"Because I'd always known what Pauly was like... I'd always known. But I'd never done anything about it, had I? And why not? Because he was Pauly... he was one of us. And we were all friends, weren't we? Eric, Nicole, Pauly, me... we'd grown up together. We'd done things together. We'd spend our summers together. We'd built dens together.

We were friends.

But had we ever really liked each other?

Maybe some of us had...

Now and then.

But that's not enough, is it?

I mean, that's not friendship - it's just about being together. Being one of us. And the only one of us who'd never been one of us was the only one who'd ever meant anything to me. And now that Raymond was gone, it was too late to do anything about it."

-Pete Boland, Black Rabbit Summer by Kevin Brooks