Page 35 of Sad Girl Hours
Chapter Thirty-five
Nell
This is making so much sense. All the hiding things away from us, the barrier she put up to keep us all from knowing what she was thinking. Her resistance to autumn and winter. “You could never be an inconvenience.”
“That’s not true, though, is it? Every single time someone’s seen the real me, they’ve felt like they have to try and fix things and cheer me up, or—”
“I’m sorry, I need to stop you there. Has anyone ever really tried to fix things for you?”
“In a way. They’ve tried to make me happy again.”
“For you or for them?”
“I…”
“Also, secondly, it’s not the real you, though, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said every time someone’s seen the real you .
And that is the real you but it also isn’t.
The real you is a person who’s capable of feeling the whole spectrum of human emotion because you are in fact – please correct me if I’m wrong – a human.
So yes, the real you isn’t happy all the time.
Mostly because no one is and, if they were, they would frankly be very irritating to be around.
But you’re also not made up of the depression or seasonal affective disorder, Saffron.
They’re conditions – they’re not intrinsic to you. ”
“I’ve had them for so long, I really don’t know what’s me and what’s the depression. We feel like one and the same.”
“I get that,” I say. “But maybe, if you opened up and let people support you, it wouldn’t feel like they were so much. Have you ever had any help with all this? Any therapy? Medication?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I was put on a waiting list for counselling by my GP, but I never heard back. I might still be on it. Who knows?”
“Figures. Like, God bless the NHS but fuck the Tory government for making it into such a shambles. We need to reform the whole fucking thing from the ground up. But anyway, right now I want to go back to the whole ‘us hating you if you told us this’ thing. I could never hate you—”
“You don’t know that , though,” Saffron interrupts, and then so does the guy running the Ferris wheel because we’re at the bottom again and it’s come to a stop.
“All right, ladies, did you have a nice time?”
“Can you take us round again, please?” I say. “Here, this should cover it.” I thrust a couple of notes at him and he takes them, shaking his head.
“Um … sure. As you wish, I guess.”
He sounds confused and I don’t blame him. If I wasn’t so focused on Saffron, I would have leapt off this thing rather than overpaying to go on another horrifying journey.
“Where were we?” I say. “Ah, yes, you were saying that I can’t know that I would never hate you.”
“Um, yes. I was. Everyone else in my life has. What would make you guys any different?”
“Firstly, I’m not like everyone else,” I say.
“Never have been, never will be. Secondly, because we love you . Not just because we say it but because we mean it. Unconditionally. If you kill a man, I’m there with the shovel and to say that whoever it was must have deserved it.
If you’re feeling low and can’t get out of bed, I’ll bring you …
I don’t know, soup? Or other liquids of your choosing.
And I’ll lie next to you just to keep you company.
We wouldn’t have to say anything. We could just, I don’t know … be.”