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.
*****
Sometimes, walking away is the sca...
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The walk back up the stairs towards the parking lot was thick with tension, even harder to breathe through than the humidity of the air.
However, Iris was somewhat more prepared to take Lyra's inviting hand this time around, so the gesture didn't surprise her quite as much as it had the first time. She was colder, though, nearly as cold as she was when she lay in her coffin, with her perfect hair, her perfect makeup, and her perfect blue dress—like Sleeping Beauty. For all everyone knew, she'd just been fast asleep. If she hadn't been so blue underneath it all, not just in her clothes and in her glittery eyeshadow, if she hadn't been so unnaturally still, even Iris would have been fooled by yet another one of her tricks.
Foxes were the tricksters. Typically, anyway.
Ironically, Iris wore her heart on her sleeve, too transparent even when she didn't want to be, and she'd never been a great liar. As closed off as she was, as content with staying in her bubble without relying on any external stimuli or social interactions, she couldn't lie. Now, she was purposefully hiding key details about her life and about that of other people's, including from themselves, and couldn't hide behind her shy, good girl persona any longer. She was as vile and rotten as those vultures she'd been criticizing all along, getting unnecessarily involved in matters she shouldn't even have brushed against.
In the original timeline, she was an editor dreaming of being a writer; you didn't have to be in direct contact with people to do either, and, when you did, you could handle everything via email. In this timeline, she'd turned into someone she barely recognized. She was calculating, always looking back over her shoulder, always finding a way to come out on top under the excuse it was to protect Lyra, who had proven she didn't need or want her protection.
She didn't even want her help in being rescued or when it came to her life being saved. What was Iris supposed to do with that? What was she supposed to do when she couldn't do the one thing she was good at?
Who was she when she wasn't needed?
Violent shivers rippled through Iris' body, even when they were sitting inside Lyra's car, with the heater turned almost all the way up. Lyra had, somehow, remembered to cover the front seats of the car with fluffy, warm towels to help mitigate the worst effects of the sudden difference in temperature. Iris wanted to thank her, but, when she opened her mouth to do so, no words came out with how wildly her teeth were chattering.
That wasn't even the worst part. A thank you that went by unsaid could be expressed in different ways, but Iris was still too stiff from the cold and the difficult conversation they'd shared down by the beach to even give Lyra's fingers a quiet, gentle squeeze.
