Time heals all wounds. When you have the power to rewind it, you begin to wonder whether it's too much responsibility for one person to hold.
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Sometimes, walking away is the sca...
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The irony and contradiction about Lyra's favorite color being blue wasn't lost on Iris.
For starters, she never wore it, arguing it clashed with her eyes, or with the shade of blonde her hair was on any given day, or with her skin as the colder months stole her natural tan. She'd complain and kick her feet when faced with blue clothing, but Blue by Joni Mitchell was her favorite album of all time, and most of the decorations in her dorm room were toned in different shades of cyan, turquoise, and navy. She'd avoid blue clothes like the plague, but use blue everywhere else, in areas she wouldn't bring along to where she could be seen.
She'd grown out of it by the time they graduated college, shifting to more muted, neutral colors like beige, white, and gray for the sake of fitting more adequately into the corporate world (though Iris had never quite understood what it was exactly that she did). That had been one of the key signs something wasn't quite right, with Lyra settling for an office job to please her parents (or because she thought it was what would please her parents, when all they'd ever wanted was for her to be happy and feel fulfilled), but Iris hadn't thought much of it at the time. If anything, she'd assumed it was a sign of maturity.
Oh, how wrong she'd been.
Lyra's preference for blue was also ironic considering everything that had followed their falling out.
It was ironic considering the striking color of the ocean and grandiose that day, one of the few winter days with a clear sky (which had been ironically painful enough by itself, taunting everyone in a way if one remembered how catastrophic it had been).
It was ironic considering the blue tint on her skin and lips, even under the makeup the mortuary cosmetologist had applied to her face in preparation for the open casket ceremony. Whoever they were, they'd used the wrong shade of foundation, making her appear paler than she actually was, even in death, and Iris knew she would've protested and stomped her feet over the atrocious choice of lipstick people assumed she would have liked. It was too bubblegum pink-y for her, too garish, too attention seeking from a girl who would've been happy slipping under the radar.
And because Iris Fox was Iris Fox, she knew all of that, and remembered all of that. She remembered leaning over the casket and staring down at Lyra—her body, not her—and knowing how much she would have hated the whole thing, all the attention, and the hideous summery blue dress they'd made her wear. She'd be shivering harder than Iris was, all bundled up under a heavy winter coat, bony knees clicking against each other when she walked.
But that was a different timeline, after all.
In this one, Lyra still sported her short hair, her nose ring, and the pink streaks. She still wore bright colors, still disliked the way blue looked on her, was still clueless about Iris having gone through all of this before. Furthermore—and perhaps the most important part of it all—she was still oblivious to the inner turmoil in Iris' head, aching with guilt over everything she wasn't admitting to—her feelings for Lyra, the truth about having rewound time to save her life and ease her conscience—and how well she'd been hiding things.
