Page 34 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Thirty-four

Saffron

“Yes, OK. You’re right.” I take another deep breath.

“What I meant was, I wasn’t at home because my grandma was sick and then passed away.

I was actually at home because I was in a depressive episode.

I … I have seasonal affective disorder. Every year, when it gets darker, I start to really struggle with my mood, and last year the combination of that and then the stress from uni made me completely fall apart.

I was a mess, honestly. I am a mess. I…” My voice cracks.

“Sometimes I don’t think I’m very good at being a person. ”

“What do you mean?” Nell’s expression is filled with so much kindness that I want to flinch away from it, but I force myself not to, to stay engaged. “Saffron, you’re one of the best people I know – if not the best. You’re beautiful, and I don’t just mean your skinsuit—”

Her word choice forces a laugh to spill out from me, but I still have to swallow it back so it’s not followed by any sobs.

“Although that is banging .”

Another laugh. She smiles too, before fixing me with her eyes again, holding me in place as I listen to her.

“What I mean is – and I don’t think I’ve ever actually said this outright – but you – your body, your brain, your entire way of existing in the world – are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

And I’ve seen the sun setting over mountains, and babies laughing for the first time, and all other manner of beautiful things. You beat every one, Saff.”

The force of her words knocks me back.

Nell sees the beauty in the world more than anyone else I know. She considers it her vocation to do that. And the idea that the place she’s found the most beauty is me … Well, it means more than any other compliment I’ve ever received. Combined.

“So … yeah,” Nell finishes deftly. “While you’re busy thinking about how bad you are at being a person, everyone else – I guarantee – is thinking about how bloody amazing you are at it, and how glad we are that you’re in our lives.”

My voice is so quiet it’s almost not there. “ Thank you .”

“Can I ask, though, and please know I’m not asking this in an accusatory way, why did you say you went home because of your grandma? Why didn’t you tell us the truth?”

“Because I didn’t want to lose you guys,” I say quickly. “I couldn’t lose you guys.”

“Why on earth would telling us you were depressed mean you’d lose us?

” she asks, sounding so genuinely confused that I also feel confused for a minute.

Why would it? But then the weight of my entire childhood, every relationship I ever had pre-university, presses down on me again.

I stare at my trousers while I say the next bit.

“Because, historically, people haven’t reacted well to me being depressed in the past. My parents … they’ve never exactly been loving people – they never neglected me or anything. I’ve just never felt any love from them.”

“If you’ve never felt loved by them, then they did neglect you,” Nell says fiercely, and I put those words away to think about more later.

“But they were worse when I came back home last year. It was like they were punishing me, pulling away even more. I wasn’t meant to suffer openly like that. It’s not how we Lawrences do things. We don’t make our problems other people’s burdens.”

“Oh, Saffron.” Nell shakes her head. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

“Maybe,” I admit. “But it’s how I was raised.

And then, when I was at college, I met this girl.

Melanie. I thought I loved her, and she said she loved me too.

But, when things got bad for me, she would pull back.

She’d make little comments about me being a buzzkill, or about how other people she’d dated would go to that party with her, or wouldn’t cry so often.

And then, when she got sick of me, she’d break up with me. ”

“Disrespectfully, she sounds like a heartless twat.”

“Yeah. Upon reflection, definitely in heartless-twat territory. But at the time … I wanted to be loved,” I say simply.

“I want to be loved. And so when things started to get better for me again, and she came crawling back, wanting me to be her shiny, happy girlfriend again, I’d just …

let her. I don’t even think I liked her as a person, I just convinced myself I did to prove that I was someone who was worthy of being loved.

And then, surprise, surprise, it would happen all over again.

And I’d remember that if I let people see every part of me, even the parts that aren’t always a bundle of laughs to be around, then they’ll grow to hate the inconvenience, and so – by extension – me. ”