Page 67 of Sad Girl Hours
“You really do like her, don’t you?” Jenna prods me in the arm.
“Yes. God, I really do.”
Jenna smirks, making me mock glare at her, but then she says something else that provokes an entirely different reaction.
“She likes you back, by the way. Everyone can see it.”
Jenna’s words water the hope that’s been blooming inside me for a while now.
She likes me back.
We don’t talk about anything else serious for the rest of the evening, but when Jenna falls asleep, drooling a bit on my arm, I use my other hand to pick up my phone.
Ace-spectrum identities, I type into the search bar, casting my eyes over all the millions of results that pop up.
I read about how some asexual people are completely sex-repulsed and don’t want to have sex with anyone ever – like Jenna, I guess.
But then, a few scrolls down, I come across another word.
Demisexual. A person who only feels sexual attraction towards someone after they’ve first formed an intense emotional connection.
People talk about their heart skipping a beat but,
when I read that definition, it feels as though my entire body lurches both back and forward in time. It makes sense. And not only that, it makes alotof experiences I’ve had in my life make sense. My lack of crushes on anyone that I don’t know, my intense first crush on Anya in primary school after we became best friends, my confusion at the concept of one-night stands or at Lord Byron’s whole existence.
It also explains how I think I’m starting to feel some things towards Saffron now, after we’ve spent so much time together, after I’ve seen so many aspects of her person and loved each one. The more I see, the more I’ve been getting thoughts about physical things. About her body, about my body in her eyes. I’m not ready to do anything other thanthink(and maybe write some vaguely sexually charged poetry), but maybe one day… Maybe if she ever lets me see her without putting up a filter first.
Maybe.I clasp the word to my chest as I drift towards sleep too, along with all the other words I’ve been given today and decided belong to me.
Chapter Thirty-one
Saffron
I’m walking back from the bus stop after my last lecture of term before the Christmas break. My breath’s condensing in front of me – it’s only half four but it’s pitch-black – and there’s a chill creeping into my bones.
In a way, the pressure is off. Uni is done for nearly a month now. I should be feeling relieved. But I still have my meeting with my tutor about my ‘attendance’ tomorrow, and then at the end of the week I’m going back home for Christmas. Or, at least, I’m going back to my parents. When I think about ‘home’, I certainly don’t picture my parents’ clinical kitchen, everything made of glass and right angles. Or even my room upstairs.
When you’ve gone to places as dark as I have, it’s hard not to make associations with the physical places you were in when you felt that way. It’s like I filled each room with tears, and now the ghosts of each drop linger in the air, filling my throat when I walk in, and making me remember how easy it could be to drown again.
I’m walking up my street now. I can see the tree we decorated with Nell in the window, multicoloured lights shining through the window. The light’s on in the kitchen too, so someone must be home.
I blink back the tears that sprang up earlier at the thought of going back to my parents’ house and walk through the door.
“Hello!” I call out, taking my shoes off and placing them on the rack. “I’m back.”
“Saffron, hey!” Casper pops his head out of the kitchen. “I’m just making a snack before we go and pick the others up for our big bon voyage evening. Do you want anything?”
“What are you making?” I ask, knowing that I’ll politely decline whatever it is.
“A whole bag of Yorkshire puddings to dip in gravy. Snack of kings,” he says promptly.
Of course. “Thanks, Casp, but no, I’m good.”
We’re meeting Nell and Jenna at their house and then going to the square outside the town hall where there’s outdoor ice skating and a fair. It’ll be gone by the time we get back next term, so Nell suggested we go this week and have a nice evening together before we scatter around the country for nearly a month.
I’ll miss her. Them. I’ll miss all of them. It feels like an awfully long time. And who says it’ll just be for those weeks? I know there’s a very real chance that I won’t be coming back in January. This really could be goodbye.
An hour later and we’re all huddled round Jenna and Nell’s front door. We’ve pressed the doorbell and discovered it remains broken. We’ve knocked several times but there’s no answer. We can hear music playing somewhere inside, though, and they’re definitely expecting us.
