Page 45 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Forty-five

Nell

The party is indeed hopping downstairs. We spent yesterday making silver and gold paper decorations, and there are balloons hung up everywhere with various exclamations printed on them about New Year.

The house soon fills up, people laughing and drinking and dancing, some of us spilling out on to the patio.

Naomi and Owen have some friends from school over and they spend the first two hours of the party trying to convince everyone to watch them do weird gymnastic moves or showing off the tricks they’ve taught the animals to do.

Dad tells them that it’s past the hamsters’ bedtime but Naomi just gives him a withering stare and tells him that Pops said once that, in the wild, hamsters are ‘nocturnal not diurnal’, and she picked the hamsters and not the guinea pigs for a reason.

Nevertheless, he makes them return all the animals (bar whatever it is that’s squirming in Owen’s pocket) so instead they try to wheedle everyone into playing hide-and-seek with them.

“This is what happens when you let them stay up past their bedtime,” I say wryly to Saffron as we watch Owen tugging on my uncle’s arm.

“That and I saw them both eat an entire box of mini doughnuts earlier,” Saffron adds.

“Oh, good Lord.”

“Yeah. I tried to suggest that maybe they should share, but I’m no match against one of them, never mind both of them at the beginning of a sugar-induced craze.”

“NELL. SAFFY.” Owen appears to have given up on Uncle Roger and is now standing in front of us both, glaring. “Everyone’s being boring. Will you play hide-and-seek with us?”

“Owen, it’s only an hour until New Year – how are you not exhausted?”

“I’m feeling energised by the prospect of a whole other year to cause trouble in.”

“That and you apparently ate half a box of mini doughnuts earlier.”

His gaze snaps to Saffron, arms crossing over his chest. “SAFFRON.” Oops. She’s getting full named. “You promised you wouldn’t tell.”

Saffron’s eyes narrow but there’s a sparkle in them still. “I don’t remember that. I remember you telling me that snitches got stitches, but I don’t remember promising anything, little man.”

He pauses for a minute, still grumping. “Well, either way I think you owe us. One round of hide-and-seek and then we’ll let you go back to being boring adults just standing around.”

“Excuse m—”

“ONE. TWO. THREE. F—”

“Jesus Christ, OK!” I grab Saffron by the arm and we start running.

“Not over there,” Saffron says, feeling me try to tug her towards the shed. “They found Naomi in there last round.”

“OK… Back in here.” I pull us back towards the house, slipping in the side door off the utility room and sneaking round to the stairs.

We pelt up them, almost running into my great-aunt as she comes out of the bathroom. “Sorry, Aunt Sylvie!” I call, darting round the corner.

“OK, let me think. Aha!”

I open up the door to what used to be the airing cupboard with the boiler in, but is now just a storage cupboard.

“Is there room in there for both of us?” Saffron says dubiously.

“Well, it’s usually full to the brim with our spare blankets, but as most of them are still up in our room, I think we’ll be golden.” I hoist myself up on to the wooden shelf, shuffling along, knees hugged to my chest, and then offering a spare hand to Saffron. “Here.”

Gamely, she clambers in and we manage to pull the handle shut. I arrange a duvet cover in front of us so we’d be blocked from view if they open the door. “That should do it.”

“Nice.” There’s quiet. “We do do some strange things at New Year, don’t we?”

“What, like celebrate a fake New Year’s Eve and hide out from two terrifying nine-year-olds in a now defunct airing cupboard? I mean, if you think that’s strange, sure.”

“No, you’re right. Perfectly normal.”

“I can’t believe it’s been a year since we met. And also that it’s only been a year since we met.”

“Right? I can remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday, but don’t you also feel like it should have been longer ago?”

“Definitely longer.”

There’s only a little light in here shining through the cracks around the edge of the door, but I can still see the thoughtful smile curved up Saffron’s cheeks.

“I thought you were amazing, even then. The way you seemed so secure in yourself, the way we danced … and then when we were talking outside I remember thinking, My God, who is this beautiful poet woman and where has she been hiding all this time? ”

“At that point, mostly in my room writing slightly depressing poetry.”

“You know what I mean. Not just that first term, more like…”

“Our whole lives,” I say. “Yeah. I do.” It’s my turn to pause. “I wish I could have met you earlier.”

“God, me too,” Saffron says, sounding like she really means it.

“I remember thinking last year not only that you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen but that you must surely be the most beautiful thing I ever would see. But tonight? Somehow you’ve topped that again.”

“Nell,” she protests, a laugh juddering in her breath. “Stop it.”

“I’m serious! It’s hard to look at you sometimes. It’s like looking at the sun. Sometimes I have to squint so it’s not too much.”

I hear her swallow next to me. “With words like that, you’re going to make some person feel like the luckiest muse in the world some day.”

“I hope I do,” I say. Present tense, not future.

I’m getting bored of this skirting around it.

“You know, at first, I used to write to help me make sense of things – my brain, the outside world, everything really. Now, though, I feel like I write because I love the world so much I have to write about it. And one of the things I love most about the world is the people that live in it.” It’s time. “One person in particular.”

“Oh yeah?” The dark feels like it’s lessening the pressure between us. Like all bets are off. “And who is that?”

“ Saffron .” I twist to face her, scanning that perfect face. “You have to know by now.”

“Know…?”

“I wrote this,” I say, hearing the breathless quality in my words as I dig in my pocket for my phone. “The other day. I wrote this one and another poem, and I finished my collection.”

“You finished it?” she says incredulously. “Nell, that’s amazing! Why didn’t you say?”

“Because I thought you’d ask to see them, and I was waiting for the perfect time.”

“Well, this is it! Show me!” she says firmly.

I open up the document. “Here,” I say. “This is the one I was waiting for really.”

I hand my phone to her and sit, waiting, not looking directly at her as she reads.

Look, I don’t know, OK?

You ask me what I am and…

I can write for hours about the sun and the sky and the woods and the water that runs through them

I have come to realise that

I have words for everything

but this.

I cannot give you a single word to encompass this vortex

of feeling

of passion…

I simply

do not know.

I do know, however, that I am in love with this woman.

I love her like the waves love the shore

gentle

inevitable

wearing me away with the swell of it.

It’s almost too much

this love

(almost)

I love her body, her brain, her energy

I love her.

There is no question mark

Just an ellipsis…

Ever trailing on…

Ushering in the future…

following on from the past…

I have no word for what I am

so do not ask me.

I have infinite words for how much I love her

so please ask me.

I shall fetch you some tea while I rhapsodise

about this woman

this magnificent woman.

Forgive my lack of brevity

but, in a way, this is better, right?

To have so much to say about her

It conjures a much more vivid picture of who I am (a person who loves her)

than a single word ever could.

“Nell…” She puts my phone down in the space next to us. “It’s beautiful.”

“ You’re beautiful.”

There are tears glittering on her eyelashes. And, I think, on mine too.

“I’m a mess,” she says, and I know she doesn’t just mean right now.

“Me too,” I say. “Aren’t we all?”

“And you’re sure?” she asks.

“Never been more sure about anything.”

Her next words almost stop my heart.

“All right then.”

“Really?”

“ Really .”

And that’s when she kisses me.