Page 98 of Sad Girl Hours
“Well, a little since then, but for me it was the night of the Ferris wheel. I, um.” Her eyes flick down. “I think I’m … demisexual. And, even though I knew I loved you in some way, I wasn’t totally sure until that night. When you were completely honest with me and I felt so connected to you.”
“Me telling you all that stuff made you want to…”
“Not directly. I’m not saying you said you were depressed and I was like, ooh, just my type. I just mean … you weren’t hiding any more. I didn’t feel like you were performing. I felt like you were beingyou. And I— Well, turns out I pretty much love you.”
This is all so new, in the absolute most wonderful way. She loves me. Not the idea of me, not the internet version with the captions and filters and the perfectly curated music,me. And I love her even more for it. I have to tell her.
“I love you too.” The words come out sounding like an ache that’s been begging to have words put to it. “And not in the way we always say it – although, granted, when I’ve been saying it recently, I haven’t meant it like that either.”
Nell’s bites her perfect lip over her smile. “Me neither.”
“I mean, I love you. For real.”
“For realsies?” Nell jokes.
“For realsies.”
Nell’s smile makes me think of what she said earlier about not being able to look right at me.
“And, again, I don’t know what’s going to happen next year…” I don’t want to think about it right now. “But I’m always going to be grateful to you, Nell. You’ve made winter feel like spring. I don’t have the words for it, not really—”
“Then stop trying to find them and justkiss me,” she says firmly, andGod, she’s incredible. I’d do anything she told me, especially when it means pulling myself back into her and dissolving into a haze ofI love yous and a pure kind of wanting unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.
“THERE YOU ARE.”
The bright light makes us both squint, drawing back from each other so quickly that it makes Nell bump her head on the wall and wince, as the door is thrust open and the duvet whipped out from in front of us. I attempt to flatten myself down, putting one hand up to smooth my rumpled curls.
“This is a terrible hiding place,” Naomi complains. “We’ve been looking for you foraaages. We thought you might have fallen in the well and drowned.”
Nell springs right into action. “All right. First, we’ve had a metal grid locked over the well since you guys were little because we know what you’re like, so we couldn’t possibly have been in there. And secondly, if you’ve been looking for us for ages, then doesn’t that make this anexcellenthiding place?” she says, swinging her legs down to jump out of the cupboard and then offering me her hand.
“No,” Naomi says stubbornly. “But anyway, it’s your turn to seek now and we’ll hide.”
“No can do,” Nell says. “It’s twenty minutes to midnight. We’d better rejoin the party and get ready.”
“Just a quick one!”
“Nope, sorry, kiddo. I won’t risk missing midnight because I’m digging around the pigsty.”
“I hid in the pigsty earlier. I’m not an idiot – I wouldn’t use the same place twice. But whatever, Saffron’ll—”
“Sorry, Naomi. I think Nell’s right.”
She fixes me with a look of utter betrayal. “I thought you were cooler than Nell. I guess I was wrong.”
How has she learnt to be so savage in a mere nine years on this earth?
“That’s enough.” Nell’s manoeuvring Naomi by the shoulders towards the stairs. “Let’s go.”
“Found them!” Naomi’s victory cry reaches Owen who’s in the lounge by the snack table, his fist in a bowl of crisps, clearly having given up on looking for us. “They were in the airing cupboard, sitting on the shelf like really big gnomes.”
Nell’s dads look round at all this commotion, and I suddenly feel very conscious of the fact that I undoubtedly look quite rumpled. I’m hoping that having been huddled in a literal cupboard will cover our backs when Nell’s grandma sidles over to us and says, “Hello, dearies. Am I mistaken or do you appear to have swapped lipstick shades?” She gives us a very overexaggerated wink before sidling away again.
Nell and I exchange a guilty look and then promptly dissolve into giggles.
“I’m so sorry about my family,” Nell says.
“It’s fine.” I laugh, taking the glass of champagne Nell pours for me. “I love them, honestly.”
