've been strenuously trying to avoid reaching glows
in neon in my brain: I need to give up on Melissa and find myself a new
best friend.



p.156/157:

[NP] A bizzare analogy, King Edward [email nickname] said. He used
those same words. 'It's hilarious, and I'm not criticising you,' he
said, 'but why not stick to the relevant subject?' I told him I find it
hard to think clearly about certain situations unless I compare them to
other similar things. Analogies help me to get my bearings. I said, 'If
someone smacked me over the head with a hammer, I'd probably say, "How
would you feel if I hit you in the [p.157:] stomach with a brick?
Because that's just as bad and, in fact, exactly equivalent to what
you've just done to me!" '
[p.157 contd:]
[NP] __Just as bad__ ... What? What alarm bell did those words just ring?
Something I know so well that won't announce its presence in my mind,
though I know it's there, waiting.

[NP] __He is no less dead__ ... A white-cold spark of terror jolts
me. Then I go limp, as whatever fear it was that gripped me passes. For
a fraction of a second, I knew what those words meant.

[NP] I didn't want to know. I pushed them out of sight. That was the
jolt I experienced: my memory trying to toss the evidence away, like a
... [dots in orig]

[four paragraphs]

[NP] Those horrible words -- __He is no less dead__ -- are connected to
King Edward [email nickname] somehow, I'm certain of it. My sudden pulse
of terror that passed so quickly brought his name with it -- his false
name. The knowledge is there, like something dark swelling inside me. I
can feel the answer tapping at the back of my brain, trying to get
in.[EP]