Black Iris

The healing

Rose

As we were exiting the court room, I kept glancing across at Jordan. Clara caught me looking, and leaned across to speak to me.

"You want to talk to her. Go with her."

"But, my parents..." I whispered. She shook her head.

"I'll handle them, tell them you're coming downtown with me to go through some paperwork, and that someone can drop you home after." She gave me a wink. I gave her a grateful smile, and started weaving through the crowd away from her, getting to Jordan.

"Did you drive here?" I asked. She startled, not seeing me come up. Then, she nodded.

"With your family?" I asked. She shook her head.

"I didn't want them here. I didn't want them to hear... what it was really like." She looked at me, a gentle understanding in her face.

It said, I get it. I know why you didn't want the same thing.

I wondered if she'd ever broken her promise. If she'd ever read what I wrote. About her. About all of it.

I couldn't bear the thought.

"Can I come with you? Then I don't have to worry about sneaking out."

"Will your parents let you?" She asked.

"Clara is covering for me," I replied.

She glanced back at my legal team, then at the press. Then, in a show of resignation, she shrugged.

"Okay. We can go get pancakes or something."

I gave her a weird look. Pancakes? She just smiled.

"Or whatever. Let's go."

We didn't talk much as we shuffled through the crowd. But when we got out of the courtroom and everyone was filtering out to the main entrance, Jordan tugged on my hand and pulled me away from the fold, heading in a different direction.

"I know another way out. My dad showed it to us after Lila's adoption."

"How did he know about it?" I asked.

She looked back at me and raised an eyebrow. I blushed.

"Right, he works here, doesn't he?"

"Yep," she said, popping the 'p' sound.

She pulled me all the way down the hallways, and then into a fire stairwell. We went down two flights, and found ourselves in a concrete hallway that definitely didn't feel open to the public.

"Are you sure we're supposed to be in here?"

"Yeah, come on," she said. She lead me down the hallway, past a person wheeling a cart who did a double take when they caught my face.

It was never not weird when people recognised me. Even after everything.

Jordan lead me through the maze of concrete hallways until finally we burst through heavy doors and into the sun.

We were at the back of the courthouse building, next to what looked like a loading dock for the cafe.

"Voila!" Jordan exclaimed. "I'm parked just down there."

She pointed to a side street so we headed in that direction. There were no press to be seen. It was kind of nice.

Climbing into her car again was just like it had been the previous time. The smell of peanut butter and jelly and her faint vanilla perfume instantly made my shoulders drop.