Page 9 of Sad Girl Hours

Chapter Nine

Nell

The moon is out early on Friday evening, a sliver of light in an inky sky. I watch it from the kitchen window as I stand at the sink, elbow-deep in bubbles. (I always put too much soap in – what’s even the point of doing the washing-up if you can’t play with bubbles?)

Jenna passes me a frying pan from off the hob. “You’re unusually quiet. What’s going on in that odd little head of yours?”

“I’m just watching the moon and wondering if it knows how many people have written poems about it.”

“Probably not, given it’s a non-sentient hunk of useless space rock.”

“Actually, if you’d watched any of Saffron’s moon series on TikTok, you’d know that the moon has a whole bunch of effects on the world. It’s a very useful satellite, not just a lump of rock,” I say, placing the frying pan on the drying rack.

“Thank you, professor,” Jenna says. “Speaking of Saffron, you guys have your first date tomorrow?”

“It’s not a date ,” I bounce back. “We’re just two platonic people going on an autumn adventure together with added mutual benefits.

Business benefits,” I add quickly upon feeling Jenna’s raised eyebrow.

“This is basically a business transaction. The wolves of Wall Street are taking notes. Or they would if they had opposable thumbs.”

Jenna chooses to move past that one. “A business transaction,” she repeats. “Uh-huh. That’s not how I see it.”

I sigh, accidentally causing some of my bubble abundance to scatter up and on to the window sill. “How do you see it?”

“I see it as one person very kindly offering to spend a very large chunk of time with another person, either for their own secret reasons, or because they really care about said person and want them to have the best autumn and winter possible.”

“I do care about Saffron, AS A FRIEND,” I add. “Really. I was intrigued by the sound of her before we met, and yes, I think she’s a really cool person, but that’s all. Honestly.”

I think Jenna can sense that I’m being earnest – we’ve been best friends for nearly five years now, living together for over a year of that time. She knows me pretty well by this point.

“All right. If you say so.”

“And I do,” I say firmly.

There’s an uneasy feeling swilling about in my chest. I think it’s there because, even though she does know me well and I know it’s not intentional, I still feel like Jenna is just one more person who thinks they understand my feelings better than I do.

I can’t really explain how or why it makes me so uncomfortable when people assume I like someone in a non-platonic sense, but the discomfort is real nonetheless.

They say you know when you know.

But I don’t feel like I know anything .

Saffron would be the perfect person to date: she’s not a man (tick); she’s beautiful; she’s so smart; she’s sweet and caring; she’s interesting .

But there’s nothing else there, no mysterious magnetic pull towards her, no secret hankering to rip off her crochet tops and jumpers (or very carefully remove them – she and Vivvie worked hard on those).

In fact, at that thought, the uneasy feeling spills out a little further.

“What are you going to do tomorrow then?” Jenna asks, drying the pan.

“Well…”

“Hi! You ready?”

No one opened the front door when I knocked so I just came right in and up the stairs.

“How’d you get in?” Vivvie’s sitting on the floor of Saffron’s room; she appears to be embroidering flowers coming out of the pockets of Saffron’s jeans.

“You left your door unlocked. You really shouldn’t do that. What if there was an intruder?”

“You mean, like a dashing poet who’s come to kidnap me and take me on a mysterious adventure?

” Saffron tosses her words (and a smile) over at me as she slides her phone into her tote bag and checks her reflection in the mirror, gold crescent moons and stars swinging from each ear as she leans forward.

“No, Saffron, like an axe murderer.”

She comes over to me, places her hands on my shoulders and spins me round. “Hmm. It doesn’t look like you’re carrying an axe. Or a sword, or any other miscellaneous weapon. Not unless they’re very small and well concealed.”

“If the laws of this stupid country permitted it, I would be carrying a sword. Imagine this –” I gesture down at my body – “but with a sword. I’d look so cool, and I’d be able to challenge so many men to duels.”

“Probably why the country doesn’t permit it really. Given that our lawmakers are almost exclusively men who don’t want holes in their livers,” Vivvie notes, while Saffron says,

“You would look very cool with a sword.”

“ Thank you . Now, you ready to go?”

I feel like there’s the briefest moment where she hesitates, but I must be mistaken because she then says, “Yep. Ready and excited to engage in all manner of mystery activities.”

“ All manner, huh?” I say. “I might add a few things to the agenda then.”

I realise how that could be interpreted a millisecond after it’s left my mouth. Vivvie smirks and Saffron’s already blushed cheeks intensify in their pink colour.

“LIKE CRIMES,” I say, a couple of decibels louder than is necessary.

“You know, if there’s no restrictions, I might suggest we cause even more chaos than originally planned.

Maybe some grand theft alpaca-ing or stealing a loaf of bread and seeing if we can convince a police person to sing Javert’s part of Les Mis with us…

Never mind, let’s go,” I add when neither of them stops me from blustering on further.

Saffron dutifully follows me out.

We catch the bus in town and take our seats at the back (safe to say I was not a cool kid in high school so I’ve got to make up for it now). Saffron insists that I take the window seat, despite me protesting that she should sit there instead.

“So, we’re definitely heading north,” she says as the bus pulls out of the station and heads away from town, in the opposite direction to campus.

“Casper was right: your geography skills are improving. And speaking of Casper, he offered to lend us his beloved car, but I respectfully declined given that I’m never sure Sally’s going to make it down the hill to Sainbury’s in one piece, never mind to—”

“To where?” “You’ll see.”

“No other hints?”

“Nope. I already gave you an excellent one.”

She pulls a mock-grumpy face that’s somewhat adorable. “Fine.”

We chat for a while as the bus carries on out of town and on to the motorway, before crossing the Welcome to CUMbrIA, The Lake District sign (I point it out just in time for Saffron to film us flying past it for her video) and swapping the parallel expanses of grey for more winding roads.

We both stare out of the window as we blur past ancient oak trees, some eager leaves already fading into ambers and mustards, until we reach our stop.

“C’mon,” I say to Saffron, gesturing for her to shuffle out into the aisle as I spy a sign coming up on the road. “This is us.”

We climb off the bus and I point up a road diverting off the main carriageway. “This way.”

Walking steadily up the road, past an old stone pub, over a cattle grid, russet leaves on tree sentinels guiding us round the path and up the slight slope towards our destination, I catch Saffron looking around. When she feels my eyes on her, she smiles.

“It’s pretty here, isn’t it?” I say.

“It is,” she answers, sounding a little surprised.

“I’ve been here with my family lots of times. It’s one of my favourite places.”

“This road?” she asks. “No judgement,” she adds quickly. “It’s a very good road.”

“It is an excellent road,” I say. “But no—”

We’ve reached the top of the slope and are now walking into the car park over another cattle grid (can’t have those pesky cows trying to hijack any more cars).

“Here.” I point towards the visitors’ centre.

“Sizergh Castle and gardens. The first location of the day, where we will be engaging in two activities. One, finding Charlie, the garden cat, because I love him and I’m in dire need of cat snuggles now that Bean Burger and I have been separated by the cruel mistress of academia.

And two, picking apples from the orchard so that we can finish this lovely day by baking all manner of delicious apple-based goods. ”

“Sounds dreamy.”

Saffron looks as if she means it, which bolsters my mood even more. I link my arm through hers and lead her through the visitors’ centre, past the courtyard, down the hill and straight into the garden.

“My favourite thing about this place, besides Charlie,” I say, “is that it’s like a giant secret garden.

You can’t see any roads from here; there’s no poncy rose garden designed for looking at from indoors rather than actually being in.

Everything feels hidden away. A kind of secret oasis just for us. And other National Trust members.”

“It’s lovely,” Saffron says, peering at the perennials in the beds around a tree-strewn lawn as I guide us round. “Oh!” She squeezes my arm. “I love a kitchen garden.”

To our left are beds filled with cabbages, giant leafy green roses spiralling around, towering peaks of all kinds of kale, feathery carrot leaves just waiting to be tugged on, with cold frames and a greenhouse watching over it all, protecting their precious cargo from any pesky slugs or – God forbid – rabbits.

To our right, the garden extends on for a while, with raised herb beds, A-frames and obelisks holding up all manner of warm-toned plants, both edible and ornamental, clinging on to the last dregs of the year’s heat.

And it leads down to a wooden gate beneath an arch of hedges at the end, which I know opens up into the orchard.

“Same,” I say. “I can’t wait to have my own spooky-looking cottage on the edge of the woods where I can grow vegetables to my heart’s content and convince the local children that I’m a witch.”

“An admirable life goal,” Saffron says. “Can I come visit and steal your fresh produce?”

“Of course. And it won’t be stealing. I’ll get a basket ready for you with my finest wares inside. I’ll give them to you when we have our craft nights by the fire. You bring the yarn; I’ll supply the homemade damson wine and apple pies.”

“Hell, yeah,” Saffron says. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” She unlinks our arms and outstretches her hand, which I readily accept and shake. “Very firm grip. I don’t know what else I should have expected. You have definite firm-grip energy.”

“You really are the master of the weirdly specific compliment,” I say, pushing open the door to the greenhouse and feeling the warm closeness of it begin to swaddle us.

We find Charlie napping between the cucamelons in the greenhouse, but he’s more than happy to receive his admirers – even letting Saffron pick him up and snuggle him close, then carry him through the rest of the gardens.

We reach the gated archway at the end of the kitchen garden and push it open to emerge into the orchard.

Charlie makes a motion with his front paws like he’d quite like to be let down and Saffron obliges, bending down with the tender care of a person who has never owned a cat and doesn’t know that they don’t really have any objection to being thrust out in mid-air.

“Probably for the best,” I say, jerking my head towards the corner of the field. “Cats and chickens don’t often get on.”

We walk round the field, tufted grass worn down into a sort of path weaving through the trees, each proudly displaying plump apples in various shades of red and green just waiting to be plucked from their branches.

I’ve always found there’s something so peaceful about orchards in autumn; it’s like they know their work is nearly done.

My work, however, is only just beginning…