Chapter 25
Iris had texted me the night before telling me not to come to her office, that she would be coming to me.
I’d asked why but she hadn’t responded. I busied myself for the majority of the morning cleaning my apartment and showering.
I’d even put on my shirt the right way, double checking that the tag was in its proper place, before she showed up at my door holding scissors in one hand and a grocery bag in the other like this was a totally normal thing for a life coach to do.
“I told you I’d cut your hair,” she said as I looked pointedly at the scissors, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. “You’re beginning to look like a sad rockstar who gave up halfway through the tour.”
“How sweet,” I muttered, shutting the door behind her.
She set the bag down on my coffee table and pulled out a black barber cape. “Sit.”
I obeyed, settling onto the old wooden chair that creaked beneath me.
She stood behind me; her fingers skimmed the back of my neck as she adjusted the cape, and goosebumps sprung up on my skin like my body hadn’t gotten the memo that I was supposed to remain chill and unaffected.
She ran a comb through my hair with surprising gentleness.
I tried to ignore how good it felt. She brushed it, sprayed it with some water, and then used an electric clipper to tidy the edges and sides.
Once she was satisfied with what she saw, she took out the sharp, silver scissors and got to work.
The snip of the scissors echoed louder than it should have in little gasps of metal and air.
A mess of my hair littered the black cape that I had tied around my neck.
It tickled my neck, and I fought the need to reach up and scratch.
As she moved around me, I caught the scent of her shampoo—it was floral and fresh; nothing like the chemical scent of the cheap shampoo that I used.
Once she finished cutting the back, she moved around to stand in front of me.
She was suddenly too close. I stared ahead, pretending that the wall behind her was more interesting than the fact that her body was just mere inches from my face.
I hated that I noticed it. But no more than I hated that I didn’t want her to move away.
Her chest brushed my arm, and something in my brain short-circuited.
My body reacted instinctively, uninvited, unwelcome, but real.
I froze. Not now. Not for her. Not again.
But I didn’t panic this time. I didn’t shove her away.
I just clenched my fists and stared at the scuffed floor while she kept cutting, oblivious—or pretending she hadn’t heard the hitch in my inhale or noticed that my pulse pounded in my neck.
When she finally stepped back, I let out a breath.
“All done,” she said. “You look… surprisingly decent.”
“I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”
She laughed and held up a mirror. I hesitated.
I didn’t look at myself much, what was the point?
Looking in the mirror was like shaking hands with a stranger I’d never wanted to meet.
My reflection couldn’t lie—it was a mashup of the people who made me and left me.
My birth mother’s cheekbones, my father’s tired eyes and his strong jaw.
The way my mouth curled in that slight, traitorous lift it always did—like I was seconds from a laugh that I didn’t feel.
But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I looked in the mirror.
My hair was neat for once. My eyes weren’t hollow.
The lift around my mouth was almost believable, like the beginning of a real smile.
For a second I didn’t look like a man planning his exit; I looked like a man who had somewhere to be tomorrow.
I looked up to find that she was watching me.
“I like it.”
She grinned. And then simply to piss her off I said, “It’s a good haircut to die in.”
She hit my shoulder playfully. It was the first time I hadn’t meant it. I wasn’t dying. Not today.
After she cleaned up and warmed up the lunch she brought for us, I told her that I had started watching Friends. She gasped like I’d confessed to a felony. “What season are you up to?”
“Two.”
“Wait till season five. It’s the best.”
We ate lunch on paper plates because I didn’t own anything nicer.
We watched two more episodes while sitting on my couch.
I found half the jokes to be too corny for my dark humor, but Iris found all of them to be funny, and I found her joy to be infectious.
She laughed with her whole body; her shoulders shook, and she pressed a hand to her stomach.
It was the closest thing I’d ever had to a date.
Except it wasn’t a date. Obviously. But it was what normal people did.
They ate burritos, sat a tiny bit too close to each other on the couch, while watching a sitcom and didn’t feel like the walls were closing in on them.
A normal person probably didn’t analyze every single breath he took or notice how cute her feet looked in her plain white socks, but it was a start.
When Iris finally stood to leave, I walked her to the door because it felt wrong not to.
She wrapped her scarf around her neck and smiled at me like she always did—like she saw something in me that I didn’t.
I wanted to say something, but the words got stuck in my throat.
My chest ached with the knowledge that she wouldn’t give up on showing me the softer side of life. I didn’t know how to hold it.
“Don’t forget to water the plants,” she told me as she disappeared down the hall.
“What plants?”
But she was already gone.
When I came back in, confused, I found that she had left three tiny succulents in mismatched ceramic pots on my counter, a throw blanket—gray and soft—draped over the back of my couch, and a small wooden tray bearing three vials of essential oils. Lavender. Bergamot. Peppermint.
I stared at the setup like it had materialized out of thin air.
Like her kindness was a trick of the light.
And I guessed it kind of was. The blanket was softer than anything I’d ever owned.
I ran my fingers over it and then texted a picture of it to Carter before wrapping it around my shoulders.
I uncapped each bottle of oil, sniffing them, almost overwhelming my senses with the strong scents.
DANNY
Is this normal?
DANNY
Or should I fire her? It’s weird right?
CARTER
Bro. DO NOT screw this up.
CARTER
This is some rom-com level shit.
CARTER
PLANTS, Danny. She left you PLANTS. That’s a declaration of love.
I stared at the text for a long time.
Then I watered the succulents. I needed to keep them alive. They were relying on me.