✾

"La la la la la la la la la la la la laaaa!"

"Are you on drugs?" I groan, using my pillow and shoving it over my head. It seems aggressive but really, Ruby just has to scream in my ear when I'm sleeping?

"I might be," she answers, picking up the pillow and hitting my chest with it. "C'mon, get up! I'm dying of boredom here."

"How about you go wash the dishes? Or I'm sure the living room could always use sweeping, if you're feeling that bored."

"Or," she says, with a know-it-all tone, "you can get out of bed and you can take me to the park!"

"Will that kill off all this energy?"

"Uh... Yes!"

"Alright, alright. Get outta here so I can make myself look a little bit presentable."

"Okay," she giggles with a victorious smile before skipping out of my room.

I spend some time getting myself ready after shaking my head and laughing. In the mirror, my cheekbone had developed a light grey bruise but it's not too noticeable. You can't even tell my nose was punched because it looked the same after I cleaned up the blood yesterday. After I come out we get in my car and drive to the park and she babbles to me about how her birthday was the best and Iris is so pretty and I must really love her.

"I do not," I start, pulling into the driveway. "We're just friends, Ruby. If anything else happens you'll be the first to know."

"So you hope it will," she points out. She gets distracted and turns toward the playground. "Yay, we're finally here!"

After getting out of the car I immediately spot a figure splashing in the water with a dog nuzzling the person. It doesn't look too great though and I eventually sprint over to what's happening. From about fifteen feet away or so I can see into the water clearly enough to recognize the figure as Iris.

"Iris!" I call naturally, before pulling her out of the water. Her whole body is completely limp and I have to pick her up by taking her under her arms and knees onto the grass by the sidewalk. The dog follows and starts licking her face before she starts coughing. She's muttering incoherently but I can't understand what she's trying to say.

Her eyes flutter open, the same color of gingerbread under the sunlight. They're bloodshot though and she starts blinking rapidly before breaking out into a cough and then a sob. She puts her face in the hands of her hoodie and doesn't try to speak.

"Iris?" I ask softly. She shakes her head though, and her wet hair is actually down as it falls over her hands. I move the strands out of her face and behind her shoulders and gently take her hands down onto her lap. "What happened?"

"I-I-It doesn't matter!" she stammers. Another tear falls down her pale face but I still hold her hands in my own, so she can't wipe it away. At this point, I don't think she cares.

"It does matter. Get it off of your chest and you'll feel better," I assure her, trying my best to comfort her. I'm not much of a softie so dealing with situations like this is hard, but I really do hate seeing people like this. Especially Iris.

"I-I can't," she says, but I can tell she's trying to breathe by the way she's slowly inhaling and exhaling. She slowly gets control of her hyperventilating but she's squeezing her fists so hard that purple nail-marks are developing on her palms and they're starting to dot with blood. I take her fingers into my hands as a silent way of telling her to stop. "I can't," she whispers again. "S-something bad... is going to happen."

"Nothing bad is going to happen, I promise. What is this about? How did you get in the water?"

Iris takes a few more deep breaths before she takes her hands and wipes the rest of her tears off of her cheeks. She eventually takes off her hoodie even, setting it beside her and exposing her dark blue tank top underneath the shirt. "If I tell you you can't tell anyone else," she quietly tells me, her brown eyes locking with mine.

"I won't," I say as genuinely as possible. "Promise."

She nods, taking a second and biting her lip.

"My mom died when I was little. I think I was six. But she was murdered, and I watched her die. She got shot by a robber, one who I thought of as a man with scarlet eyes. But he didn't, I think they were just blue or brown or maybe even green. But I just remembered them as red because that's the color of blood, and the color of evil. He shot my mom, and didn't say a word to her. I held onto her dress — I cried, I think — and she pleaded and she asked what he wanted. And he didn't say a thing, he just lifted his gun and shot her as if it was second nature. All because she was just another person in his way.

"I ran inside and called 9-1-1. Not really in that order, but when I turned around, I saw it through the window. And my dad pushed me out of his way so he could get outside as I cried on the phone, and when the ambulance got there I felt so empty. The thing though, is that when I got off the phone Mom was still breathing. And she said to me, 'They can't save the baby.' And they carried my mom away and they found the killer just a little bit after when he confessed. But... I don't know, losing her was hard for me, especially when I found out she was pregnant.

"My dad grew super cold and then I got really bad anxiety. To the point where I couldn't even cry except for once a year, just about. And lately it's all been coming back to me in bits and pieces, and crying doesn't happen often, but when it does happen, it's bad. Lately it's been a lot more common. I get such bad panic attacks that I just collapse. I can't see and I can only hear my ears ringing, and I feel all tingly and heavy and I can't move. And... that just happened. While I was in the water."

It takes a minute to sink in, and it hits me that I really never knew the details except for what was on the news. I never knew the child — Iris — watched her mother die, our that the mother was pregnant. And I guess I knew of the long-term effects, but I didn't know the long-term effects. And to think that she, of all people, had to know. I watch her small, fragile frame shiver from the cold from being in the water as her eyes of burnt sienna stare at her feet in deep thought. I want to wrap her in my arms, but know she'd probably be repulsed, and instead take off my jacket and put it over her shoulders.

"I'm sorry," I tell her simply. "You didn't deserve any of that. Your mother didn't either of course, and even your father didn't. And I'm always here if you want to talk about it." I take her soft hands in my rough, calloused palms, turning hers up and looking at the nail-marks she carved into them. "Why do you this to yourself?"

"I don't know," she whispered, looking away with shame.

"They're your scars," I mention, "you don't have to be ashamed of them. But let them be scars from the past. Your skin is meant to protect you, not be a canvas for the damage you have the potential to do. I will drop everything just to talk to you if it stops you from doing this. Just promise you won't do this."

I close her hands in mine and she just nods weakly. "Okay, I promise."

✾