Page 80 of Sad Girl Hours
“OK, I see how this holiday is going to go. I’m going to be ganged up on from all angles, aren’t I?”
“I’m sorry.” Saffron loops her arm through mine. “You know I love you. But also yes, probably.”
I hear my dads laugh as I look at Saffron with a smile in my eyes, the hope in my heart growing a little bigger.
“Come on then, let’s hit the road!” Pops says, and I note the knowing look they’re giving us. It doesn’t make me as uncomfortable as it usually does because at leastIknow now that I do have feelings for Saffron. But it still doesn’t sit quite right, knowing they’re drawing conclusions from those feelings.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Nell
“Here we are!”
Home.
I do love my uni life but – like the great Bilbo Baggins – I’m always glad to be home again after an adventure.
It all looks the same, our house sitting at the end of a quiet street, at the north end of the village. The same wonky gate, the same weird fairy garden that Owen and I planted in one of the beds in the front garden, the same arched mustard front door with the stained-glass panel over the top. Every time I come home, I expect it to look different. I’ve been away, time has passed, and yet still it stays the same.
When we head inside, I try to see it through Saffron’s eyes. I’ve seen photos of her house before. Apart from Saffron’s room, it’s super modern and minimalist, and the only colour in the pictures I saw was a pile of zingy green limes in a crystal bowl in the kitchen.
The Holloway family has never been one for minimalism. In the hall, there’s an umbrella stand filled with ornate vintage canes that my dad collects, dozens of family photographs in a higgledy-piggledy arrangement on one wall, an old pew we found at a reclamation yard on the opposite one. To the left, there’s the archway through to the living room, where there are books piled high on shelves that nestle into the alcoves either side of the giant old fireplace. There’s the huge, faded sofa and green velvet armchairs. And, as it’s Christmas, there’s the giantreal Christmas tree in the window. Multicoloured fairy lights shine out from between the branches covered by years’ worth of weird baubles (including my favourite gay merman one, scantily clad in a very not-winter-weather-appropriate version of Santa’s red suit, holding a cocktail) and tinsel older than I am strung round them.
There’s mistletoe hanging in every doorway, ready for my parents to embarrass us every time one of them passes through a door until Twelfth Night.
It’s all a bit ramshackle, and definitely not what Saffron must be used to. I turn round to her, dragging her suitcase into the hall to see if I can gauge what she’s thinking.
I can. My fears about it being overwhelming for her, or even just not to her taste, evaporate into the mulled air.
She’s gazing around with purewonderin her eyes, like it’s already Christmas morning.
“You have a beautiful house,” she says to my dads.
“Why, thank you, we do try. Well, no, we collect a bunch of weird shit and hope that it all goes together.”
“None of it goes together,” Pops points out.
“Well, no, but in a fun, eclectic way,mon chéri. Eclecticism is veryin.”
I’m about to suggest we leave them to their arguing when a huge orange furry thing hurtles towards my feet.
“BEAN BURGER! Hello, my baby!” My boy weaves himself round my legs, purring almost violently as I pick him up and rock him in my arms. “Saffron,” I say, angling him towards her, “meet the great Beandini.”
“Hello, Mr Burger,” she says, stroking his head. “It’s an honour to meet you at last.”
“She’s back!” The voice comes from the kitchen shortly before two more creatures hurtle towards me.
“Hi, guys!”
Naomi and Owen, matching wellies on their feet, pelt into me, nearly knocking me flat, Mrs Dolores from next door staggering after them.
“Sorry, boys—” Pops is always delighted that she calls them ‘boys’, despite him being in his fifties. “They got away from me. I’ll be off now then if you’re home. Lovely to see you again, Eleanora, and looking so well.”
“You too, Mrs Dolores.” I smile. She kisses my dads’ cheeks and then exits, looking glad to be escaping.
“Right then.” Pops crouches down once the door is shut behind her and extracts the twins from my legs. “If you ran away from Dolores, then I’m guessing that means we’ve not had time for a frog check.”
“A what check?” Saffron asks, bemused.
