Chapter Nineteen
It was easier checking out with Barrett’s groceries.
Not amazing, but better. Iris tried not to wince, and the cashier clearly couldn’t have cared less.
Barrett had taken most of the junk food options to pay for herself—and the flowers, which Iris would have been perfectly fine paying for.
Nobody ate flowers they bought in bouquets at Trader Joe’s, what moral judgment could they inflict on her?
What moral judgment could the rest of the groceries? And why would someone who worked in a grocery store do so?
The answers were simultaneously simple and complex.
She’d intellectualized over food more times than she could count.
She knew exactly where the problem came from, knew exactly who had judged her eating habits in the past, and who made her not want to eat, but, sometimes, you couldn’t think yourself out of a hole.
She paid for the food, thanked the two members of staff, and moved to meet Barrett outside.
Barrett probably wouldn’t have minded Iris joining her as she wrapped up checking out, but Barrett…
made friends. She was chatting to the employees like she’d known them for years.
It wasn’t hard to do. There were only so many of them in this store and if you came in regularly, you started recognizing them.
Iris, however, made efforts to prevent them from remembering her.
She didn’t chat too much, didn’t inquire about their lives, didn’t make friends.
She was a perfectly acceptable, polite customer. Barrett was a star customer.
“You don’t need to scowl like I peed in your pasta, princess,” Barrett laughed when she joined Iris outside.
Iris rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think you did that until you just said it.”
“Nah. I’d never do you dirty. Not like that, at least.”
Before Iris could fathom what that meant, or even think of asking for clarification, Barrett had started walking.
“Coming, princess?” she called back to Iris, who was still stalled by the store’s entrance.
Iris blinked and hurried after her, fully intending to follow up on Barrett’s comment, but Barrett wasn’t giving her that opportunity.
She took one, side-long look at Iris to confirm she was there, and said, “I was thinking about your thing with sunflowers, and have you ever considered it might be because you’re so fair that you look like you’d get a sunburn on a cloudy day and they look like the sun?”
Iris almost laughed. It was baffling her immensely how easily that urge popped up around Barrett. “And you don’t? You’re just as pale as I am. Possibly even paler.”
“Don’t let the contrast with the black clothes confuse you, princess.”
“That’s not what it is.”
Barrett grinned, brushing her off. “So, you don’t burn to a crisp in the sun?”
“I have no idea. I wear factor fifty sunscreen every day.”
“Better safe than sorry?”
“Something like that. Force of habit, perhaps. And, this way, I don’t ever forget it when it is sunny.”
“That tracks.”
The softness in her voice made Iris realize how open she was being, without even thinking about it.
She didn’t have a good, scientific answer for why she wore sunscreen in the middle of winter—not such a strong one, anyway.
She could switch to a less intense one in winter.
Natasha had told her to. It had been Iris’ tiny little piece of rebellion.
She’d explained over and over it was because it was built into a cream that had other benefits, she’d defended her choices precisely because she was so pale, but it had never been enough.
Natasha had required a better reason if she was to let it go.
A red-hot part of Iris she’d spent years trying to quash burned again. What difference did it make what SPF she wore? She was the one paying for it, she was the one who got to decide what went on her body, and she wanted to protect herself from UV damage.
She swallowed against the familiar breathless feeling and looked at Barrett.
Barrett didn’t care. She wasn’t judging, didn’t want an explanation, didn’t want Iris to stop what she was doing. All she wanted was to make a little joke about how pale Iris was, while she was every bit as pale herself. It was an unfamiliar experience.
Iris cleared her throat. “You don’t wear sunscreen?”
“No, I do.” Barrett wiggled her eyebrows. “I’m living life on the edge with a shockingly low factor thirty.”
And Iris couldn’t refrain from laughing at that, at her tone and her expression. She nodded up at the dark, cloudy night. “I think you’ll be okay.”
“Good. God forbid I start getting a tan and it ruins my whole gothic vibe.”
“Is that what you’re going for?”
“Not on purpose. People see the black clothes and pale skin and they just assume.”
“Don’t forget the amber eyes, like you just walked in from some—” Iris broke off, alarmed at where her brain had been going, at how close she’d come to describing Barrett as a media love interest. “Uh, like some… imaginary character.”
Barrett looked both like she knew what Iris had been planning to say and like she couldn’t quite comprehend the idea. “Glad you like the eyes, princess.”
She did. The realization felt like getting punched in the stomach. Her hands clenched tighter around the grocery bags she was carrying. “Well, they’re an unusual color. I’m sure you’ve heard that from lots of people. Especially people commenting on your… gothic look.”
“You don’t think I look gothic.”
“Of course not. You look like you. In dark clothes. You’d need a different wardrobe to be gothic. Goths actually put in quite a lot of effort to get that vibe. It’s a little reductive and insulting to claim it’s just a wardrobe of black items.”
Barrett hummed. “The number of times I’ve tried explaining that…”
“Well, people are ridiculous.”
“They can be,” Barrett mused, but her entertainment was audible. “It’s more fun that way. One strange and wonderful life, princess. You might as well be ridiculous in it.”
Perhaps that was true. Being ridiculous, however, felt like a pipe dream from another life, another person—someone Iris had never been allowed to be.
Her parents didn’t like the ridiculous. They’d always taught her to be proper and controlled.
Then, she’d met Natasha, and there was no space for ridiculousness.
When she even tried for anything whimsical, it had been shut down. Fast.
They walked a while in silence, Iris locked in her own mind. It was only as they turned onto her street that she realized Barrett was walking her home again. She was really going to have to repay the favor and walk Barrett home at some point.
She looked down the street and whispered, “I don’t think I’m very good at ridiculous.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that. You just have to give it a try.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Do you think my all-black, non-gothic wardrobe is ridiculous?”
Iris furrowed her brow, turning to look at Barrett as they stood outside her home. “No. You always look very put together.”
“Thanks, princess.” Barrett winked and laughed.
“But plenty of people think it is. And the point is that ridiculous things can be tiny, just something you do for yourself, because every single thing you do is going to be ridiculous to someone. People are just like that. You can never please everyone, so you might as well be yourself.”
The feeling stabbed into Iris’ core again, that one where she didn’t know who she was. How could she be herself when she wasn’t sure that person even truly existed?
Barrett narrowed her eyes, seeming to read those thoughts in Iris’ eyes. “Who you are is still in there, Iris. We’re going to find her, don’t worry.”
“We are?”
“Yes. If you need someone to bring more ridiculousness into your life, I’m your woman.”
“You really don’t need to do that. You’ve got a life and stuff to do and—”
“Ah, but this is what I want to do, and once I set my mind to something, it’s very hard to shake me. You should know that by now.”
Iris nodded numbly. She did know that, but it didn’t help explain why Barrett would want to help with this. Or how she would. None of it made any sense.
“And,” Barrett said, more than a little smug, “we can start with something really easy: the ridiculous thing you already did tonight.”
Iris’ body tensed, every muscle rigid as her mind ran through her breakdowns, her shortcomings, all the things she’d said tonight—all of it was ridiculous, and not in a good way.
She’d been ridiculous in her inadequacy tonight.
She should have known better. She’d been told over and over again that people didn’t have time for her problems.
She was going to vomit.
But Barrett smiled and produced the bouquet she’d bought with a flourish—the one without a sunflower. “You told me I’d never buy you flowers. Incorrect.”
The world was spinning faster than it should, a strange ringing in Iris’ ears. She still felt like she might throw up, because, even if Barrett wasn’t calling out the things Iris had expected, she’d still done those things, and she needed to be better.
And instead of calling her out, Barrett was giving her flowers.
“You bought those for your apartment,” Iris said, voice hollow.
“No. I bought them for you. And, now, you can do another ridiculous thing and accept them. Because what’s more bizarre and whimsical than just accepting a random, Friday-night bouquet from your professional enemy?”
Iris exhaled like she was deflating. “You’re not my enemy.”
“Sure I am. Same workplace, different vibes. I wind you up, you can’t stand me. It’s our whole thing.”
“I don’t shop with people I can’t stand.”
This was ridiculous. Still, she reached out and took the flowers. Preposterous, beautiful flowers. From Barrett. Absurd.
Barrett beamed. “Have a good night, princess. I’ll see you next week for more nonsense.”
“That’s not necess–”
“Don’t even try that. I’m locked in on this and I will not be deterred.”
Well, of all the things Iris had ever heard Barrett say, that one was definitely true.
She’d figured it out the very first week they’d met.
Bold, bright, stubborn Barrett. The woman who knew exactly what she wanted and went after it.
She’d felt a million miles from Iris back then.
Still did, but now that Iris knew more about her, it all felt different.
She wasn’t someone who’d been born into getting everything she wanted.
She’d been born into nothing, really, and she’d worked hard for the life she had, for the person she was.
Did Iris know a person more suited to helping her figure out her own personality and life than Barrett?
“Okay,” she said quietly, and she gave Barrett a nod before heading up the steps to her building.
She was alone. The locks were loud, the groceries Barrett had swapped her for felt like boulders, and the second she made it to her own apartment, locking the door tight behind her, ice splintered in her veins, radiating a chill from the inside out.
Her breathing came fast, eyes stinging as she slid down the door to sit on the floor.
Barrett had been so nice to her. Iris had said too much, been too open.
Every word she’d uttered screamed in her mind, making her body shudder and ache.
She’d already been too exhausted after her earlier…
moment to hold this. Now, she was breaking apart.
And she’d broken in front of Barrett too.
She hated herself, hated her inability to just get over it all, hated that she hadn’t kept her mouth shut.
Her specific words were running from her mind like grains of sand, leaving only shame in their wake—burning, aching shame.
And she needed to put her groceries away.