Dear Iris [h.s]

chapter seven.

Iris Grace 

TWO YEARS AGO.

"Iris?" He called from downstairs, his voice echoing around the house. "Are you ready, love?"

I fasted the buttons at the front of my dress, watching myself in the mirror as I did so with a smile. I feel pretty, and I like the colour green on me. Andrew got up early this morning for some reason, to attend to business calls or something exciting like that. I need to finish one of my commissions by the end of the week, so the plan was to head to the studio, but of course, my plans were changed.

Downstairs, he was standing with his jacket on, holding mines out for me as I looked at him in confusion. His smile made me feel warm. It makes me feel like I'm worth something and that I mean something to somebody. I make him smile. I'm glad. He has a beautiful smile.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, knitting my brows together as he helped me into my jacket before I stood in front of him, looking up to admire him as I slipped my hands into his.

"Your home." Andrew said, smiling a little. "I need to talk to your father."

I sighed, rolling my eyes subtly, but when I attempted to take a step back, he lifted my chin back up so I was looking at him and tucked my hair back behind my ear. It's like he can read my mind, because when he kissed my forehead it felt like all of my worries disappeared.

"He doesn't hate you." Andrew told me. "He wants what's best for you, you're his daughter Iris. Don't be stupid, you know that."

I swallowed nervously and nodded my head, he's probably right. Andrew and my dad get along well, Thomas likes Andrew too. He helps me understand myself a lot too. I didn't realise I was such an overthinker until Andrew. Andrew makes me realise I overthink absolutely every negative word somebody talks, and that's not healthy. I'm working on it, I really am.

To begin with, I thought Andrew hated me until I gave him a chance. Maybe I just need to do that with my dad too. We have our differences, we've had our fallouts but I suppose I need to put in effort and make things work, because like Andrew said, you only get one family.

"Ready?" He asked, kissing me on the forehead, his hands cupping my cheeks.

"Thank you." I said quietly, looking up at him through my eyelashes and taking the confusion on his face as a sign to give an explanation. "For calming the nerves."

He shook his head and let out a little chuckle before taking my hand into his and pulling the front door of his house open, "Come on, I said we'd be there by ten."

PRESENT

"Saw you talking to Harry last night." My mum says, appearing in the kitchen as I'm standing there alone with a glass of water.

I shrugged it off, not wanting to make it a big deal because if Thomas hears, it'll be blown out of proportion and I'll end up getting shit on for something irrelevant. It wasn't really anything like she's insinuating anyway, it just further proved my point of how the Styles men are all rude and disrespectful.

My mum doesn't often come and talk to me like this, she usually doesn't even care about what I get up to. I love her, I really do, but sometimes I wish she'd see my side of things. She's too blinded by her love towards my dad to see how bad of a person he really is. In all truth, she deserves better, but she loves my dad too much to realise that. So she'll be siding with him until the day they die, which is painful.

"He's an asshole." I tell her, washing my cup in the sink before heading off, because unlike my brother, I do in fact clean up after myself.

"Iris, you can't say that about every guy you talk to." My mum chuckles, shaking her head as if I wasn't being serious, when in reality, I was being dead serious, and also much nicer than I could have been in regards to the word I chose to describe him.