Page 25 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Twenty-five

Nell

“So, what inspired this hunt?” Saffron asks a little while later as we’re trudging through the leafy carpet, slightly dishevelled now, scanning our surroundings.

We’ve found several more items – the perfect oak leaf, a bundle of moss, a pine cone and some fungus that we spotted creeping out of a crack in the trunk of a fallen tree.

“Is this another Holloway family tradition?”

“Nah,” I say. “This is one I came up with just for us, in honour of one of my favourite poets.”

“Who?”

“Mary Oliver,” I say. “I’m a cliché of myself but I love her work so much.

She writes about nature and about paying attention in ways that almost feel like a religion in themselves.

She said once that her instructions for ‘living a life’ were to ‘ Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it ’.

And that’s what I want to do. I want to notice things,” I explain.

“And then I want to write about them so that others notice them too. And, I suppose, that’s why I put this on the list. So that you can appreciate all the things that you can only really find in autumn. So you can be astonished too.”

“I love how much you love poetry,” Saffron says, not looking at me. “It’s more than just an interest, or something you’re studying. It’s the whole way you see the world. It’s lovely. And being around you makes it seem more beautiful to everyone else too.”

Horrifically, I feel tears prick at the back of my eyes. “Thank you,” I say, voice soft in surprise. “That’s actually kind of my main goal in life, so it means a lot that you think that.”

“You’re welcome,” she says. “It’s true.” And then she looks up and at me, with a smile that makes me feel the same way I do hearing my favourite poem read aloud.

With no one else around, it’s as though the woods belong to us and us alone.

Like the trees are brushing against each other to pass their secrets along, until finally they flow into us.

Like the wind is blowing through the leaves to make music for us.

Like everything around us has softened into browns and ambers and russets, so it’s less harsh on our eyes.

Not that I’m really looking around right now.

I’m looking at Saffron and hoping that she really means it when she says things seem more beautiful when she’s around me.

I clear my throat. “Would it ruin the moment awfully if I paused to write a poem?”

“If you were a crusty straight white man who studies philosophy and plays the acoustic guitar, then yes,” Saffron says. “As it’s you, not at all.” She smiles. “Just so long as you show me after.”

“Deal,” I say, sinking down on to the fallen tree with my notebook and beginning to scribble on the next blank page.

In response to Mary Oliver:

What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I’m so glad you asked.

I plan to go into the woods, often, and to roam around. I plan to greet everything I find there with a smile and a ‘how do you do?’ – the squirrels and their tufted grey fur, every whistling creek, every leaf quivering in the wind.

I plan to notice everything, to keep my eyes and ears open, my mouth always parted in question, music flowing in my ears, whole spectrums lighting up the way, lanterns lining every path I decide to take, the world unfolding beneath my feet, every horizon an invitation.

Tomorrow? Will you visit me tomorrow?

My answer in the lacing up of my good boots as the birds start up their singing.

Saffron’s gazing around at our surroundings, so she doesn’t notice me glance up at her.

She looks like she belongs out here. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this very wood is where she came from, just appearing, stepping out of a brook or from within the petals of a flower in the spring.

And I also wouldn’t be surprised if one day I love someone just like her, kind and soft and beautiful like all the seasons in one.

Like those petals unfurling in spring, like warm evening sun in summer, like the deep blush of everything in autumn, like the glittering light sparkling through windows after a night of snow.

So beautiful that a curious thought occurs to me, and I hunker down to add another stanza.

I plan to love so deeply that it should need replenishing every evening – except somehow it never does. I plan to feel everything, to let every tear drop, plump and wet and unrestrained, and to kiss every time like I know the world is ending, like the meteor’s already knocking at our door.

I put the pen down. This is new.

“Oh, are you done?” Saffron sits down next to me, smoothing out the skirt of her dress. “Can I read it?”

Instinctively I angle the notebook away from her. I’ve never written anything like that before. Not about…

Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m twenty years old. I can write a poem with the word ‘kissing’ in it. And, besides, I want to see what Saffron’s reaction is. It might not be aimed at her specifically, but I’d still like to know what her face will do when she reads it. Whether she’ll blush so prettily again.

“Sure.” I pass the notebook to her and watch.

Her mouth arches into a smile as she reads. “I love this,” she says, pointing to the middle stanza.

I don’t say anything, I just wait.

I watch her eyes fly over the last stanza until she reaches the last line and…

Something flutters through my chest, landing soft as a feather and making a home right in the centre.

Her flush is back. She doesn’t even look at me as she hands the notebook back. “I love it,” she says. “Ithink this is my favourite one I’ve read yet.”

“Yeah?” I say. “Really?”

She forces herself to look at me. “Really.”

I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how I’m feeling. I just know I want to be close to her – closer than just sitting next to her on the log, my leg brushing against hers.

“You have a leaf in your hair,” I say softly, reaching out and gently pulling it from her golden strands.

“Th-thanks.”

Her chest moves without rhythm, like she’s concentrating so hard on breathing that she has forgotten how to do it without conscious thought. She blinks, and it’s as if it’s to scatter something inside her. “I wonder how that could possibly have got there.”

“Me too,” I say, shaking my head. “One of life’s great mysteries.”

Saffron has a laugh in her smile as she stands up, brushing herself off. “Come on, Holloway, we’ve got a list to finish.”

I follow her up. “Of course. We’ve got to finish what we started.”

But the thought flickers in me as we keep on searching through the woods. I think something is starting with Saffron. Something new.