Page 8 of Sad Girl Hours
“Sweet idiot boy.” Jenna pats Casper’s head, resulting in a pink flush rippling across his cheeks. Nell and I exchange a look.
“Are your parents coming back up?” Nell asks, flopping on to my bed.
“No,” I say breezily. “They’re heading home now. They’ve got a long way to go.”
“Fair. All right, so,” she says like an announcement. “Let’s discuss the plans for the evening.”
“Which are?”
“Oh, we don’t have any. I’m asking for ideas.”
“Debauchery?” Jenna suggests. “There’s got to be a bit of debauchery.”
“There’s always debauchery when you’re invited, Jenna,” Casper says. “It would frankly be redundant to put it on our itinerary at this point. We may as well save the ink.”
“I didn’t realise you were printing off a schedule.”
“I’m not. Calligraphy, darling. I’m a classy boy.”
“I have photos from nights out that would disprove that last statement.”
Again, Nell and I exchange a look. We don’t know exactly what’s going on between those two, but we know there’ssomething. They pretty consistently disappeared from every ‘classy’ night out we had last year with excuses like Jenna ‘helping Casp out with his geoscience coursework’ or Casper ‘running lines’ with Jenna. Or, memorably, Casper had ‘just got a new jigsaw and he was simplydyingto get puzzling’.
At 1 a.m.
With a blood-alcohol content I don’t think the Puzzler’s Guild would exactly endorse for maximum puzzle efficiency.
“I have videos,” Nell says. “There’s a lot that hides behind the posh-boy facade, CasperFortescue-Thomas.”
“The Fifth,” Casper mutters resignedly, hanging his head in shame.
“Casper Fortescue-Thomasthe Fifth.”
A laugh escapes me. “You’re all ridiculous,” I say fondly. “I love you guys so much.”
“We love you too,” Nell says, while Jenna hugs Casper to her side.
“Is there room for a jet-lagged bitch to join the lovefest?” A voice comes from the doorway.
“VIVVIE!” I leap up and run to hug her as tightly as I can. Vivvie was the first friend I made at uni, and I’ve really missed her – not that she would ever tolerate me saying that out loud.
“I believe there’s exactly room for one Viviana to join, yes,” Nell says, smiling.
“Good job I left my evil clone in the car then,” she says, squeezing me back for a second before she caps out her affection tolerance.
“Jet-lagged?” Jenna inquires. “You drove here. From Sheffield.”
“Did I really?” Vivvie feigns intense shock. “It feels as though I’ve been travelling for days. Are you sure I’ve not come from overseas?”
“You don’t look damp.” Casper pokes her arm.
“Overseas, Casper. Notthrough, my sweet himbo prince.”
“Getting back to our original point.” Nell laces her fingers together in front of her. “What’s theplan?”
“I need to go help my parents unpack my room,” Vivvie says. “If I don’t go and intervene, then my mum will be rifling through my clothes and telling me I’m going to catch my death because I packed too many crochet crop tops and silk dresses and not enough jumpers.”
I hold out the hem of the cropped jumper I’m wearing over flared jeans. Vivvie made it for me as a Christmas present out of different-coloured crochet flowers. We spent many hours last year crocheting in our halls of residence after Vivvie taughtme how. I found it quite soothing – it was a good distraction for a while before things got too dark to be distracted from. “Recognise this?” I ask.
