Page 41 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Forty-one

Saffron

A couple of minutes of crunching later and Nell’s feeling well enough to keep going. We carry on walking until we come to a kissing gate at the edge of a field. Nell pushes it open and then holds it for me, neither of us commenting on the significance of what we’ve just passed through.

“All right,” Nell says as we walk up a sharp incline to the very top of the hill, on which two crumbling stone walls are sitting. “Don’t say I never take you anywhere exciting – welcome to our village castle.”

I look around a little. “Where?”

“Here,” Nell says. “This is it.”

“These … walls?”

“Listen, I didn’t say it was a good castle. Just that, purportedly, this was once a castle. In medieval times. Now, I will admit, it’s just a couple of stone walls that are rapidly losing their ‘wall’ status and rapidly gaining their ‘pile of rocks’ one.”

“You can really feel the history,” I say. “I’m getting such a good sense of what life must have been like back then.”

“Very funny.” Her eyes dance as she turns round. “Luckily this is the main event really. Not our embarrassing attempt at not being invaded.”

“What?” I ask but, as I turn round, I realise.

Far beneath us lies the village, tucked between expanses of green fields and snow-capped hills. The sky above is blotted with pink over all the gold, the sun teasing the horizon of hills as it slowly nears.

It’s beautiful.

I turn to say this to Nell but she’s already watching me with an expression that tells me my thoughts are perfectly clear to her.

“Worth the hike?”

“ Definitely ,” I say. “Thank you for bringing me up here.”

“You’re very welcome.”

She heaves off her backpack, unfurling a blanket and placing it on a nearby rock. She sits down and gestures for me to do the same, before extracting a thermos.

“Hot chocolate?”

“Ooh, thanks.” I take a sip, feeling the warmth of the liquid slip down my throat, emanating to my very core. We sit for a couple of minutes, passing the thermos back and forth and staring out at the view.

“I, erm…” Nell starts. “There was a reason why I wanted to bring you up here today in particular.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re celebrating something.”

My curiosity grows. “And what would that be?”

Nell smiles, facing outwards, the sun’s glow making her look almost too radiant to be mortal. “It’s the twenty-first today,” she says. “Which means…”

“The winter solstice,” I breathe. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

“Yep. But it also means that you did it,” she says.

“Did what?”

“You’ve made it through the shortest day of the year. It’s all lighter from here. Slowly, sure, but still. You did it . You survived.”

I …

She must mistake my silence for upset because she carries on. “I know it’s not as simple as that. But I know the dark doesn’t help. So, I just thought—”

“ Thank you . You’re perfect. Truly. You’re the most wonderful person I have ever met.”

Nell’s cheeks go even pinker, flushed from the compliment. “I could say the same about you. In fact, I will . Saffron? I think you’re my favourite person on the planet.”

“You think?” I try to joke, but my voice is weak, overwhelmed with it all.

She’s right. It’s not as simple as that.

Just because the dark nights have reached their crescendo doesn’t mean my depression’s going to go, Oh, OK then, guess I’ll just stop affecting you.

It’s an illness, and illnesses want to survive even if you don’t.

It’s going to keep clawing on for a while yet.

But the solstice always does bring me a tiny ounce of hope – as small as the extra sliver of sun we get at the end of the day, but hope is hope. And it means more than I’ll ever be able to express to Nell that she just gave me some.

“I’m hoping those are good tears?” she says, and I realise there are, in fact, a few tears sliding down my cheeks. “But if they’re not, you know you can—”

“They’re good,” I say, surprised. “Definitely good.”

Nell nods. “Would have been fine either way, but I’m glad they’re of the happy-feeling variety.”

Usually, I would think that of course she’s glad they’re happy tears because it’s so much easier to be around me when I’m happy than when I’m miserable.

But this is Nell. She loves me. She wants me to be happy for me , not because it would inconvenience her. She’d be happy to be around me even if I was low.

She’s still looking at me and, when I meet her eyes, she offers me a smile that I could tell had been waiting on standby, and suddenly the light sinks into my skin so that I feel golden too.

Growing up the way I did may have made me unsure what it’s like to feel loved, but I think I know now.

This. This is what it feels like.

We watch the sun disappear down behind the hills, and, instead of wishing it back, I think about people on the other side of the world waking up, their day stretching out ahead of them.

“We should probably head back down,” Nell says, getting up from the rock. “It’s not that fun walking down the hill in complete darkness.”

“I can imagine.”

We pack up the blanket and thermos and walk back down to the edge of the field. When we get to the kissing gate, Nell pushes it open, goes through the gate and holds it open for me.

I wish I was just a tiny bit braver. If I was, I’d pull her back by her scarf and kiss her over the gate.

As it is, I settle for something else. I take the hand that’s holding the gate open, noticing her eyes widen as I do so, and I gently press my lips to it. “There,” I say. “Now I can come through.”

“Y-yes. You can.” Nell’s slight stutter brings me a great amount of joy.

As does her taking my hand when I’ve manoeuvred myself through the gate. And the fact that she doesn’t let it go until we get back to the house. We’ve held hands lots before. But this time feels different.