Page 1 of Sad Girl Hours
Chapter One
Nell
Some parties you go to because you’re a Party Person?.
Other parties you go to because your best friend insists that you can’t possibly actually want to spend (fake) New Year’s Eve at home, surrounded by candles (I’ve curated the perfect collection: cinnamon apple, warm vanilla and a peppy new purchase called ‘Angel’s Kiss’) and writing poetry.
(FYI: a smooch from an angel would apparently smell of freshly laundered cotton sheets with a subtle note of lavender.)
“Nell,” Jenna said, “I love you but if you don’t come with me tonight then I’m going to turn you in to the accommodation staff, and you’ll spend your night in the prison in the basement.”
“Since when is there a prison in the basement of the halls?”
“Since you rocked up with a criminal quantity of candles and they decided they’d better build one to put you in before you burned this place to the ground.”
“ Excuse me ,” I protested. “I’m always very careful with my candles. If I was going to set something on fire, then it’d be on purpose. And I’m not in a particularly arsony mood this evening.”
Apparently, this was not a convincing argument for being left home alone.
Hence why I now find myself in the Student Union, dressed in my finest, witchiest dress with sleeves that Stevie Nicks herself would envy, dancing my lil butt off with Jenna at the pre-New Year’s Eve party they’re throwing so that we can all celebrate together before we head home for the holidays.
Jenna grins at me, her face changing from pink to green to blue as the lights cascade down and bathe us all in their flashing colours, as if to say, This is fun, right? I told you it’d be fun! , and I don’t even try to be obnoxious and pretend that it isn’t.
I return her grin and grab her hand, spinning myself into her and relying on her musical-theatre-student instinct not to drop me as I fall back into a dip.
This initiates an elaborate improvised dance routine for the rest of the song (an upbeat pop number I’ve never heard before in my life but am not not enjoying).
We’re giggling slightly hysterically as the song draws to a close to be replaced by the unmistakable sound of the first bars of ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ (accompanied by the unmistakable sounds of people going positively feral at the sound of the first bars of ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’).
“What a TUNE!” Jenna adds to the delighted furore, spinning round in a circle under my arm. Mid-spin, though, she lets out a mini screech. “Oh my god, Nell, look – it’s Saffron, the girl I was telling you about!”
I follow her gaze. Usually in a crowd like this, it would be hard to tell which of the dancing people she was talking about, but not in this instance.
In the corner of the room, standing on one of the corner benches while she dances and belts out the lyrics along with Whitney Houston at the top of her lungs, is a girl wearing an outfit made of so many gold sequins that she’s functioning as a human mirrorball, her pale skin drenched in shifting technicolour.
I follow Jenna as we weave through the crowd, watching the girl as I go.
Her long, slightly curly blond hair is messy – she keeps pushing it up as she dances – and she’s moving to the music like her body itself can read the sheet music, her willowy limbs responding to each note with grace but also just unabashed joy .
And she’s passing that joy on to her friends too, going round the group and singing and dancing with each person.
She’s not just literally golden, there’s something else about her that shimmers too.
“JENNA!”
She spots us heading over and takes a running leap at Jenna, flinging her arms round her like she’s being reunited with her favourite person on the planet.
Now don’t get me wrong – Jenna’s great. She’s been my best friend ever since we both formed a weird-kid trauma bond in the creative-writing group (poetry for me, playwriting for her) in our local city when we were fifteen.
But I suspect that this girl makes everybody feel like they’re her favourite person when she’s around them.
Jenna and Saffron pull apart and I get to test this theory.
“Saff, this is Nell.” Jenna gestures towards me with her head. “My ride-or-die bitch. Nell, this is Saffron, my designated dance partner.”
I smile in Saffron’s direction. “Yes, I heard all about the hair-holding, water-acquiring you did in Freshers’ Week. Jenna makes a great first impression, right?”
Saffron shakes her hair back, beaming at me like I’m just the person she wanted to see, confirming my suspicions. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way. That’s how I make all my friends. I’m always on the lookout for people on the verge of vomming so I can swoop in and save the day.”
“Ah, yes, you’re like the Sir Lancelot of Upchuck,” I say, feeling my arms move to mime knighting her on each shoulder before my slightly tipsy brain has registered that’s maybe a really weird thing to do to someone you just met.
Saffron just bows her head and laughs, though, her eyes warm and glittery as they look back into mine. “I really am. It’s so nice to formally meet you, Nell. Jenna’s been saying we should hang out since October. Oh, and you should both come meet my friends!”
She grabs our hands and pulls us back into her corner. When we get there, she lets go of us so that she can gesture to the two people standing there. A stray thought flickers in me that I’m disappointed not to be touching her any more.
“GUYS.” Her voice is raised so they can hear her over the music. “This is Jenna, who you know about, and this is Nell, my new friend!”
She’s exchanged approximately fifty words with me, but apparently we’re friends now. Not that I’m complaining.
She introduces us in turn to Viviana (“Vivvie, please, darlings,” she corrects in a soft Yorkshire accent), a tall, slender Latina girl with the most striking cheekbones I’ve ever seen, who’s wearing a dress made out of triangles of emerald-green silk and woven gold rope.
Saffron proudly informs us that Vivvie made it herself, saying, “Isn’t she just crazy talented? ” to which Jenna and I swiftly agree.
Then she turns to the boy who’s been standing and waiting patiently. “And this is Casper, the only man I’ve ever loved.”
I smirk to myself, remembering what Jenna said about suspecting Saffron was queer, and our subsequent social-media stalk confirming that she’s a lesbian.
She has a TikTok with a not inconsiderable following where she posts a fun mixture of general lifestyle stuff, sustainable fashion content, as well as videos explaining astrophysics concepts in accessible terms. (Even I could understand what she was saying almost all of the time, despite spending most of my high-school science classes staring out of the window/writing terrible angsty poetry.)
“Casp and I are in the Athletics Club together,” Saffron continues. “He’s a sweetheart.”
Casper smiles at me and then at Jenna, his cheeks round and tinged pink contrasting with his very rumpled, very blond hair. “Casper Fortescue-Thomas, at your service!”
I’m not surprised that he and Saffron met in Athletics Club: he’s clearly a golden retriever trapped in the body of a man – boy needs his walkies.
Jenna plays her role of the designated social-butterfly person in our friendship and chats to them, allowing me to fulfil my role of designated perpetually-slightly-overstimulated, mysterious neurodivergent friend and gaze around the room, taking it all in.
I sway my body lightly from side to side with the music.
I turn back to the group and catch Saffron’s eye.
She smiles at me, before beginning to – I think unconsciously – mirror my shoulder dancing.
She jerks her head back towards the dance floor and asks, “D’you wanna go dance? ”
I nod before I’ve even fully registered the question. She hands her drink to Casper and tugs me to the floor, Jenna waggling her eyebrows at me when I look back over my shoulder.
We join the throng of slightly sweaty students in the centre of the room, rainbow light cascading down the walls. The floor pulses with the music, and Saffron and I are soon singing and bopping along.
Saffron’s skin is soft, like … that excellent kind of silky moss in a sunny forest glade soft , something I notice every time she takes my hand to dance or to spin us round in giddy circles.
She has this radiant smile on her face the whole time, her hair’s flying all over the place and I feel the benefit of her warmth, but I also feel … I don’t know.
Like I’m not doing something quite right.
My mind flits back to Saffron’s TikTok page and how her bio proudly proclaimed her as ‘that funky space lesbian’.
There are lots of things I know for sure about myself.
Like how I think there’s nothing cooler than transforming a blank page into something beautiful using just my words.
How I love all things cosy. How my main fashion inspirations are whatever was going on with Darcy’s fit in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie when he’s walking across the field, and ‘the lady who lives on the edge of the forest that all the local children think is a witch’.
How I know my brain works differently to a lot of people’s, always seeking out fun sensory input and trying to get rid of the less fun stuff.
I was diagnosed as autistic three years ago after I had what my dads and I like to refer to as my ‘spicy brain time’.
(Read: a mild to moderate mental breakdown that resulted in me going to therapy and crunching my spicy brain rocks (anti-anxiety meds) every evening before bed.)
But when I vaguely acknowledge that I’m enjoying dancing with Saffron more than I probably would be if I was dancing with a boy, things feel both known and unknown.
I know I’m not straight but what exactly I am outside of that, I don’t know.
And I know I don’t have to know, but I want to.
My words never usually fail me. I can wax lyrical about nature, about vast lakes of shining cerulean and the towering mountains watching over them until the Wordsworths come home, but somehow I can’t find the words for whatever is going on amid the wilderness of my heart.
When I think about crushes, about dating … everything feels foggy.
The night plods on, midnight drawing ever closer.
Jenna, Casper and Vivvie join our dancing, and we improv several group numbers that would put the cast of Glee to shame (in our heads anyway/as deserved).
The DJ announces that there’s only a few minutes to go until the countdown and we ‘get our New Year on’.
The next song slips into play and I can stop concentrating on processing the DJ’s words over all the other noise and be present in the room again.
Jenna leans over to whisper-shout about how this DJ is cheesy but still infinitely better than when her grandpa decided to take over the aux at her eighteenth birthday and accidentally put ‘No Diggity’ on loop seventeen (and a half) times until Jenna pulled the plug (on the speakers, not her grandpa).
I laugh and agree, but then my brow furrows. Saffron is slipping through the crowd, weaving a glittering path away from us and out of the doors.
I don’t pause to think. “I’ll be back!” I yell towards Jenna, who nods, shimmying to face Vivvie and Casper instead, while I head off, following Saffron’s trail.