Chapter Iris
Iris
Before
I’m sixteen, the first time anyone discovers my secret.
I found the lipstick left on a desk in geometry. It’s used, the plastic cracked near the base and flattened down inside. A pale pink, the kind of color that’s supposed to look delicate and pretty. With a quick sweep around the room to make sure no one was watching, I tucked it into my pocket.
After dinner, I excuse myself, claiming I have tons of homework.
In my room, I stand in front of the mirror and hate the reflection staring back at me, seeing the same thing I always see.
Wrong.
My hands shake as I take the tube out of my pocket and pull the cap off.
Just once, I tell myself. Just to see.
The color goes on patchy, catching on the cracks in my lips. Saying it looks bad would be an understatement. I frown, disappointment crashing over me. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I guess maybe that I would feel right?
I’m so caught up, judging my reflection, that I don’t hear the knock.
“Kavi, could you help me with my homework—” Anika’s voice comes from my open door, trailing off when she takes in my appearance. She stares in shock, her textbook clutched tightly in her arms.
“Ani—” I exclaim, my hand flying up to wipe off the lipstick, even though it’s too late. She’s already seen it. She’s going to tell mama and papa, and oh god, what are they going to say?
My mind is going a mile a minute, thinking of all of the horrible things that are going to happen to me, when she speaks up with the last thing I expect her to say. “That color isn’t good for our skin tone. Makes us look kinda washed out.”
She drops her textbook on my bed and goes across the hall to her room, returning with a different lipstick, a deep red color.
Probably something she stole from Mama’s makeup.
“Here,” she says. “Hold still.” And Anika, my thirteen-year-old sister, reaches up and applies it carefully, her face scrunched up in concentration, while I’m frozen in fear.
“There,” she murmurs, leaning back to check her work. “Much better, see? Pretty.”
Pretty.
I look at my reflection, and she’s right. The red does look better. I kind of look like Mama. I can only smile for a moment, though, because that thought washes over me like a bucket of ice water.
I turn back to my sister, “Anika,” I whisper. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t,” she promises. “I swear.”
Now
I almost don’t stop at the store.
All I want is ice cream to eat while I sit alone on the couch, thinking about Nate. About the way he looked at me that night, the shock, the anger. The inevitable words we haven’t said since.
The end of our relationship and how I can’t make myself stop missing him, no matter how hard I try.
So here I am, wandering the frozen aisle of the small grocery store, trying to decide between cookie dough and strawberry, when someone nearly walks right into me. “Sorry,” I say on autopilot, scanning the ice cream flavors.
I think I want cookie dough.
“Kavi?” The sound of my old name, in that voice, freezes me in place.
Anika.
She’s standing there, phone in hand, wearing jeans and a medical school sweatshirt that swallows her thin frame. Her hair is shorter now, cropped into a bob that suits her. She looks older than she did eight years ago, but I would know her anywhere.
She’s my sister.
“Ani.”
“You…You’re back,” she says, her voice full of wonder.
“I teach art at the high school,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice from shaking, watching her face for any flicker of anger or disgust.
“You look…” She pauses, eyes flicking over me, “You look different.”
I nod. “I am different. More myself.”
She bites her lip, nodding slowly. “I can see that. I’m glad you can be yourself now.”
Pure relief floods through me. Anika kept my secret all those years ago, but people change. If she didn’t accept me now—
It would break my heart.
All I want to do is hug her, but I don’t. I don’t know if I’m allowed to now, after so long.
“So, med school?” I say instead, glancing down at her sweatshirt with a surge of pride, knowing that my sister is going to be a doctor. I always knew she was smart.
“It’s winter break. I’ve been staying with Mama and Papa, but I’m leaving on Friday.” She frowns at the mention of our parents. “They didn’t tell me you were back.”
“They don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t— I don’t think they would want to see me.”
Ani’s face softens as she moves toward me to rest a hand on my arm. “They still talk about you, you know? Mama used to make a cake on your birthday every year, but it always made Papa sad, so she stopped.”
“Oh,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “I didn’t— I was so scared, Ani. You know how traditional they are, I couldn’t tell them. I just couldn’t—”
“I know. I knew, even then. It didn’t stop it from…” She trails off, looking away as she pushes her glasses up, wiping her own tears from her face.
It hits me again, what I did to her all those years ago. How cruel it was. “I’m so sorry, Ani. You’re my sister, and I— I left you. I was so focused on getting out of Rosehill, I didn’t think about who I was hurting.”
“You didn’t even say goodbye.”
“I thought no one would notice I was gone. But that was stupid, wasn’t it?” She nods, a quick, shaky movement.
“Yes. It was,” she says, sniffling once.
A beat of silence passes between us, the freezer humming behind us, cold air making my skin pebble. Anika looks down at her shoes, pulling herself together before she meets my eyes again. “I think I get it, though. You didn’t want to leave us, but you had to. To be you.”
“You don’t still hate me?” I ask the very question I’ve been dreading knowing the answer to since the day I left home.
She shakes her head. “I’m still mad. I probably will be for a long time. But I don’t hate you. You’re my big sister.”
Big sister. The words are so simple, but they heal something inside of me that’s been broken for my entire life.
“You look pretty, by the way,” she says, and that’s all I can take.
“Can I hug you?” I ask, and she nods quickly, falling into my arms, hugging tight, the same way she used to. And even though we’re both older now, with ten years of separation sitting between us, it doesn’t feel any different from when we were kids.
“Are you happy?” she asks when we pull back, still holding onto each other. “In Rosehill, I mean.”
“I was. I thought I had met someone really special. But now….”
Her brows pull together. “Now?”
“I told him the truth about me. And I don’t think he wants to be with me anymore.”
“That explains the ice cream,” she says with a sad smile. “Was he good to you?”
I think of Nate being stupidly charming, the way he looked at me, and the way he kissed me. But then I remember the shock, the anger, the way everything shattered that night.
“He was wonderful,” I whisper. “Until I told him.”
She frowns. “If he can’t accept you—”
“I know, but it hurts. Missing him hurts so much.”
“You deserve to be loved completely, Kavi.”
“It’s actually Iris now,” I say, unsure how she’ll feel about me changing my name, but Anika blinks, guilt passing over her face.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. Iris, I like it. It suits you. Matches your vibe.” Her eyes trail over my outfit, making us both giggle.
“Thank you, Anika. That means everything,” I say, once our laughter dies down.
Will you call me?” she asks, hopeful. “Or text. I know it’s been so long, but—”
“I want that too. I’ve missed you so much, Ani. I don’t want to disappear again.”
“Good. Because I’m not letting you.”
We stand there for another moment, neither of us wanting to be the first to let go, but finally, she gives my arm a final squeeze and pulls back. “Get the cookie dough. It’s best when you’re having boy problems.”
“Okay.” A small smile tugs at my mouth as she starts to step back down the aisle, but she hesitates one last time.
“You’ll text me?” She confirms, and I feel another tug at my heart. I hate that I put that doubt in her mind.
“I will. I promise, Ani.”
She walks toward the front of the store,while I stand there, cookie-dough ice cream in hand, the cold seeping through the carton into my skin.
Suddenly, I don’t feel so alone.
The halls are always buzzing after the final bell. I’ve gotten used to it. Unlearned that feeling I used to get back when I was a student here. The urge to get out before anyone noticed me and—
I keep my head down and head toward the teachers’ lounge.
Ten minutes.
That’s all I’m giving myself.
Enough time for a cup of tea and a scroll through Instagram before I have to go back and deal with the mess my students left behind. Whose bright idea was it to mix teenagers and paint?
Oh, right. It was mine.
I push open the lounge door, grateful for the emptiness, and make my way to the counter, dropping a bag into a mug of hot water and watching the steam curl up, breathing it in. Coming here, going to work, it was starting to be fun.
Now, everything I do is paired with a dark cloud of heartbreak named Nate Wesley.
But there’s nothing a good cup of tea can’t fix. I almost feel normal again, ready to face the mess and to busy myself until the pain in my heart becomes a dull ache I can ignore.
Lost in thought about how I’m going to get paint off of everything, I almost don’t see them.
Nate and Savannah.
The moment I do, all of my carefully constructed calm is ripped away. She’s leaning toward him, touching his arm, chest pushed out so her prominent breasts are front and center. And he’s allowing it to happen.
Heat floods my cheeks as sadness and anger come together in a violent tornado of emotions. I’m not usually jealous. I know Nate is experienced, but he always made it clear that he wanted me. But that’s not the case anymore. And this is Savannah.
She threatened me.
She orchestrated the whole thing.
She’s the one that got away.