Noah makes the mistake of glancing at the mirror whilst he buttons up his shirt. He's greeted by the unwelcome sight of his reflection, forcing him to acknowledge how exhausted he looks. Dark bags hang under his eyes, a constant reminder of the hours he spends lying awake each night.
Shaking his head, he turns away just as his mother's voice circulates around the downstairs of their house.
"Noah, get out here!" she calls and he is helpless to do anything but obey, well aware of the wrath of his mother when she's stressed. Which, because they've got guests, she obviously is.
It's pointless, he thinks as he makes his way to the kitchen. He gets why his parents throw these dinner parties - he's part of a family of social butterflies - but he doesn't understand why he always has to attend. It's not as if he adds anything to the conversation or the atmosphere, he's more of a nuisance when it comes to any kind of social event.
✰
"Saffron!" her Mum yells.
"Huh?" She puts down the paperback she'd been focused on and stands up, feeling slightly disorientated.
"Are you ready?" she asks, appearing seemingly out of nowhere into Saffron's doorway. She pauses for a moment, assessing Saffron's current outfit of scruffy pyjama bottoms and an oversized plaid shirt with an expression of disgust. "What do you call this?" She gestures towards her daughter's clothes as if she were wearing a bin bag.
Saffron frowns, why shouldn't she be wearing her pyjamas? Six o'clock isn't that early.
"We're going out, remember?" Saffron responds to her mother with a blank look. "Oh my God Saff, I told you about this a couple of days ago! We're going to dinner at the neighbours' house. Plus, the dress code is meant to be smart and you're wearing... whatever that's supposed to be. Honestly, I couldn't care less any other time, but this couple seem very sophisticated and we don't want to give a bad impression. Oh, I can't believe this; we were already running late and now-"
"Mum," Saffron interrupts, trying to avoid a lecture from her mother because she really isn't in the mood. Also, she couldn't feel less like she wanted to go round to some strangers house and socialise and eat their food - much less in a dress.
But she goes to her wardrobe and picks out a black dress she got for Christmas and has worn a total of once. Her eyelids are already drooping and she groans, no idea how she's supposed to survive an entire night.
Saffron doesn't realise until her Dad is knocking on the bright red front door that the house they're visiting is the one which had the light on in the early hours of the morning. Suddenly, for no real reason, she feels a whole lot more anxious. But she doesn't have time to do anything as the door swings open and they're greeted by a smiley woman with sparkling green eyes. She's shortly followed by a man, clearly her husband, and Saffron's parents start greeting them with cheek kisses and compliments.
"You must be Saffron," the man - Dave - says, shaking her hand firmly. She thinks this is slightly odd, it makes her feel like she should be an adult, but she smiles politely. "It's nice to meet you."
"And you." Saffron replies as she steps inside, eyes darting around the hall.
It's the exact same layout as her own house, only without the cardboard removal boxes that clutter hers. A thought strikes her that the bedroom opposite hers, the one which had the light on last night, must be similar to hers. She's filled with an odd curiosity to go and explore it, but of course she just follows her parents into the dining room, her mind wandering elsewhere.
Saffron is surprised when Dave and his wife sit down beside her parents at the table, leaving an empty space next to her and nobody to serve the food. Until the door swings open and a boy around her age enters, strategically balancing four plates up his arms.
Nobody told her they had a son.
"Here's the starter," he announces, his voice sounding deeper than she'd expected for some reason. "Enjoy!"
He appears to be confident and at ease as he places the dishes down in front of them, but Saffron notices that he avoids eye contact with anybody, even his parents. As he retreats from the dining room, presumably heading back into the kitchen, she notices he walks with a slight stoop, which only seems to emphasise his lankiness.
Noah exhales heavily as he returns to the kitchen, picking up the remaining plates. He already feels worn out and he's only had to say a few words. Plus, it doesn't help that the new neighbours have a daughter. Now, not only does he have to engage in polite conversation about education and career choices, but he'll be expected to talk to her about, like, teenager stuff. What do people his age even like? He has no idea.
Bracing himself for the night ahead, Noah forces himself to smile and walks back into the dining room where his parents and, more importantly, their guests are waiting.
✰
"Oh, Marie, this lobster is to die for, honestly," Saffron's Mum says. "Greg, do you remember when we ate at that restaurant in LA and they had the most divine lobster dishes?" This prompts an extremely pretentious sounding conversation about the correct way to cook seafood and the various restaurants the couples have visited.
By his side, Saffron snorts quietly. Noah looks across at her; her eyes are fixated on her lap, the hints of a smile playing on her lips.
"What is it?" he asks, nudging her shoulder and then immediately regretting it because that's what friends do, and they're not friends. She looks up abruptly, her eyes settling on a point just past him. Noah is thankful; she seems just as awkward as he is, perhaps even more so.
"Oh, just my parents always do this. They act all posh and like these fountains of knowledge about everything, when in reality we eat supermarket-bought oven pizza in front of the tv most nights," she explains. As she speaks Noah notices that the faint sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. For some reason, this makes him smile.
"Nah, my parents are actually that pretentious. They're always throwing these dinner parties and events with all their posh friends," he says and she laughs, short and under her breath. Their parents are too enthralled in their conversation about the benefits of seafood over red meat that they don't even notice their children engaging in any form of conversation for the first time that night.
Somehow, Saffron doesn't make Noah feel that unpleasant. The silence they slip into isn't exactly comfortable, but he's had worse.
The rest of the night continues in this state - bearable. Noah and Saffron share a few words, mainly when forced to be by their parents, but that's it until Saffron's family are about to leave.
Her parents are thanking his parents and tying their endless, obnoxious conversation to an end whilst she stands by stiffly by his side. After graciously thanking Noah's parents for a "wonderful evening with delicious food", Saffron suddenly turns to face him.
"Do you have wifi?" she asks, almost urgently.
He laughs, unsure. "Uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure most people have it, to be honest."
"Since we're neighbours and our parents appear to be, like, BFFs now - would I be able to have your wifi password? We haven't set ours up yet and I'm dying without it."
"BFFs?" Noah echoes, unable to keep himself from smirking.
Saffron stares him down, raising an eyebrow in a way that radiates confidence and power, the opposite of the shy nature she's demonstrated the rest of the evening. He has a sudden urge to get to know her further, see how much more he can bring out this self-assured side of her.
Then it occurs to him that the adults have stopped talking and have began watching the pair of them. A ridiculously prominent blush rises on his cheeks and up his neck, making him wish his skin was a little less pale. Or just that he didn't get embarrassed so easily.
"I, um, don't think I know it off by heart. I'll have to go find the thing with it on. Do you want it tonight?" he asks, having to remind himself don't waffle, don't waffle.
Saffron shakes her head fervently, shrinking back into her timid shell after the brief flash of confidence. "No, no. It's fine. It was probably rude of me to ask."
"No!" Noah exclaims, a little too animatedly.
He feels like he needs to give her this password, or they'll lose all contact. Maybe this is stupid; they've just met, they're only neighbours, but she's the first person his own age he's spoken to face-to-face in over a week. "I'll get it for you. I'll bring it over in a bit, or something."
Saffron does that small smile again, diverting her eyes to ground. Then they're all gone and Noah's standing in the hall with only his parents, who of course are both looking at him with patronising expressions.
"Are you going to go get the code or are you just going to stare at the back of the door?" his Dad asks, chuckling to himself at just how hilarious he is. Noah shoots him a look and storms off upstairs, cheeks still hot.
✰
Saffron groans as her phone beeps beside her, notifying her that she has a text. She picks it up, slightly unwillingly, already knowing who it will be from.
Adam [22:37]: i miss you.
Adam [22:42]: don't you remember how good we were together?
Adam [22:59]: why aren't you replying to me baby? :(
It takes all of Saffron's strength not to ring him up and start yelling at him. Instead she shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath, before typing out a message for the first time since she moved away.
Saffron [23:11]: Please stop texting me. We weren't good together. You ignored me most of the time. You have no idea how hard this whole move has been for me and you couldn't be less supportive. Goodbye.
It fills her with an odd sense of relief to send the message and she promptly switches her mobile off, not keen to read whatever his response is. She lies back on her bed, shutting her eyes despite the fact sleep won't come for a further few hours yet.
Saffron flinches when she hears a sudden tap on her window. She jumps out of her bed, scrambling to pull back the curtains. Through the window directly opposite her she sees Noah, grinning at her, a small handful of pebbles in his hand. A smile creeps onto her face as she opens the large window.
"Catch," he says, confusing her a little until he reveals a paper aeroplane.
Without hesitating, he throws it out of his window towards her. Laughter bubbles out of Saffron when she watches it collide with the wall a few feet to the left of her, bouncing off and crumpling onto the ground. She realises that this must be the first time she's laughed properly in a while.
"Well, that plan didn't quite work out the way it did in my head. It had the wifi password on," Noah comments, looking from the paper plane then back to her.
She automatically avoids his eyes, instead focusing her eye-line on his shoulders. He's wearing a t-shirt clearly designed for sleeping in, like she is. It occurs to her that time has now reached midnight, hence why her parents are already in bed.
"You not tired?" she asks him, sitting on the window seat like she did last night.
"Nah," he replies then, after further consideration, adds, "Well, yeah. I'm pretty much always tired. I just don't sleep much."
"Same."
A silence wraps around them again, both sat in their windows not quite looking at each other, although this time it's far more comfortable than at the dinner table. Noah's still smiling, so Saffron smiles too.
She's not quite sure how long they sit like that, not talking, until they're - quite rudely - disturbed.
"Noah, are you still awake?" Saffron hears his mother's shrill voice calling distantly from deeper in the house. "Go to sleep! And close that window, all the mosquitoes will be coming in otherwise."
He clambers down from his seat, which looks identical to hers, and shrugs.
"Do this again sometime?"
Saffron isn't quite sure what this is, but she nods anyway. He grins, then pulls the curtains across and leaves her feeling suddenly far more alone.
Not long after, Saffron crawls into bed, adding the slightly adorable boy next door to the list of thoughts that prevent her from sleeping.