Chapter 38 Iris
Iris
NOW
In the days just before Josh’s eighteenth birthday party, Josh and Iris weren’t really talking to each other.
She can’t remember exactly why now. She may not even have known at the time what she said or did to upset him.
Sometimes he’d get salty and she’d realize she’d offended him or pissed him off or whatever, but she’d go over everything in her head – replay their conversations, reread their text exchanges and listen again to their voice messages – and for the life of her, she just couldn’t work out where his mood had come from.
She’d tread carefully – on eggshells – and hope it would blow over if she was, like, super nice.
If she was lucky, Josh would eventually snap out of it and his period of sulking or ghosting her would come to an abrupt end.
He would pretend nothing had happened, which always made Iris wonder if she was imagining things.
At other times, he’d be low-key annoyed to begin with, his anger simmering for a while under the surface, scarcely visible like a dormant volcano, until he eventually erupted.
So, right, this was one of those times where Josh had been acting weird and Iris didn’t know why. She’d bought him an awesome present ages ago and had been looking forward to seeing the look on his face when he opened it. But now she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go to his fucking party.
On the day itself, hours before it was due to kick off, Josh sent Iris a text message. Honestly, it creeped her out the way he seemed to be able to read her mind sometimes.
Can’t wait for tonight. Come round early, Babe?
J x
It was like there was nothing wrong. Was Josh just going to act like everything was fine between them?
He was really good at sweeping everything under the carpet.
Iris still wasn’t sure whether she wanted to go.
She needed to think about it, talk it over with Mille.
When Iris didn’t reply immediately to Josh’s text, he called her.
She tried to put her foot down. She said it wasn’t OK to ignore her one minute and be all over her like a rash the next.
But Josh always knew the right buttons to push, the right things to say when he wanted his own way and she couldn’t stay mad for long.
He needed her to help make his eighteenth awesome.
How could he celebrate without his girlfriend by his side?
He’d been busy lately and hadn’t realized she’d been feeling neglected, blah, blah, blah.
When she got to Hilltop House, she gave him the present she’d bought for him.
Josh was, like, really into Lego and she’d found The Milky Way Galaxy artwork on Vinted a few weeks ago.
The seller assured her all the pieces were there.
Even second-hand, it had cost her a fortune, but it was the perfect gift.
Josh opened the present and thanked her, but he was nowhere near as enthusiastic about it as she’d thought he would be. She’d put a lot of thought into what to buy him and spent a lot of money. His indifference hurt.
Things went from bad to worse. Once everyone else showed up, he started flirting – and then dancing – with Sasha Spencer-Lyles, like Iris was completely invisible.
Iris didn’t want to make a scene, so she shut herself in the downstairs loo.
She sat on the closed lid of the toilet, in floods of tears, pulling at the loo roll and using it to blow her nose and dab under her eyes, where the mascara must have run.
She was desperately trying to get a grip.
Her dad wasn’t due to pick her up for another five hours.
Millie was chatting up Emiliano, the Italian exchange student.
Iris didn’t want to disturb her. Olly was here somewhere, but he would be with Liv and their friends.
Someone hammered on the door.
‘Oi! You gonna be much longer?’ A male voice. ‘I need to take a slash.’
‘Coming,’ Iris said. She stood up, opened the lid of the loo to throw in the balled-up toilet paper and flushed.
She stumbled out of the patio doors. It had been a warm day, but it was cool this evening, as if the weather was slowly shifting now that they were officially into autumn.
It was still light, though. She’d go for a walk.
That would kill some time. And the fresh air might help clear her head.
Someone must have told Olly she was in a bit of a state.
He caught up with her before she got to the end of the driveway.
It sounded childish, even to Iris, when she told her brother what was wrong.
But Olly didn’t look at her like she was being silly. ‘It’s all right,’ Olly said. ‘Josh is probably drunk, or stoned – it’s his birthday. It’s harmless flirting, Iris. He doesn’t mean anything by it. Or if he does, it’s to make you jealous. Which has clearly worked.’
Olly wasn’t a fan of Josh – Iris knew that – and it was like her brother was sticking up for her boyfriend. Iris wanted Olly to be firmly on her side, but his words made her think she was probably overreacting.
‘Anyway, Sasha’s not staying,’ Olly continued.
‘She’s going away for the weekend. She said she was just popping in.
Let’s go back and you can have a good time with your friends.
Come and talk to Liv and me for a bit, if you want.
’ Iris nodded. ‘Charlie’s come by car. I’ll get him to take you back to Dad’s if Josh is still being a dick.
’ That made Iris smile. ‘Or we’ll all leave. Liv won’t mind.’
‘Thanks, Bro.’
Olly was pretty cool, as brothers go. He always looked out for Iris and Margo. Millie often said she wished she wasn’t an only child and she’d have liked a brother like Olly.
They didn’t go back straightaway. They sat in the garden for a while and talked about other stuff.
School, the holidays, music, Iris can’t remember.
At one point, this car pulled up at the end of the drive and the front door of Hilltop House opened at the same time.
Sasha stepped outside and teetered down the gravelly driveway in high heels.
Iris didn’t even own a pair of high heels.
Maybe Sasha didn’t either and they belonged to her mum.
Sasha got into the car. Iris watched the taillights until the car rounded the bend and took that as her cue to go back to the fun and games.
She got to her feet and Olly followed her.
How long had they been gone? Maybe half an hour? Forty-five minutes tops. Not that long. But when they got back, no one seemed to know where Liv was.
‘She was wrecked, man,’ one of their classmates told Olly and Iris. He looked pretty wrecked himself. ‘Like totally out of it,’ he added unnecessarily.
Olly tried ringing Liv on her mobile, but she didn’t answer. It took them maybe another quarter of an hour to find her – in the summerhouse in the garden. She was almost unconscious. She couldn’t string two words together. Her eyes kept rolling back into her head.
‘How much did she have to drink?’ Iris asked Olly. ‘Did she smoke any pot?’
‘Same as me. A couple of beers,’ he said. ‘She’s not drunk or stoned, Iris. I think she’s been drugged. We need to get her to the hospital.’
Iris took her mobile out of her little handbag to call for an ambulance.
But Olly said, ‘We’ll take her. It will be much quicker. I’ll get Charlie.’
It didn’t occur to Iris it might have been Josh who sold the drugs.
Not at first. Iris knew he sold hash, but she assumed it was just to his mates.
She didn’t approve, exactly, but it didn’t bother her.
After all, they all smoked spliffs at parties.
Iris didn’t buy it, but she didn’t turn her nose up when someone passed her the joint.
She had no idea Josh sold ecstasy and roofies and shit, too.
And not just to his mates. That was, like, a whole other level.
Olly was the one who told her, actually.
About the drugs. He said he’d overheard some kids talking about it at school.
He came into her room one night, months after she and Josh had split up – months after her video had gone viral, for that matter – and told her Josh was selling roofies. He asked for her help.
‘I think he sold the Rohypnol that was given to Liv that night. What I want to know, is who he sold the drugs to,’ Olly explained. ‘I need to get Josh alone.’
‘What does Liv think about this?’ Iris asked.
‘She doesn’t know. I don’t want her to know. Not until I’ve found out more.’
‘He won’t tell you,’ Iris said.
‘He will if I threaten him. If I can get him alone, he’ll talk.’
Iris didn’t like the way Olly was talking or where this was going. But she got why he needed to know. And there was no other way of finding out. ‘He runs in Lower Buryknoll Wood every Sunday morning. I mean, unless he’s changed his routine. He calls it his LSD run – long slow distance.’
‘LSD. How appropriate,’ Olly commented, rolling his eyes.
‘I know, right? He calls the woods his woods. Because of his surname?’ Iris says. ‘I can show you his route, if you like. I went with him a few times, ages ago, back when we were … you know. He always runs the same loop.’
And from there, they came up with a plan. They would put it into action one Sunday. They’d wait for him in the woods.
But then Josh went missing. Olly wanted Iris to call him, but there was no way she was going to do that.
Yvonne had been calling her, wanting to know if Iris knew where he might be.
Iris thought about it and thought that she probably did know where he was, but she wasn’t going to tell Yvonne. She told Olly, though.