Chapter 29
Iris decided the next life experience I had missed out on was the zoo.
Which is how I found myself walking around the zoo with her, admiring all of the animals.
I didn’t even ponder how I could get myself into the lion pen.
Which was a huge missed opportunity, but not one I would take in front of Iris.
Not one I wanted to take today at all, if I was being honest with myself.
I was having too much fun. Usually a place like this, that smelled of hay and day-old popcorn, that buzzed with a constant undertone of noise, would’ve been a place I’d hate to find myself but with Iris next to me, I found that I didn’t.
I hadn’t known I was capable of smiling without forcing it, but there I was—grinning like an idiot while a baby goat with sideways eyes and milk breath tried to chew on my sleeve, pulling at the material with steady determination.
“I think he likes you,” Iris said, holding up her phone. “Smile again.”
“No.”
“Too late.” She’d taken a photo.
“You’re violating my rights to privacy.”
“You’re building a core memory. Shut up and let me document it.”
She wasn’t joking. Not really. But she said it with that warm, teasing lilt—like everything else out of her mouth.
It was as if her words were dipped in honey and wrapped in bubble wrap.
Safe and ridiculous. It was the kind of tone you only use with people you cared about.
I tried not to ponder why that made my heart feel funny.
The goat next to me bleated. I scratched its head without thinking.
Its ears twitched. It was stupid how much I liked it.
We walked around the petting zoo enclosure slowly.
Peacocks screamed somewhere in the distance.
Kids with juice mustaches and dirty hands ran past holding maps of the zoo upside down.
Iris pointed at animals I hadn’t cared about until just now.
I made deadpan commentary to make her laugh.
Her plan by taking me to the zoo had worked.
Something in my chest had gone… soft. Iris handed me a little paper cup of pellets. “Try it.”
“You try it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I already did. Twice. One bit me. It’s your turn.”
Reluctantly, I knelt. A trio of baby goats trotted over like they’d been waiting for me all day.
One nuzzled my hand. Another butted my arm with its head.
And just like that, I was six years old again—or maybe not quite six, because I never got to do this as a kid.
I never went to petting zoos. I never had anyone hold up a phone to record me while I did something soft and safe and innocent.
So yeah. I liked it. Too much. Something giddy grew behind my ribs, and I physically rubbed at it, trying to will it away.
“They like you,” she said again, but softer this time. Like it meant something more than it had moments ago, like she could read my mind and see what was happening inside of me. I looked up. Her phone was still in her hand, but she wasn’t filming anymore.
“What?” I asked, trying to make sense of the look on her face. She gave a tiny shake of her head, smiling to herself.
“Nothing.”
“No. Say it.”
She hesitated, then crouched beside me, tugging her jacket around her a little bit tighter. “You’re not who you think you are.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I just mean… you keep calling yourself broken and unsavable but look at you. You’re out in the world. You’re feeding goats. You’re laughing.”
“Because they’re goats. And because that one’s trying to eat your scarf.”
She looked down. The goat in question bleated in protest as she laughed and gently pulled her scarf away.
“I’m serious, Danny.”
I looked away. The sun was cutting through the clouds, casting a golden hue over the goats, almost making them look fake. Like tiny, illustrated animals chewing hay.
“I don’t know how to be anyone else other than what I’ve always been,” I said. I worried I was disappointing her. She had so much hope for me. And I had none at all.
“But I think you already are,” she protested.
I didn’t say anything back. She stood and brushed hay off her jacket.
I followed, dropping the empty pellet cup into the garbage can.
As we walked toward the exit, I shoved my hands into my pockets and tried to ground myself.
I focused on the cool breeze, the faint smell of manure, and the overpriced hot pretzels.
“You ever think about that?” she asked. I startled; I hadn’t been listening.
“About all the goat poop that is on the bottom of my shoes?”
She nudged me. “About healing your inner child.”
I stopped walking. “Don’t say that.”
“What?”
“Inner child.”
She laughed. “Why not?”
“I told Carter if you ever said something like that, I’d have to quit.”
Her smile finally faded slightly. “Would you really?”
“Hell yea. I’ll stop answering your calls and never come back,” I joked. Iris glanced at me, hurt clear on her face. The octave of her voice dipped just slightly.
“You wouldn’t do that to me. I’d miss you.”
There it was. That thing. That moment when the air changed and everything suddenly felt too loud, even though no one was currently speaking.
Her words weren’t dramatic or even flirty.
But they were earnest and soft, and they hit something I didn’t know was exposed inside of me.
Something I hadn’t known I still possessed.
I looked at her. She was still walking, still pretending like she hadn’t just shifted the gravity between us.
“Iris…”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was unprofessional—forget it.”
“No. You said it.”
“I say a lot of things.”
I let it go and we kept walking. The tension between us stretched like a taut thread. A squirrel darted across the path in front of us, pulling me from my confused haze.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone say they’d miss me,” I said, quietly, putting it out there.
“Then I’m glad I said it.” Her words floated over to me, but she didn’t look at me again.
We didn’t talk much after that. The weight of today settled between us in a way that I was comfortable ignoring but couldn’t fully shake.
We got warm drinks from a cart near the exit.
Hers was tea, of course. She added too much honey.
I pretended not to notice her watching me blow on mine before sipping.
“You’re not gonna mention the goat video in next week’s session, are you?” I asked, using humor to take my mind off how buttery sweet her words had felt on my brain and to make her talk to me again.
“No promises.”
“I’ll sue.”
“Go ahead. I’ll show the judge the video and win custody of your inner child.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re crazy.”
She laughed—head back, real and bright. She was so beautiful it twisted something inside of me.
And somehow knowing I had made her happy, even if just for a brief moment, hurt more than it should’ve because it made me worry what would happen to her when I was gone.
When I was finally free of all my feelings, what kind of pain would I leave in my wake?
I had never had any reason to consider that before.
But now I couldn’t shake the feeling like I had found one.
When we finally finished our drinks and said goodbye, Iris walked toward the subway entrance with one last look over her shoulder.
I stood on the sidewalk longer than I needed to, just to watch her vanish into the belly of the city.
I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to go anywhere.
I wanted to bottle up this day so I could open it back up when I couldn’t feel anything else and needed a reminder of something cute like a baby goat.
That was the thing about core memories. You never realized you were making one until after the experience was done.