Page 65 of Sad Girl Hours
She beams a radiant smile as if I’d said exactly what she wanted to hear. Maybe I did. “Thank you, I appreciate that. More than you’ll know. But, ugh, never mind me being sappy. Why don’t you just tell me what you think you feel for Saffron, and anything you think youdon’tfeel.”
“OK,” I say, my voice higher up the octave than it usually is. I’m doing this. I’m talking about this. “Well, she’s … perfect, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else like her. And sometimes I think I must be in love with her, but then I’ve never really wanted to…”
“Have sex with her?”
“No. Well. Kind of? Sometimes I think, maybe?”
“Like earlier today?” Jenna asks. “When we were walking through town and you were looking at her like…”
“Like what?”
“Like you wanted tolick her.”
“EW!” I shove Jenna in the ribs, laughing. “Don’t say that.”
“Is it not true?” she says, ducking as I go in for round two, also laughing.
“No. It’s more complicated than that. I want lots of things with Saffron. Sometimes I think I’d like to be closer to her, maybe in those kinds of ways. But then…”
“Then?”
“Then I remember that Saffron’s hiding parts of herself from me, from everyone probably. And how could I be close to someone in that way when I don’tknow them, not completely?”
Jenna’s quiet for a moment, processing my words. “You’ve noticed that too then? With Saffron.”
“Yep. I don’t know what it is but I know that there’s something. I spoke to Vivvie and Casper earlier too, and they said the same thing.”
“She’s a mystery, that girl. And stubborn as well. But we can talk more about our enigmatic friend later on – back to you. Can I ask you another question?”
“Of course.”
“Have you ever had a crush on someone that you don’t know really well? Like a celebrity or someone you’ve just met?”
“No,” I say. “How can you have a crush on someone you don’t know? What would there even be to crushon? Like, I’ve definitely thought people are attractive before, but not in an ‘Oh my God, they’re so hot, I want to put my tongue in their mouth’ way. It’s always abstract, just a ‘they’re nice to look at’ way.”
Jenna nods. “Sure. I meanIcompletely understand that. I’ve never wanted my tongue in anyone’s mouth – apart from my own – either. But I think a lot of other people feel differently.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It certainly seems like that anyway.”
We’re both quiet for a bit. I’m usually so alone with all this, with the knowledge that I feel things differently to a lot of other people. I’d made my peace with being autistic and knowing my brain works differently in that way, but I think this was just onetoo many a thing to wrap my head around. Until today. Now I know I’m not the only one – not in the world, not even in my friend group.
Chapter Thirty
Nell
I’m about to turn to Jenna and say some of this aloud, say how nice it is to talk about something we share, but I’m interrupted by a single stray giggle from her. A giggle that’s then superseded by many other giggles, and then an outright cackle that doesn’t seem to want to stop.
“What?” I say. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because it’s objectively hilarious,” Jenna says between cackles. “We’ve been doing what everyone else has done to us for all these years – making assumptions about each other – when if we’d justtalkedto each other—”
“We wouldn’t have made the other one feel like they were an alien and could actually have been bonding over this the whole time? I can see the irony now, yes.”
“Irony’s the word. Dumbassery’s another.”
“Sure,” I say, starting to laugh now too. And then the laugh grows. And grows. We’ve both been so vulnerable, I feel like my guard is completely down. Soon the room is just full of laughter, and we’ve taken turns collapsing forward on to each other.
When I’ve got my grasp of the English language back (a good few minutes later), I manage to finally say, “We’re silly geese, aren’t we?”
