Page 29 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Twenty-nine

Nell

“They’ve really gone all out this year, haven’t they?” Jenna says as we hang our coats up back at ours after the big switch-on. “Did you see the sinister-looking snowman light that waves at you really slowly? New sleep paralysis demon unlocked – thanks, Lancaster Council.”

“JENNA,” I blurt out a little too loudly, standing and looking at her in the hallway.

“Oh my God, what? Why are you being weird?”

“I need to talk to you about something.” I push the words out, forcing myself to start this conversation.

Jenna nods knowingly. “Is it about how you’re in love with Saffron?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Of course.” Jenna snorts. “Of course you’re not. One ticket to Denial City – no, no return necessary— Wait. What did you say?”

“I said I’m not sure.”

“Oh, shit .”

“Yep,” I say awkwardly. “Pretty much.”

“Right, well. Come on then.” She touches me on the arm and jogs upstairs, me close behind.

She shuts her bedroom door after us, points at her bed and tells me to sit. Then she throws herself down next to me and says, “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I’m not completely sure,” I say. “Which I think has been the issue this whole time. But I think I’m growing surer that there might be … something.”

“What aren’t you sure about?”

I snort lightly. “Everything. Sometimes I think there’s something a bit wrong with me.”

Jenna’s listening so intently, and suddenly I feel a bit silly. She’s my best friend, has been for years now. Why haven’t I just been talking to her about this the whole time?

“I don’t think I feel the same things as other people. Sex wise,” I add awkwardly.

Something flickers over Jenna’s face, and I could be wrong, but it’s almost like she has to stop herself from smiling.

“I’ve just been really confused this whole time.

Because I know I like Saffron, but I wasn’t feeling the things that I’ve always heard people talk about feeling.

This big pull towards a person like your bodies are opposite magnetic poles and it would physically pain you not to give in and touch them.

I’d heard about it so many times but I’d never felt it. ”

“Question.”

“Of course.”

“You’re talking in the past tense. Are you feeling those things now, with Saffron?”

I’m quiet for a moment while I think. “Kind of. But not really. But also a little. Ugh, I don’t know .”

I’m expecting Jenna to laugh at this, at my indecisiveness. Instead, though, she just smiles, eyes dancing with secrets. “That’s OK.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that it’s OK you don’t know. You don’t have to know.”

This is new. “But you’ve always been the one teasing me about Saffron, joking about us being in love or whatever.”

“Like you’ve done with me and Casper, yes,” Jenna says. Now she does laugh. “But I think we might both have been idiots and should probably have had this conversation a while ago.”

“What conversation?”

She lets a breath ripple out into the air between us. “Ah! OK, I can do this. So, Casper and I, we’re not…”

“What?”

“We’re not … having sex.”

I feel my forehead crumple into a frown. “But you guys are always disappearing together into each other’s rooms. Casper’s definitely in love with you, whatever you might say.”

“I think he is too,” Jenna says, her smile fading into something with a dull, pained edge. “But we’re not together. Not like that. Or at all really.”

“OK, I’m confused. Those excuses – you simply have to leave, you’ve got to go rehearse your lines or do a puzzle for Christ’s sake.”

“They weren’t excuses. Well, they were excuses to leave, but they weren’t lies.”

“So, you’re not together and you’re not even, I don’t know … friends with benefits?”

“ No . Well, yes, but those benefits aren’t sexy times; they’re talking about our feelings and doing jigsaws. Look.”

She points up at a giant, framed floral poster above her bed. It’s pretty, brightly coloured and demanding that you look at it, a bit like Jenna, but now, when I do look at it, I also notice that it’s not a poster at all. It’s a framed jigsaw.

“That was the first one we did together last year.” Her big brown eyes grow a little hazy with nostalgia.

“But … why?”

Jenna shrugs. “We like puzzling.”

“No, I mean, why did you let everyone think that you guys were boning this entire time? Everyone knows – or thought they knew anyway.”

“That’s the thing. I never told anyone we were having sex.

Obviously, because we weren’t. And neither did Casper.

But, you know, being a Black woman, I get to enjoy the double whammy of racist misogyny and people assume I’m this, like, ‘hypersexual’ person.

Plus, as Avril Lavigne said, we’re a girl and a boy…

What else could we possibly be doing late into the night together? ”

She sounds a little bitter now, and I have to say I don’t blame her.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I guess we did just assume.”

“It’s fine,” Jenna says, though I don’t think it is. “It’s not like I corrected anyone.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Partly because I didn’t think I should have to. Partly because I liked hiding behind the excuse, so I didn’t have to actually confront the truth.”

She sees that I have more questions. “I get anxious sometimes. A lot of the time really, especially at big social events. I feel like everyone’s looking at me or thinking about me, or that I’m taking up too much space, and then I start to get panicky.

Casper saw that in me last year when we were all out at the club for the first time – that time I told you about when Casper drank his first J?gerbomb and then pretended he was a French mime for half an hour—”

“Ah, yes,” I say knowingly. “That night.”

“Well, after he regained his power of speech and stopped creeping everyone out, I went outside and started panicking a bit – all the usual fun things: hyperventilating, sweating a bit, very sexy – and he followed me out and said we should go back home. He made me tea from his stupid little tea suitcase that he offers to people like if Paddington Bear was a travelling tea sales rep or something and asked if I wanted to play Ticket to Ride, the nerd.”

“That’s the train one, right?”

“Yep, that’s the one.” Jenna laughs again. “And it was so stupid but I had such a lovely time. No other boy has ever made me tea and asked me to play a board game before. If you go home with them, they expect sex. Casper’s never made me feel like he expects anything.”

I let all of this information sink in. Casper’s an even bigger nerd than I thought.

He and Jenna have never had sex. All this time, I kind of thought of her as an authority on things like that, that’s why I was so annoyed when she implied that I had those kind of feelings towards Saffron.

I thought she was like everyone else, feeling that way and assuming everyone else was too. But now…

“So, you don’t…” How do I phrase this? “Want to have sex … with Casper?”

“No. Not with Casper, not with…” She swallows. “Not with anyone.”

“ Ohhhh .”

“Yeah.”

“And all this time I thought you were just like everyone else, having all these feelings —”

“Burning with a wild passion for Casper, you mean?”

“Well, when you put it like that… But also, yes. And assuming that everyone else was feeling those things.”

“By everyone else, do you mean, like … you?” She surveys me with cautious eyes, hesitant. “Do you think you might be on the ace spec too?”

“On the what what ?”

“Oh, I see ,” she says, even though I’m as confused as ever. “The ace spectrum, Nell. Asexuality.”

“Ohhh. I’ve never heard it called a spectrum before, just asexuality. But I guess that makes sense. Most things are on spectrums. I’m on a few,” I joke.

“Including the ace one?” Jenna asks, not letting my attempt at deflection actually, you know, deflect.

“I don’t know,” I say, not looking at her. “Sometimes I think I feel … and then other times…”

I see her nod in my peripheral vision. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve been talking about me a lot and that’s not what we came up here for.”

“No,” I say fiercely, turning back towards her now. “I’m glad you’re talking to me. Thank you for talking to me. I’m glad you feel that you can trust me with all that. You’re my best friend; I like getting to know you even better. And I’m sorry, for the record, for making those assumptions too.”

She beams a radiant smile as if I’d said exactly what she wanted to hear. Maybe I did. “Thank you, I appreciate that. More than you’ll know. But, ugh, never mind me being sappy. Why don’t you just tell me what you think you feel for Saffron, and anything you think you don’t feel.”

“OK,” I say, my voice higher up the octave than it usually is. I’m doing this. I’m talking about this. “Well, she’s … perfect, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else like her. And sometimes I think I must be in love with her, but then I’ve never really wanted to…”

“Have sex with her?”

“No. Well. Kind of? Sometimes I think, maybe?”

“Like earlier today?” Jenna asks. “When we were walking through town and you were looking at her like…”

“Like what?”

“Like you wanted to lick her .”

“EW!” I shove Jenna in the ribs, laughing. “Don’t say that.”

“Is it not true?” she says, ducking as I go in for round two, also laughing.

“ No . It’s more complicated than that. I want lots of things with Saffron. Sometimes I think I’d like to be closer to her, maybe in those kinds of ways. But then…”

“Then?”

“Then I remember that Saffron’s hiding parts of herself from me, from everyone probably. And how could I be close to someone in that way when I don’t know them , not completely?”

Jenna’s quiet for a moment, processing my words. “You’ve noticed that too then? With Saffron.”

“Yep. I don’t know what it is but I know that there’s something. I spoke to Vivvie and Casper earlier too, and they said the same thing.”

“She’s a mystery, that girl. And stubborn as well. But we can talk more about our enigmatic friend later on – back to you. Can I ask you another question?”

“Of course.”

“Have you ever had a crush on someone that you don’t know really well? Like a celebrity or someone you’ve just met?”

“No,” I say. “How can you have a crush on someone you don’t know?

What would there even be to crush on ? Like, I’ve definitely thought people are attractive before, but not in an ‘Oh my God, they’re so hot, I want to put my tongue in their mouth’ way.

It’s always abstract, just a ‘they’re nice to look at’ way. ”

Jenna nods. “Sure. I mean I completely understand that. I’ve never wanted my tongue in anyone’s mouth – apart from my own – either. But I think a lot of other people feel differently.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It certainly seems like that anyway.”

We’re both quiet for a bit. I’m usually so alone with all this, with the knowledge that I feel things differently to a lot of other people.

I’d made my peace with being autistic and knowing my brain works differently in that way, but I think this was just one too many a thing to wrap my head around.

Until today. Now I know I’m not the only one – not in the world, not even in my friend group.