𝙝𝙖𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 ━ 𝙟. 𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧

restless

R E S T L E S S

Iris lay in her bed, the warm blankets consumed her and held out against the cold air of the fan that spun around the room. The light crackle of the candle next to her and distant sounds of workers walking home.

She had turned in early for night, hoping to drift off into a sleep where she wouldn't be haunted by the face of Ellie that day they arrived at Jackson. The face she so blatantly lied to though she had no right to do so.

The tales of Harry Potter lay on her chest, she hoped the book laced with fantasy would offer her an escape to the utter hell of a psyche she had pushed herself into, but it seemed that the ink on the page only brought her restless thoughts closer to another sleepless night.

Iris huffed and closed the hardback book, dog earing the page and sat it next to her on the dresser, the overwhelming feeling of loneliness filled the position next to her on the bed as she turned on her side to face the wall. The woman reached out to the empty space and her mind envision Joel, a man she was becoming closer and closer to as they settled down in Tommy's town.

She wished that he was here with her, to hold her and tell her that Ellie would eventually forgive the two, but the sense of indifference she felt from the girl made her think otherwise.

Iris sat up with a sigh, rubbing her eyes that so desperately wanted to close but her brain was refusing to let her. Standing up from the bed, draping the covers over her spot to make it, she wandered over to the window, where she glanced over at the man in questions house. The lights were still on but the curtains were pulled, letting the light illuminate patterns of flowers onto the ground just outside.

With a smile she didn't know graced her lips, she blow out the candle and grabbed her jacket and boots. Cringing at the sound of creaking floorboards, Iris grabbed a mug from her cupboards and a couple tea bags she had found on patrol, and set out to Joel's house just across the road.

As spring ran into summer, the night time was still warm and the sky that was usually dark by now had only just started to set, she smiled and nodded at some of the people walking past her before she jogged up the short steps to Joel's door. Deciding on pulling the knocker on the door, she waited a couple seconds, she knew that Joel would grumble whenever someone knocked, always complaining that he didn't like to be disturbed.

Joel's head shot up from the guitar he was working on in his workshop when he heard the knocker sound, he knew that was Iris just by the way she did it, since she was the only one to actually use the doorknocker.

The corners of his lips turned up, but only for a second, reminding himself that he shouldn't be so excited, he didn't want to get attached to someone in that way again, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much his stomach exploded into butterflies when she so much as looked in his direction.

Pulling himself from the chair, he sets the guitar down on the table, rolling his eyes when one of the strings popped out from it's hold once again, he had no luck for the last few hours trying to model the instrument the way he wanted and maybe the distraction was a sign that it wouldn't go his way if he kept getting worked up at the fiddly object.

Opening the door wider, he stepped out of the study turned workshop and walked down the steps, his hand collecting the dust from the banister that he wiped on his dark jeans with a grimace. Stopping at the front door he glanced through the small hole quickly to see iris looking around the place as she waited for him to answer.