Page 3 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Three

Saffron Next September…

There is a girl in my bed. Well, technically there’s two of them. And potentially a boy as well if the golden curls peeking out from the top of the duvet are anything to go by.

“Hmm,” I say, putting the box I’ve just carried up the stairs on my desk so that my hands are free to be placed on my hips. “I sure am feeling tired from all this box carrying. I think I’ll just have a quick lie-down on my bed to recover.”

The duvet quivers as I walk over to it. I smile, listening to an errant muffled giggle, before…

“Gosh!” I exclaim, lowering myself down front first on to the bed and its inhabitants as gently as I can. “This new bed is awfully lumpy! I’m going to have to complain to the landlord.”

The muffled giggles grow louder. I spread out my limbs and give a hearty wriggle for good measure.

“OK, OK, OK, you win.” Jenna’s head pops out first, cropped curls looking remarkably undishevelled compared to the other two. Nell’s mid-length hair is reaching up to me in staticky tendrils, Casper’s blond locks…

“Oh, Casp,” Jenna says, her discerning eye flicking over to his hair. “It’s giving Boris.”

Casper’s eyes flare in alarm. “Christ, no thank you.” He shakes himself out and I can’t help but add to the teasing.

“And now you look like Kenneth when he gets his ears wet swimming in the local pond.”

Nell rolls her eyes as she attempts to flatten the static with one hand, adjusting her gold-rimmed glasses with the other.

“I don’t know how we became friends. Honestly.

I have my scruffy little shit of a cat, Bean Burger, and you have a golden doodle called Kenneth , for the love of God.

And I bet Kenneth has never once attempted to eat a chicken nugget directly out of your mouth. ”

“Well, I’m vegetarian, so no, he hasn’t. But he wouldn’t dare anyway. He’s a good boy.”

“Like me.” Casper grins up at me, placing his hands under his chin to pose like a hamster doing a cover shoot.

“Sure,” I say at the same time as Jenna says, “You’re an OK boy.”

“It’s like a dagger to the heart, Miss Adebayo.” Casper mimes plunging said dagger into his chest.

Jenna remains unimpressed by the fact that in Simile Land, Casper would currently be bleeding out all over my new wildflower-print bedding. “I thought I was meant to be the drama student. Stick to the rocks, Volcano Boy.”

“ANYWAY,” I say, “I would like to make a proposal that we all get out of bed so I can give you a proper hug.”

My proposal is readily accepted. They clamber up and let me squeeze them tight enough to make up for the fact that I’ve not seen them for two (very long) months. “Ugh. I missed you guys, I’m so glad you’re here! Although … why are you here?”

“I live here,” Casper says proudly.

“In my room?”

“Well, downstairs. Vivvie’s running late, by the way.

She messaged earlier to say that the traffic from Sheffield was making her want to transfer to whichever uni is nearest to the M67 so that she didn’t have to listen to her parents singing along to the one Gloria Estefan CD they own any longer.

And also to say she’s come up with a chore rota that we will be adhering to upon punishment of death. ”

I laugh. “Great. And what about you two?”

“We’ll just be living in squalor,” Nell says. “We’re not cleaning-rota people.”

“We most certainly will not,” Jenna retorts. “You can clutter your room up with all your witchy shit to your heart’s content, but I will chase you around with a broom if you leave wax drips on anything in the common areas. But in actual answer to your question—” Jenna turns to me.

“We were just excited to see you,” Nell finishes. “When Vivvie gets here, all the boys will be back in town and all will be right with the world again.”

“Apart from the climate crisis. And a bunch of other stuff,” Casper says.

“Thanks for that, Casp.” Nell pats him on the arm. “Killed the vibe a bit.”

“You know whose vibe we killed?” Casper says earnestly, blue eyes unblinking. “The polar bears. They’re drowning, Nell. Drowning.”

“Who’s drowning?”

The voice comes from the doorway and I turn round, my chest tightening. Enter the two reasons why I missed my friends quite so acutely all of July and August: my mum and dad.

“The polar bears,” I say airily. I note my dad’s melodramatic grunting in response to the heaviness of the box he’s holding and take it off him. It contains my throw cushions.

“There are still a lot more boxes, darling,” my mum says, frowning that strange little half frown she always does. Climate disaster may be Casper’s (and most of our generation’s) worst fear – brow wrinkles are my mother’s.

“Hi, Mr and Mrs Lawrence,” Nell says brightly. “How was the drive?”

I turn away to pretend to examine the cushions in the box while I listen to my dad complain about having to get up at seven in order to drive from Exeter to Lancaster on his only day off.

I feel the familiar tightening of guilt working its way round my body like poison ivy constricting the old bricks of the kind of period houses my parents loathe.

It’s all glass and right angles back home.

No softness of any kind is allowed in the Lawrence household.

That sort of thing is for other people’s families.

“I’ll come and help with the rest of the boxes now,” I say breezily. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave you to it.”

Neither of them say anything, instead silently leaving the room to go back down to the car.

“I’ll be back soon, guys,” I say. “Excuse me.”

“You are excused.” Nell gestures to the boxes. “We can start unpacking some stuff if you want?”

“No,” I say instinctually. “It’s OK. I can do it. You guys must have so much to do for yourselves. Don’t tire yourselves out helping me.” And, with that, I leave the room and scurry back down after my parents.

“It would be nice if you’d help us out and think about all the effort we’re putting in moving you back up here instead of going straight to ‘hanging’ with your friends,” my dad says the second I’m in earshot. “You’re going to have all year to spend time with them.”

I’m about to apologise, as is my go-to response to anything my parents say to me, when my mum cuts in. “Well. We hope you’ll have all of this year anyway.”

I feel the swell of anxiety and dread that lurks inside me brush up against the shoreline, high tide in my chest.

“I will do,” I say quietly. I know my words mean very little to them, but I say them anyway like a spell for myself, trying to twist the apprehension in my body into crosses for good luck.

“She better had after we’ve carted all of this crap back up here,” my dad continues, lugging a suitcase out of the car boot.

He turns to address me, thunking the case down on the ground with no regard for its contents.

“I don’t want to be doing this again at Christmas, all right, Saffron?

They’ll kick you out this year if you have more time off.

You need to keep it together for your studies as well as for us. Got it?”

His dark eyes pierce into me, demanding a response.

I nod, hating myself as I do so.

He gives a grunt, picking the case back up and heading into the house, my mother’s heels clacking after him, leaving me alone on the pavement, feeling very, very small.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Or, rather, I do – every year around this time, like clockwork (on an incredibly cursed clock), the nights draw in and over me and …

I don’t know. I just can’t cope. I try to make everyone around me feel happy and light, but I can’t do the same for myself.

I can’t seem to stop the seasonal depression from hitting. Hard.

In front of everyone, I can pretend with the best of them.

I know from experience that no one wants someone bringing things down for two out of four seasons.

My ex, Melanie, taught me that during sixth form.

During the winter of both years, I was dragged down to my weird little underworld where I forget how to function and be the happy self I’m meant to be.

And – after weeks of her trying to drag me back up with guilt trips, threats and comments about how no one wants to date a buzzkill – she left me.

I didn’t exactly want to be a buzzkill. I’d have quite liked to have been able to get through a party without crying in the bathroom for reasons unbeknown to me (and unacceptable to her).

But the worst part is, when spring hit and the days started to get lighter, she’d poke her head out again along with the snowdrops and bluebells in the woods, telling me that she’d made a mistake and I was the only one for her.

And I was so desperate to prove that I could be the person that both she and I wanted me to be that I let myself pretend she loved me.

Maybe she did. For half the year at least.

I realise that I’ve been standing outside for quite some time, which is immediately followed by a second realisation that I’ve let my parents go into the house unsupervised, where they’re potentially in the same room as my friends.

I grab the last boxes and dash up the two flights of stairs (as quickly as the heaviest boxes of the whole carful will allow me to). Thankfully, I find my parents just sitting on my new bed in an otherwise empty room, sounds of laughter coming from Casper’s room on the floor below.

“Is that everything?” Mum asks as I struggle to put the boxes down without snapping my back in two.

“Yes. That’s everything.”

“Well.” My dad stands up instantly. “We’ll be heading off then if that’s OK.”

I know it’s not a real question so I don’t offer a reply. He doesn’t say or do anything that signifies that he wants one.

“Come here.” Mum holds out one of her arms.

I go over and let her put it round me for a second.

“Really try this year, sweetheart,” she says. “You’re our bright girl – you just need to not let things overwhelm you again. Really put some effort in this time, OK?”

Again, all I do is nod because I don’t know how else to reply besides screaming, and I am not the kind of person who is allowed to scream.

“Good girl.” She gives a curt nod back, along with a terse smile.

“We’ll see you for your Christmas break,” my dad says, and I know it’s a threat. Christmas. Not before. Not after. Not again.

“Bye then,” Mum says, and I force a smile.

“Drive safe. Message me to let me know you got home.”

“We will,” Dad says, all of us knowing that they won’t. I doubt I’ll hear from them before Christmas unless an elderly relative dies, in which case they might shoot me a text.

They leave, and the empty room feels less empty, despite (because of) their absence.

I heave in a great sigh.

I’m OK. I’m back at uni, back with my friends (and away from my parents and my hometown) and this year will be different. It has to be.