Chapter Twenty-Four
Barrett was ostensibly watching Oscar eating the minty treat she’d just given him as they settled onto a bench Iris had led them to.
She hadn’t asked any questions about where they were going, more than happy for Iris to lead the way, especially since she clearly had a target in mind.
It was a good one, too. Secluded—or as much as you could get that in New York City—peaceful, and shielded from the wind by the surrounding trees and bushes.
And Barrett was trying very hard to pay attention to anything other than Iris.
She’d made lunch. That was huge no matter what, but for her to have made it for Barrett too… Barrett was feeling more than a little sentimental about it. She’d obviously done something right over the last few weeks.
Iris handed her the most pristine lunch she’d ever been given.
Sure, there was pizza, but she’d added salad and fruit, arranged like artwork.
Barrett had been making her own lunches from the moment she could reach the kitchen counters, and her breath caught at how much her heart ached at the sight.
She suddenly didn’t have questions about why there was so much content online of people packing stunning, thoughtful lunches for their kids or partners.
It turned out lunch really could make you feel loved.
“I hope it’s okay,” Iris said nervously, also focusing her gaze on Oscar.
“It’s incredible,” Barrett breathed. The idea that Iris was at all concerned she wouldn’t like it was baffling.
“You haven’t even tried it yet.”
“I don’t need to. Look at it!”
A small, garbled sound escaped her as she shifted in her seat. “It might be a little extra. Sorry.”
Barrett let out a single, startled laugh. “Princess, when have I ever given you the impression I don’t like extra?”
“Well… never. But—”
“But nothing.” She pulled her phone out, taking pictures of the meal.
If she hadn’t known it would make Iris uncomfortable, she’d have taken a picture of her too—all blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes.
Barrett had never really thought about a person’s eyebrows before—they were just there.
They conveyed emotions, but they were just another feature of a person’s face.
Iris’, however, pulled her attention. They were a shade darker than her hair, fit her face beautifully, and Barrett ached to trace her fingertip over them.
Despite the seriousness with which Iris often held her face, there was something so soft about her browline.
It was an unusual impulse. Barrett knew that. It definitely wasn’t something she’d wanted to do before. But… that wasn’t an entirely unexpected experience around Iris. There was plenty she wanted to do with her that she hadn’t with other people.
“Oh, my god,” she groaned when she took a bite of the pizza. “This is amazing!”
Iris nodded slowly, like she absolutely had not been expecting that response. “I’m glad you think so. I’ve, uh, missed cooking.”
Barrett swallowed quickly. Part of her wanted to exclaim about the food some more, but she understood the tension under Iris’ words. That pizza was a genuinely big deal for her.
Apparently sensing that the comment was going to prompt a bigger conversation, or perhaps simply because she was ready to talk about it, Iris put her food down and wiped her hands on one of the pretty, scalloped napkins she’d brought.
Barrett followed suit, hoping she wasn’t pushing too hard. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Iris shrugged. “I had therapy last night, so I kind of already did.”
Despite everything, Barrett couldn’t help smiling. “Hey, me too.”
“You talked about my disordered eating in therapy?” The hint of a smile that played around her lips was every bit as endearing as it was heartbreaking. And it was that smile that had Barrett answering honestly.
“Actually, yeah. A little bit.”
Iris sighed. “I guess that tracks. And there is something… sweet about us having therapy at the same time, I suppose.”
“Oh, you suppose?”
“Hm. Don’t push it or I’ll change my mind.”
Barrett breathed a laugh and they both sat in silence for a moment.
Even with the heavy topic, the quiet was comfortable.
Loaded, but in a way that suggested something important was being shared between them.
Barrett had sat in difficult or expectant silences with people before, and she’d sat in comfortable ones more times than she could count with Ruby.
It was reassuring that, with Iris, silence felt comforting, survivable—more than survivable.
“Maybe you should ask questions,” Iris said at last. “Give me a starting point.”
“Okay.” Barrett nodded, considering all the questions she had and where might be the best place to start. There wasn’t really one. “Is it a body image thing?” She’d been asked that question a lot herself. Whatever the answer, she figured she could navigate it.
“Not at all, actually. I know that might be unexpected—”
“It’s not.”
Iris studied her intently, clearly trying to figure out every bit of her. “Okay.”
“It would have been okay if it was, but eating disorders are complicated. What you see in the mirror isn’t the only thing that causes them. I know that better than most.”
“Right.” She swayed, hugging herself with one arm. “I know I’m not thin or whatever the media wants to tell me I’m supposed to be, but I like my body. Most days.”
Barrett half smiled. “We all have our bad days.”
“It’s the vessel I live in. The only one I’m getting.
What does it matter if I have fat or rolls or a double-digit clothing size?
I don’t care.” She laughed. “I did when I was younger. I’m saying that like it was always easy.
But I just hit the point of not giving a shit about that.
I like to look nice and put together, but I’m not bothered about a little extra weight so long as I’m looking after myself.
” She glared down at the food in her lap.
“Which I suppose I haven’t been doing lately.
People just don’t believe you’re half starving yourself when you look like I do. ”
“Yeah, well, that’s on them. I believe it.”
“Yeah,” she breathed.
“Why does it happen?”
Iris looked at her resolutely. “Because it was the only thing I could control. And because, while I actually like my body, when I was with Natasha, I wanted it to be gone. If it didn’t exist, it couldn’t hurt.”
It was like getting stabbed. Barrett could handle it, but hearing Iris talk in such a removed way about not wanting to exist made every part of her ache—for Iris, for knowing that feeling, and for the part of her that used to feel that.
She wasn’t going to panic because she knew that wasn’t the reaction Iris needed, that the situation needed.
She’d always been afraid of telling people it felt like that because she worried they’d send her away.
But she knew it was passive. No plan, no immediate danger.
Just the gut-deep ache to slip from existence.
A shackle she carried with her every day.
Smiling, laughing, looking after her siblings and her mom and the house, and just…
wishing she wasn’t alive. Iris’ was the same.
“And it’s felt like that lately?” she asked Iris softly.
Iris’ face crumpled. “A little. Like a ghost that had been following me for years. I’d forgotten it was there, but one interaction with Natasha and I was slipping back into that pattern, the ghost was inside me, screaming, shouting.
And the only thing I could control was food.
” She shook her head in fury. “And that’s not even true.
Natasha’s not a part of my life. I haven’t seen her since that night.
I’m not stuck in her house and her life with nowhere to go. But—”
“But the patterns we learned to survive are hard to overcome.”
“Yeah.” She looked down at her food. “But I’m trying.”
“I know you are. And I’m here for you.”
She pursed her lips as she examined Barrett again. “I appreciate it. I talked about you in therapy, too. But, you don’t have to be. I’m not going to break if you don’t hold me together.”
“I know that.” And she did. Logically. Of course, just as she’d told Iris, her own coping patterns were hard to escape too. But she did know that. She’d told Ruby and Orion she knew that, and she’d meant it. She’d told herself, over and over again. And she’d seen it in Iris.
Iris was a firework, lighting the sky, a whirlwind of colors. She was a stone skipping over the ocean. She was real and complex and wise and talented and human. And she was better than anything Natasha had brought into her life. She was going to survive all of it.
But there was a reason Barrett worried about letting her in. Because she was all of those things and Barrett cared, and Barrett was the problem.
With those incisive brown eyes on her, Barrett felt like she was being sliced open, as though Iris knew every thought she’d ever had.
Especially when Iris smiled sadly and reached to gently squeeze the back of Barrett’s hand.
“Barrett, you became the person a younger version of you needed. The one you deserved. The one who showed up and took care of you and made all the bad things go away. And that’s amazing.
You’re incredible at that. But I’m not a teenager trying to hold an adult’s life together.
I appreciate you caring, but I don’t need you to be my carer.
You can just be you. I promise that’s enough. ”
The breath Barrett attempted to suck in hit a wall in the back of her throat. The whole thing was thick and cloying, and her lungs had forgotten entirely how to expand.
Orion had talked her through her value as a human more times than she’d like to admit.
So had Ruby. In his way, so had Oscar. She’d been so convinced she understood it now, that she’d long gotten past her hangups over needing to be useful to someone in order to have value to them.
Apparently, all bets were off when it came to Iris, and Barrett’s feelings for her.
She’d wanted—before the whole thing with Natasha—to be important to Iris.
She’d wanted to call Iris sweet things and have it mean something.
And then it had become more, real, intense, possible, and Barrett had floundered.
She’d tried to pull away emotionally, at least internally.
Externally, she’d done a shit job of pulling back.
Maybe she hadn’t done all that well internally, either.
But, suddenly, Iris couldn’t be important to her because, if she was to be important to Iris, she had to provide a service, had to fix everything.
Now, here was Iris, telling her she was important just because she existed. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do anything but shake.
She’d always hated that. It had been years since it happened. The moments when her family wanted more from her than she could give, when she’d tried to hold a boundary she desperately needed and it went badly, and all her body could do was shake.
But this wasn’t the same thing. Not exactly. This was her body not knowing how to process that Iris was seeing through her casual exterior, saying exactly what she needed to hear, and just… liking her for who she was.
Iris gripped her hand tighter. “No matter what I’m going through, I can handle all of you. I promise.”
“Iris,” Barrett attempted, her voice breaking, becoming a gasped breath halfway through. She laughed tearfully. “This isn’t fair. You’re not allowed to do this to me. I’ve got a fucking meeting with a client in an hour!”
Iris laughed sympathetically, looking more than a little tearful herself. Barrett couldn’t tell if she was equally overwhelmed or whether Iris was simply one of those people who were so beautifully empathetic that they cried when others did. Or both. It absolutely could have been both.
“Sorry.” She winced despite her soft smile, and Barrett was once again watching her eyebrows, down to her eyelashes, and settling on those all-encompassing eyes.
When she got lost in Iris, Barrett’s breathing picked up, the mechanism no longer feeling choked, but speeding—racing.
Her heart was hammering, chest rising and falling so quickly it had to be visible, and she was crying without caring.
All that mattered was Iris, her words, her touch, and the terrifying fact that it might have been her since the moment they met.
Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her.
The thought was louder even than the blood pounding in Barrett’s ears.
It would be so easy, so perfectly natural to do, and that was terrifying.
The idea had never been so consuming. Kissing had always been perfunctory.
Fun, sure, but it was just something you did.
It wasn’t something bigger, deeper, something she needed in the way it felt like she did with Iris.
She wasn’t going to do a damn thing, though.
They were colleagues—friends now. They were on their lunch.
And, most importantly, Iris was going through something right now.
The last thing she needed was Barrett having a weird influx of all the emotions she’d been keeping at bay for years and using that as an excuse to kiss her.
Unless Iris initiated a kiss or asked Barrett to kiss her, nothing was happening.
So, instead of leaning in, she twisted her hand, squeezed Iris’ fingers softly, and tried not to ache with the wave of feelings that swelled inside of her.