Iris heard her bedroom door close. Wynne looked down at her with a battered and bruised face. His green eyes were still full of rage and something that looked like pain. The house that she so loved was filled with silence. Cocopops had gone to lay on the couch and looked at them both with baleful eyes. “So what happened last night?” Iris felt a lump in her throat and she burned with a bit of shame. “I got home from my tattoo, slept and woke up to Brendon who had brought some beers and pizza, we had a few drinks and a swim and nothing else happened. We slept, that’s it.” she looked up at him, almost daring him to say something else had happened. “It didn’t look like nothing. You were so fast asleep that you didn’t hear my car or let me into the house.” He snarled “Why does he even have keys to the house?” “Brendon has keys because he’s my best friend and also what does it matter if he has keys or not?” Wynne looked down at her, his face almost contorted into a rage until he grimaced with pain and tried to settle his face into something resembling calm.
Iris finally found the courage to move her feet, her still naked body lithe in the morning sunlight and almost glowing. She forced her feet to carry her up those seven steps to the top of the landing. Pushing past Wynne, Iris opened her bedroom door and froze again. Her bedroom was utterly destroyed. Coffee mingled with the blood on the walls and splattered all over her bed, her bedding was soaked through with coffee that was drying quickly and forming stains. Broken owls statuettes lay shattered on the wooden floors and her books were all over the place from where they had broken shelves by throwing each other against the walls. She bent down to caress a small blue soapstone owl with tiger’s eye chips for eyes that had been broken in half and she felt her eyes well up with tears. With a shiver, Iris realised she was still naked and straightened up. She gathered some clothes and quickly got dressed. Black button-up shorts of black lace panty and a crop top went overhead. It was black and decorated with roses that added small splashes of blood red. Wynne coughed from behind her. “You don’t intend on wearing that outside do you?” Iris turned to look at him and a hand raised to caress the raven on her shoulder. It had scabbed over beautifully and she remembered she needed to put coconut oil on it. “What does it matter what I intend to wear where?” she retorted “I highly doubt that it matters anymore since I’m guessing this is where you dump my ass and find yourself someone more suited to your family’s image?” “I was not planning on leaving you but if that’s how you want to play this game, my darling, then we can play the game like this.” Iris laughed and pushed past him again to grab the tub of coconut oil lying next to her bed and opened it, the sound was loud in the resounding silence. The oil was soothing to her burning and scabbed skin. She sighed, almost in bliss and felt a hand on her shoulder. “I know your grandfather only died two weeks ago but you could open up to me, just like you do with Brendon.” “Brends has no expectations of me, no wanting me to change or be someone I am not.”
Wynne tugged at her shoulder, and she turned to face him again. Her hand raised and caressed his face gently. He winced and lifted his own hand to touch hers. Iris almost sighed, her anxiety about how this relationship was going almost disappearing but still remained in the back of her mind; a nagging feeling that would never leave her. Wynne leaned in, almost as if to kiss her but he visibly stopped himself. Iris removed her hand. “I never wanted this. I want to be free. If you can’t love this part of me that drinks and smokes, that gets tattoos and loves the pain of them then I think you should leave. I won’t ever be what your family wants me to be and I’m sorry about that but I need to be me.” “It’s always the same with you.” he hissed as he turned away from her “The thought of someone looking after you is almost too much to bear.” “And what about me? Why must I be so protected that I can barely move without someone keeping an eye on me.” Wynne turned and wrenched her bedroom door open again and it slammed shut behind her. Iris grabbed what looked to be a whole box of smokes and opened it to find one lonely cigarette. She scanned the dressing table for a lighter but couldn’t find one. She opened the bedroom door, shut it behind her, and looked down at Wynne sitting on her couch. She sighed and went to look for a lighter but settled for lighting her cigarette with her toaster. She inhaled deeply and the nicotine settled into her lungs and calmed her frazzled nerves.
“He expects me to be myself without hiding who I am or even who I want to be.” She whispered as another cloud of smoke left her lungs. “I want you to be yourself. You just aren’t the person my family thought you would become.” Iris took another drag of her cigarette before stubbing it in one of the ashtrays that dotted the house. Wynne just looked, his face turned up in disgust at her cigarette. He wanted to stand up and walk away. Iris made him angry when she did this. She knew how he felt about Brendon of all people. A recovered drug addict that she insisted on drinking and hanging around. Never mind that he was more tattooed than her, with a bike to top it all off. He was leading his precious Iris down a dark path. He could barely take Iris out to fancy functions without at least one tattoo showing, if her hair weren’t purple it would be blue. He hated her preference for jeans and sneakers instead of a pretty dress. She embarrassed his family at every available opportunity. She had snuck out of an important event to sit outside with Brendon and drink beer. Shaking his head, Wynne stood up.
“One day, Iris, you must decide who you want. I am genuinely sorry to lay this on you so soon after the passing of your grandfather but I need someone who will do as I need them to do as required not as they please.” As he moved toward the door, Iris felt relief build inside her and she almost breathed that sigh of release in front of Wynne. Cocopops growled at Wynne as he passed her and Iris clicked her fingers once and Cocopops lay back down. He looked back almost as if he expected her to fall to her knees and beg him not to leave as if she would beg him to stay. Iris turned around and strode up the stairs to the bathroom, starting the shower and removing her clothes. She heard the front door close and finally released the breath that had been building since Brendon had left. Steam was filling the bathroom quickly. She climbed into the shower, feeling the heat warm and relaxing her bones. The muscles in Iris’s back relaxed and she breathed in deeply. The soothing scent of the dried rosemary from her showerhead calmed her, and Iris stepped under the scalding spray and lifted her face to the cascading water. It ran down in rivulets and for the first time in days, she relaxed, wholly and utterly.
All too soon the water turned tepid and Iris climbed out, she reached an arm out to switch off the water and wrapped a towel around herself. Using a smaller towel, she patted the raven dry, careful not to dislodge any scabs. She gathered up her clothes and made her way to the spare bedroom where she dressed in the same clothes she had worn earlier. She sat down on the small twin bed and stared at the room. She had a small twin bed on which she sat—an ancient computer in the corner and bookshelves lined around the bedroom with titles crammed into them. Small decorative owls also decorated the space interspersed with small wooden carvings of wolves. Picture frames lay on top of bookshelves and she looked at the memories she had not had cause to look at for years. She heard her phone ringing in the distance but could barely get the energy to find it.