Chapter Eighteen
Iris had been quiet on the journey back to Manhattan, but Barrett got it.
She had a lot to work through, and she seemed drained from her panic.
Hell, Barrett had been in a similar state more than once on that ferry.
She was simply glad Iris stayed close to her and seemed to take in the view and actually see it.
On the way over, Iris had looked at things like they weren’t really there.
The things she’d been seeing were the ones that haunted her mind.
Sure, they were still bothersome, but at least Iris was a little more present.
At least she’d laughed and ran and done the fun, nonsensical thing for once.
She was more talkative by the time they made it back to their part of town and got to Trader Joe’s, but there remained a…
loneliness seeping from her pores and into the world.
Barrett remembered it more than she’d like to admit.
She was struck by the idea that perhaps she’d always sensed it in Iris, that it was something that bridged the space between them whether they were talking about it or not.
She stopped when Iris hesitated outside the store.
Seeing someone halt and doubt themself in their own life always made Barrett angry.
Not at them, but at the world that made them feel the necessity to do so.
Iris deserved a life that hadn’t bashed and bruised her, eroded her until she wasn’t sure she could even go buy her own groceries. It was a fucked up way to live.
She looked up at the familiar sign, rather than putting any pressure on Iris by looking at her. “Can I offer a suggestion?”
“Of course.” It was Iris’ business voice. That familiar reserved and removed tone Barrett was learning meant she’d left the room emotionally—her mind checking out when things were too much.
“Don’t feel the need to shop the way you think you should.”
It took a moment and two shakes of her head before Iris responded. “What do you mean?”
Barrett sighed slowly. “There’s this expectation we put on ourselves for how eating looks, of the things we should be buying. And, sure, a balanced diet is important, but, right now, just eating is what matters. So, buy the things you can eat.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She sounded so frustrated with herself. Barrett had been, too, back when she was battling her relationship with food.
“I said something similar when I was going through it, and my therapist told me it’s sometimes the only way through it.
Buy the things you can eat, the things that feel safe—nostalgic, easy, like treats to some part of your mind.
And, when eating those things comes easier, you can work on everything else. ”
“Like chocolate pudding.”
“Just like chocolate pudding.”
“I can’t buy a cart full of snacks, though.”
“Says who?”
“I—”
Barrett finally glanced at her, seeing the battle between logic and emotion playing out.
“You can buy anything you want. You can eat ice cream for breakfast if that’s what you need.
It’s not about the food right now, it’s about making sure you have some, whatever it might be. Nobody will even know.”
“You will. The person who rings me up will.” She seemed far more stressed about the latter, and Barrett wondered whether that was a good thing.
When she’d finally decided to get help, she’d been embarrassed about Ruby and her therapist knowing things, but it was a lot easier to get used to them knowing than it was to shatter the illusion for everyone else.
She could be cool and aloof and entirely put together for the rest of the world, just as she’d been trained to be.
The idea of people seeing through that illusion to the flawed human underneath was hard to accept or allow.
But, if Iris wasn’t lumping her in with the rest of the world, that was already something.
She stepped in front of Iris, confident smile in place. “How about we pull a little switcheroo, then?”
Iris narrowed her eyes. “Explain.”
Barrett could have jumped for joy at Iris not immediately shutting her down. “You do whatever shopping you want, I’ll do mine, and then we do checkout with each other’s groceries. No getting embarrassed if it's someone else’s shopping.”
That last statement was a bit of a reach.
Barrett knew it, and she knew Iris was more than intelligent enough to spot it, too, but she didn’t need to logic it apart until it died, she just needed to accept it at face value because someone told her it was true.
Neither of them were particularly inclined to behave like that on a regular basis, but Barrett had done it when she was recovering, and she trusted Iris could too—let someone else take the reins, let them tell you how the world functions, and choose to believe them because what is the other choice?
“What if I spend hundreds more than you do? It’s not fair to lump you with a massive bill if you’re only buying… cheese and pasta.”
Barrett grinned. She’d won the war. Iris had, too. “We’ll keep a loose track of what we’re spending and ensure we each check out with about the same costs. How’s that?”
Discussing the little details meant they were doing it. Iris’ pushback was fairness, rather than whether she could enter the shop and actually pick things. Her mind was switching to other thoughts, and, with that change, she’d clambered over the wall of even being able to enter the place.
“Okay,” Iris said, nodding slowly and actually looking at Barrett, rather than at the store with trepidation. Another win.
“Great!” Barrett grabbed their carts and started moving towards the doors casually and slowly, testing out if Iris would move with her. When she did, Barrett’s breathing relaxed, and she led the way to the flowers. They were low-stakes. Inedible, pretty, a good way to ease into the whole thing.
Iris blinked several times, seemingly to bring the flowers into focus, and she furrowed her brow when her gaze landed on one of the bouquets. “I’ve always hated sunflowers.”
Barrett almost laughed, her smile growing and her insides burning into a puddle. Iris was worried she wasn’t a whole person, but there she was, the one who had things she liked, things she hated, things that elicited emotions. And she was sharing them with Barrett.
Natasha might have looked uncomfortably like Barrett, but the sharing was a huge sign the resemblance was no more than skin-deep.
Barrett had seen Iris around Natasha, and she’d heard more than enough about the woman and Iris’ relationship with her to know it was unlikely Iris had been allowed to hate things around her.
Even if Natasha hadn’t been partial to whatever Iris hated, she’d eliminated Iris’ ability to be open, to have strong opinions.
She’d created a polite, neat, shell of a person.
But Iris was still in there—and Barrett got to know her.
“Why?” she asked curiously, stepping closer to Iris and the offending bouquet with its solo sunflower.
Iris shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s something so depressing about them. I know everyone thinks they’re bright and sunny and lovely, but every time I look at them, I’m filled with this… grief, almost. I don’t think the yellow and the brown or black looks nice and… yeah. I just can’t abide them.”
Barrett didn’t have strong opinions on them, but she loved knowing Iris’. “Every flower is not for every person.”
“Much like most things in life.”
Barrett paused as she was leaning in to smell some of the bouquets and looked back at Iris. “True, but it’s easier to comprehend that idea in some contexts and not others.”
Iris blushed but nodded like she understood exactly what Barrett was getting at. That she could be herself, could have opinions, and the right people would still love her.
Barrett straightened up with her chosen bouquet—one without sunflowers—and smiled at Iris. “But I’ll never give you sunflowers.” She tapped her temple like she was actively making a note of it.
Iris scowled. “As if you’d ever be giving me flowers.”
“You wound me again, princess. Do I not look like the kind of woman who gives out flowers?”
“No, you do. I suppose.” She shook her head and ventured further into the store. “It’s just that you’d never be giving them to me.”
“Yeah,” Barrett said with amusement. “As if I’d ever do that.”
When Iris turned sharply at Barrett’s tone, Barrett simply busied herself looking at the produce.
She bagged up apples and pears waiting to see if Iris would say anything, but she had a lot of self-control and didn’t say a word. A shame, really, since Barrett was itching to know where her brain was at.
When Barrett finally looked at her again, Iris briefly pressed her lips together and looked away. “Strawberries. And grapes, I think.”
“Great choices. And you’ve given me a real taste for pasta with cheese.
” Again, Barrett knew exactly what she was doing.
Iris’ mind had provided those two items of food, meaning they were likely safe.
If Barrett prompted that as a perfectly reasonable meal, Iris might feel safe buying, making, and eating it.
Iris nodded. “Yeah, that sounds nice.”
She seemed a little uncomfortable but it was a step in the right direction overall.
Barrett hummed after grabbing a few vegetables. “And ice cream. And pizza. It’s Friday night.”
“You eat pasta and pizza in the same meal?”
She barked a laugh. Iris would be embarrassed when she thought about this later and realized that absolutely wasn’t what Barrett meant, but she didn’t need to be.
Iris was letting her guard down, saying the things that came to mind without thinking them through a million times first. It was wonderful to be the person she did that with.
“Not as a general rule, princess. But never say never. I believe you can even get a mac and cheese pizza these days.”
“That feels… heavy.”
“I imagine it really hits the spot if you’re in desperate need of a carb feast.”
“Probably,” she agreed, absently adding a few more items to her groceries.
Unbidden, the idea of spending every Friday night shopping with Iris popped into Barrett’s head.
It felt like something they could do over and over again.
It was fun, and Barrett hadn’t actually had a lot of fun experiences buying groceries.
She enjoyed it from a rebellious place these days, but that was different.
Shopping with Iris was actively enjoyable.
A recessed part of her mind suggested that there were a great many mundane things that could be fun with Iris.
That was far too sentimental of her. But she couldn’t quite shake the thought, or the ache it set off inside her.
How deeply inconvenient. Though hardly unfamiliar.
She’d felt soft, sentimental things for Iris before.
She probably wouldn’t call her princess if she hadn’t, but, when they were spending more time together, it was definitely more of an issue.
She’d add it to the list of things to discuss with her therapist.
“You know,” Iris mused when they made it to the cheese, “in the UK, it’s not called ‘sharp’ cheese.”
“No? What do they call it?”
“Mature. Extra mature, if it’s even stronger.”
“That wouldn’t work for me.” Barrett wrinkled her nose.
“Why not?”
“Because, most of the time, when I eat cheese, I want to feel like a sharp-witted, immature asshole.”
Iris laughed in surprise and Barrett really couldn’t deny that getting her to laugh was even better than she’d imagined it would be. She also couldn’t deny how it stoked a fire inside her, but she tried really hard to.
Iris hummed. “Which is why you want to eat the classic student meal of cheese on pasta?”
“Now you’re getting it, princess.”
She shook her head and held up a bag of shredded cheese. “They also don’t call it ‘shredded’.”
“Oh, no? What do they call it? Something fancy like ‘julienned cheese’?”
Iris covered her mouth with her free hand as she laughed again. “Grated.”
“Well, that’s just boring in comparison.”
“Interestingly, I don’t think the entire country was looking to entertain you when they named their food products.”
“Their loss.”
“You weren’t even alive when they did it!”
“That’s what you think.”
Without thought, Barrett stepped into Iris’ space, one arm wrapping around her back to pull her in.
As Barrett watched Iris gasp, her eyes going wide, and her fingers nearly fumbling the packet of shredded cheese she was still holding up, what she’d done fully registered. It was not something she’d do with Ruby or any of her other friends.
“That is what I think.” Iris’ voice wavered in a way that shot deep inside Barrett, brushing against something that absolutely did not need waking up.
And then she was about ready to die on the spot because Iris looked at her mouth and flushed. Electric tingles exploded in every part of Barrett’s body
Arguably, she’d been the one to start it.
She was holding Iris against her chest, and she just might have looked at Iris’ lips on the boat earlier, but it wasn’t supposed to mean anything.
She’d never expected Iris to reciprocate.
But she looked hungry in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with cheese as her eyes traced the lines of Barrett’s lips.
Had anyone ever had a beautiful woman look at them that way and survived intact?
Still…
She took the cheese from Iris and flung it over her shoulder, listening for the splat when it landed in her cart. Then, she winked like the whole thing was entirely fine and planned. “See? It’s much more fun being immature.”
“Right…” Iris blinked hard, coming back to herself and stepping away. “Right. But I don’t think you want immature cheese. Shall we continue?”
Barrett nodded even though Iris wasn’t looking at her. “Continue. Absolutely.” But with what?