Page 60 of Sad Girl Hours
Spring mist, the label says. I wish.
As I’m sitting on the bus to campus, I try to think about what I’m going to be tested on. I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I remember each of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, I couldinfodump about electromagnetic radiation and dark matter until a year had passed on Neptune, but when it comes to the maths…
There’s just so much to remember, so many equations and formulas. I don’t rage about it like some people do – I know that we couldn’t have made pretty much any of our great scientific discoveries if we didn’t first use maths to help us identify patterns and anomalies.
But I’ve not exactly been in the best headspace to revise. Frankly, when I’m feeling this bad, looking at all the diagrams in my quantum mathematics textbook could we push me over the edge.
Which doesn’t exactly bode well for this morning.
Forty minutes later and I’m in the exam hall, paper in front of me, about fifty other anxious, squirming students in rows around me. Or, actually, not everyone looks anxious. Some of the boys look annoyingly calm. Smug even. Like when they opened their papers they didn’t see the same questions as the rest of us, and instead saw their results sheet, a shining 1:1 written in the corner.
I flick open my book, eyes desperately scanning for a question I can answer to start me off on a high. It takes a while to find one, but I manage it – Kepler’s second law. I know this.
One question under my belt, I flip the page back to the beginning. I’ve studied all (most) of this. It can’t be too hard, right?
Chapter Twenty-seven
Saffron
“How was it?” Casper asks when we’re walking from our respective exam halls towards the bus stop two hours later. “Was it awful? Mine was. I think I passed, but I doubt my grade’ll be anything to write home about. Although, even if I got full marks and the professor told me my knowledge clearly eclipsed her own, I’ve graduated on the spot and I was now the class’s professor instead, I think my parents would still write back and say they were disappointed I wasn’t a professor at Oxbridge.”
I offer a wan smile. “I’m sure you did great.” There’s a pause in which I realise Casper’s still waiting for me to answer him. “Oh. And mine was … fine. Could have been better.”
I’ve failed. I know I have.
“Physics is a tricky beast.” Casper nods. “You’re doing amazingly, though, especially considering you had that time off last year.”
A sob quivers out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“Saffron?” Casper looks bewildered, stepping in front of me and placing a hand on my arm. “What is it?”
“Nothing. I…” I try desperately to shove it all back in. This isn’t happening. I’m fine. “Nothing.”
“Saffron. Usually when people cry it means thatsomethingis wrong. Or that they’re really happy. But my Casper senses are telling me that that’s not the case here.”
I don’t think I’ve ever cried from happiness. I’ve never had so much positive feeling that it’s swelled up and spilled out of me.I’ve only ever had this, this overwhelming surge of sadness that pours over and floods every room.
“What’s wrong?” Casper implores, concern hazy in his blue eyes that I have to look away from because they’re not helping the tear situation. Instead, I stare down at his brown leather boots.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m being silly.”
“Don’t apologise. And I’m sure you’re not. Was it something I said?”
“No,” I say with more force, not wanting him to blame himself for this when it’s all me.
“OK then. Well…”
“I’m sorry. Honestly, Casp, I’m good. Just stressed from all the revising and glad that the exam’s over. It’s a lot, you know?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Definitely.” He releases my arm and we keep walking, but I’m not sure whether he believes me.
Back at home when I say I’m heading upstairs, he says, “Sure, see you later then.” But then he pauses, pulls me into a hug and holds me for a second.
He smells like subtle aftershave, and I let myself be hugged until he pulls away and walks into the kitchen.
I’m not used to being held when I’m upset. It made me want to sob properly, to let it all come pouring out in a way I would definitely not be able to put back in.
Later that night, we all walk towards the bonfire in the park. The November air is hazy with the smell of smoke, and amber light dances through the trees. There’s a chill too, the kind that radiates into your bones, warning them of the onset of winter soon to make everything feel more brittle, the kind you can seefloating in the air in front of you with every breath that pushes out from between your chapped lips.
