Page 7 of Sad Girl Hours
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Or, rather, I do – every year around this time, like clockwork (on an incredibly cursed clock), the nights draw in and over me and … I don’t know. I just can’t cope. I try to make everyone around me feel happy and light, but I can’t do the same for myself. I can’t seem to stop the seasonal depression from hitting. Hard.
In front of everyone, I can pretend with the best of them. I know from experience that no one wants someone bringing things down for two out of four seasons. My ex, Melanie, taught me that during sixth form. During the winter of both years, I was dragged down to my weird little underworld where I forget how to function and be the happy self I’m meant to be. And – after weeks of her trying to drag me back up with guilt trips, threats and comments about how no one wants to date a buzzkill – she left me. I didn’t exactlywantto be a buzzkill. I’d have quite liked to have been able to get through a party without crying in the bathroom for reasons unbeknown to me (and unacceptable to her).
But the worst part is, when spring hit and the days started to get lighter, she’d poke her head out again along with the snowdrops and bluebells in the woods, telling me that she’d made a mistake and I was the only one for her. And I was so desperate to prove that I could be the person that both she and I wanted me to be that I let myself pretend she loved me.
Maybe she did. For half the year at least.
I realise that I’ve been standing outside for quite some time, which is immediately followed by a second realisation that I’ve let my parents go into the house unsupervised, where they’re potentially in the same room as my friends.
I grab the last boxes and dash up the two flights of stairs (as quickly as the heaviest boxes of the whole carful will allow me to). Thankfully, I find my parents just sitting on my new bed in an otherwise empty room, sounds of laughter coming from Casper’s room on the floor below.
“Is that everything?” Mum asks as I struggle to put the boxes down without snapping my back in two.
“Yes. That’s everything.”
“Well.” My dad stands up instantly. “We’ll be heading off then if that’s OK.”
I know it’s not a real question so I don’t offer a reply. He doesn’t say or do anything that signifies that he wants one.
“Come here.” Mum holds out one of her arms.
I go over and let her put it round me for a second.
“Really try this year, sweetheart,” she says. “You’re our bright girl – you just need to not let things overwhelm you again. Really put some effort in this time, OK?”
Again, all I do is nod because I don’t know how else to reply besides screaming, and I am not the kind of person who is allowed to scream.
“Good girl.” She gives a curt nod back, along with a terse smile.
“We’ll see you for your Christmas break,” my dad says, and I know it’s a threat. Christmas. Not before. Not after. Not again.
“Bye then,” Mum says, and I force a smile.
“Drive safe. Message me to let me know you got home.”
“We will,” Dad says, all of us knowing that they won’t. I doubt I’ll hear from them before Christmas unless an elderly relative dies, in which case they might shoot me a text.
They leave, and the empty room feels less empty, despite (because of) their absence.
I heave in a great sigh.
I’m OK. I’m back at uni, back with my friends (and away from my parents and my hometown) and this year will be different. It has to be.
Chapter Four
Saffron
I’m beginning to descend down a helter-skelter of negative thoughts when I’m kindly interrupted by the sound of some absolute clomping up the stairs. I open up a box and pretend to be busy.
“OUCH.”
I turn round to be greeted by Jenna, Nell and a grimacing Casper, who’s clearly just bashed his head on a beam coming into the room.
“Oh, Casp,” I say sympathetically. “Do you see now why we didn’t let you have this room?”
“Maybe a little bit…”
I’m on the tall side too, but at least I’m not six foot three and very unaware of the space my body occupies in a room. In fact, I’m chronically very aware of that. And, besides, I fell in love with the attic when we went to look round the house. Sure, the bathroom may be slightly mouldy on account of the lack of a fan and the landlord’s lack of interest in installing one, and the kitchen was built in the seventies in a dated, rundown kind of way, rather than a funky, mid-century-modern, viral-on-Pinterest one. But I saw the potential in the attic, with its skylights and wood floors and, yes, very little headroom. And we have a pretty big lounge with double doors out into the ‘garden’ (a courtyard just big enough to store the bins and approximately three people: standing, of course).
