"No, I know," she says. "Because that's the thing, isn't it? You can live in a caravan park or you can live in a mansion, but either way, if you keep people out, you're still alone."

Maeve is an expert at keeping people out. She knows she is and she wants to be better, but it's hard when so many people have disappointed her in her life. Her parents, her brother, even her friends, the few she'd allowed herself to have. Her peers called her cockbiter and slag and no one, not one single person, ever stood up for her.

How is she meant to let anyone in after all that?

But Miss Sands had wanted her to try. And so she is.