Hachette Aus Books

“For once, I wasn’t a disappointment to old friends.

Just by being alive.
By finding my way back to them. I
had exceeded all expectations.

They gave me the most precious gift.
Letting me see myself through their eyes.

I was a living miracle.
The embodiment of hope.
Of victory against overwhelming odds.
I was the reason they got up every morning to do their impossible job.

It was beautiful.
I was beautiful.

I wished I could make my mum feel the way I felt in that moment.”
― Bradley Trevor Greive, Broken Girl: A true story

“Vigilant machines and attentive medical staff made sure I remained technically alive.
Yet not quite alive.

My corporeal self was strapped to the bed.
A last-ditch attempt to tether me to the mortal realm.

The rest of me was treading the slackline between this dimension and the next.”
― Bradley Trevor Greive

“But, in my experience, the greatest casualty of a brain injury is friendship.
The defining symptom is loneliness.

I came home to watch my friends leave me.
One by one.”
― Bradley Trevor Greive, Broken Girl: A true story

“In some ways I was a teenager again.
Excited and earnest and innocent and generous and envious and insecure and overconfident and vulnerable and curious and secretive and honest and hopeful and overwhelmed.

I still loved me.”
― Bradley Trevor Greive, Broken Girl: A true story