Page 2 of Sad Girl Hours
I’m not surprised that he and Saffron met in Athletics Club: he’s clearly a golden retriever trapped in the body of a man – boy needs his walkies.
Jenna plays her role of the designated social-butterfly person in our friendship and chats to them, allowing me to fulfilmyrole of designated perpetually-slightly-overstimulated, mysterious neurodivergent friend and gaze around the room, taking it all in. I sway my body lightly from side to side with the music. I turn back to the group and catch Saffron’s eye. She smiles at me, before beginning to – I think unconsciously – mirror my shoulder dancing. She jerks her head back towards the dance floor and asks, “D’you wanna go dance?”
I nod before I’ve even fully registered the question. She hands her drink to Casper and tugs me to the floor, Jenna waggling her eyebrows at me when I look back over my shoulder.
We join the throng of slightly sweaty students in the centre of the room, rainbow light cascading down the walls. The floor pulses with the music, and Saffron and I are soon singing and bopping along.
Saffron’s skin is soft, like … that excellent kind of silky moss in a sunny forest gladesoft, something I notice every time she takes my hand to dance or to spin us round in giddy circles. She has this radiant smile on her face the whole time, her hair’s flying all over the place and I feel the benefit of her warmth, but I also feel … I don’t know.
Like I’m not doing something quite right.
My mind flits back to Saffron’s TikTok page and how her bio proudly proclaimed her as ‘that funky space lesbian’.
There are lots of things I know for sure about myself. Like how I think there’s nothing cooler than transforming a blank page into something beautiful using just my words. How I love all things cosy. How my main fashion inspirations are whatever was going on with Darcy’s fit in the 2005Pride and Prejudicemoviewhen he’s walking across the field, and ‘the lady who lives on the edge of the forest that all the local children think is a witch’.
How I know my brain works differently to a lot of people’s, always seeking out fun sensory input and trying to get rid of the less fun stuff. I was diagnosed as autistic three years ago after I had what my dads and I like to refer to as my ‘spicy brain time’. (Read: a mild to moderate mental breakdown that resulted in me going to therapy and crunching my spicy brain rocks (anti-anxiety meds) every evening before bed.)
But when I vaguely acknowledge that I’m enjoying dancing with Saffron more than I probably would be if I was dancing with a boy, things feel both known and unknown. I know I’m not straight but what exactly I am outside of that, I don’t know. And I know I don’thaveto know, but Iwantto. My words never usually fail me. I can wax lyrical about nature, about vast lakes of shining cerulean and the towering mountains watching over them until the Wordsworths come home, but somehow I can’t find the words for whatever is going on amid the wilderness of my heart. When I think about crushes, about dating … everything feels foggy.
The night plods on, midnight drawing ever closer. Jenna, Casper and Vivvie join our dancing, and we improv several group numbers that would put the cast ofGleeto shame (in our heads anyway/as deserved). The DJ announces that there’s only a few minutes to go until the countdown and we ‘get our New Year on’. The next song slips into play and I can stop concentrating on processing the DJ’s words over all the other noise and be present in the room again.
Jenna leans over to whisper-shout about how this DJ is cheesy but still infinitely better than when her grandpa decided to take over the aux at her eighteenth birthday and accidentally put ‘No Diggity’ on loop seventeen (and a half) times until Jenna pulled the plug (on the speakers, not her grandpa).
I laugh and agree, but then my brow furrows. Saffron is slipping through the crowd, weaving a glittering path away from us and out of the doors.
I don’t pause to think. “I’ll be back!” I yell towards Jenna, who nods, shimmying to face Vivvie and Casper instead, while I head off, following Saffron’s trail.
Chapter Two
Nell
I emerge out of the doors and breathe in the refreshing chill of the North of England December air, trying to ignore the way my ribcage feels like it’s contracting painfully against the cold.
My gaze fixes on the figure standing out in the empty quad, in the cool glow of the floodlights. I’m about to walk up to her and make some inane remark about the temperature (I’m freezing my tits off out here without a coat, and I presume she’s similarly suffering), but her head turns slightly and makes me pause.
She’s looking up at the night sky— No, she’s looking upintothe night sky, like she’s waiting for an answer to a silently asked question. Gone is the easy smile on her face, replaced instead by the expression of someone worn out by something – or maybe many things. I feel as though I’m intruding, like I’ve caught her in an intimate moment.
I briefly wonder whether I should retreat back inside, as she continues staring up at the stars with glassy eyes.
A particularly loud cheer from the party makes me discount that thought, however. Midnight is within touching distance, and I can’t leave her alone to start the New Year (even this pretend one) feeling whatever it is that’s making her look like she’s sinking downwards. I’m certainly well acquainted myself with feeling so low that the sky feels even further away than usual.
I march purposefully up to her, pretending that I’ve only just come out of the building.
“Oh, Saffron, hey,” I say, aiming for ‘oh so casual and cool’. Masking I can do (at severe cost to my mental health), but I’m no actress.
Saffron doesn’t notice, though. She’s much too busy acting herself – a transformed vision of bright eyes and mouth perfectly upturned like she’s delighted to see me.
“Nell!” she says brightly. “What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask the same of you,” I say, taking care to ensure that my tone is curious and not accusatory.
“Oh, you know.” She shrugs easily. “I just fancied some fresh air and a bit of sky time.” She nods up at the black above as if ‘sky time’ is a trademarked activity.
“I get that,” I say, because I sort of do. “Sometimes a bit of space is nice.”
“Exactly what I’m always saying. Although,” she adds in a conspiratorial tone, “I’m usually trying to convince people that astrophysics is cool and not in fact adeeplynerdy thing to devote your precious time and brain space to.”
“Why can’t it be both?” I say, cocking an eyebrow.
