Page 85 of Sad Girl Hours
“You’re very welcome.”
She heaves off her backpack, unfurling a blanket and placing it on a nearby rock. She sits down and gestures for me to do the same, before extracting a thermos.
“Hot chocolate?”
“Ooh, thanks.” I take a sip, feeling the warmth of the liquid slip down my throat, emanating to my very core. We sit for a couple of minutes, passing the thermos back and forth and staring out at the view.
“I, erm…” Nell starts. “There was a reason why I wanted to bring you up here today in particular.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. We’re celebrating something.”
My curiosity grows. “And what would that be?”
Nell smiles, facing outwards, the sun’s glow making her look almost too radiant to be mortal. “It’s the twenty-first today,” she says. “Which means…”
“The winter solstice,” I breathe. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
“Yep. But it also means that you did it,” she says.
“Did what?”
“You’ve made it through the shortest day of the year. It’s all lighter from here. Slowly, sure, but still. Youdid it. You survived.”
I…
She must mistake my silence for upset because she carries on. “I know it’s not as simple as that. But I know the dark doesn’t help. So, I just thought—”
“Thank you. You’re perfect. Truly. You’re the most wonderful person I have ever met.”
Nell’s cheeks go even pinker, flushed from the compliment. “I could say the same about you. In fact, Iwill. Saffron? I think you’re my favourite person on the planet.”
“You think?” I try to joke, but my voice is weak, overwhelmed with it all.
She’s right. It’s not as simple as that. Just because the dark nights have reached their crescendo doesn’t mean my depression’s going to go,Oh, OK then, guess I’ll just stop affecting you.It’s an illness, and illnesses want to survive even if you don’t. It’s going to keep clawing on for a while yet.
But the solstice always does bring me a tiny ounce of hope – as small as the extra sliver of sun we get at the end of the day, but hope is hope. And it means more than I’ll ever be able to express to Nell that she just gave me some.
“I’m hoping those are good tears?” she says, and I realise there are, in fact, a few tears sliding down my cheeks. “But if they’re not, you know you can—”
“They’re good,” I say, surprised. “Definitely good.”
Nell nods. “Would have been fine either way, but I’m glad they’re of the happy-feeling variety.”
Usually, I would think that of course she’s glad they’re happy tears because it’s so much easier to be around me when I’m happy than when I’m miserable.
But this is Nell. She loves me. She wants me to be happy forme, not because it would inconvenience her. She’d be happy to be around me even if I was low.
She’s still looking at me and, when I meet her eyes, she offers me a smile that I could tell had been waiting on standby, and suddenly the light sinks into my skin so that Ifeelgolden too.
Growing up the way I did may have made me unsure what it’s like to feel loved, but I think I know now.
This. This is what it feels like.
We watch the sun disappear down behind the hills, and, instead of wishing it back, I think about people on the other side of the world waking up, their day stretching out ahead of them.
“We should probably head back down,” Nell says, getting up from the rock. “It’s not that fun walking down the hill in complete darkness.”
