The Silent Man

Chapter 1

Iris knew she was out of shape. She could feel it. Every step was a hundred knives stabbing her in the sides. It didn't help that she was recovering from a hangover. Iris only agreed to run every morning because her best friend Janelle begged her to. Janelle's reasoning for this new hobby was to 'better their bodies', but Iris was smarter than that. Anytime Janelle found a hobby, it was because of a man.

"Janelle, I can't run anymore. My head is pounding." Iris whined, slowing her run into a slow jog.

Janelle stopped, "I told you not to drink so much!" She laughed and took the opportunity to fix her hair. She pulled out her hair tie, letting her thick black hair down before quickly putting it into a braid instead of the usual high ponytail. "Also, do you want to go to a party tonight? Victor said there was going to be alcohol, pot, acid, cocaine, and best of all: Men!" She exclaimed with excitement. "You should totally come! There will be so many cute guys there! You haven't been with another guy since D'Andre and at this rate, you're going to be a crazy cat lady. Your mission tonight is to get laid."

D'Andre was a sensitive topic. It had been a year since she's slept with someone. She's made out with a couple of guys here and there, but when she didn't hook up with them, it was over just that fast. "Sure, but can we head back to the house so I can take some medicine then a bath?"

Janelle laughed and pat Iris' head. "You go ahead, boo. I'm going to get my thick on." Janelle put her earphones in and took off running.

She hated that almost everyone towered over her. 'Life being short was rough at times.' She thought to herself. She envied Janelle's long legs. Where Janelle was six-foot, Iris was only five foot. Iris turned and ran at a steady pace. Iris was both relieved and upset when she saw their house.

Relieved because she was almost home, but upset because this meant she needed to sprint the rest of the way. Iris made true to her word, sprinting through the pain in her side until she reached the front door. Iris took a moment to catch her breath before heading inside to take some medicine and a much-needed bath.

One she was out, she decided to take a nap, setting her alarm for an hour, she snuggled into her covers and drifted off to sleep. The only thing that Iris didn't like about taking naps is that the time had flown by and she had an hour to get dressed for her part-time job at a clothing store. She dressed in black high-rise jeans, a grey tee with a black faux leather jacket and black heels. Iris checked her phone to see if she had time to straighten her thick curly, blonde mane. She had 20 minutes until she had to clock in.

"You got this, Iris." She whispered to herself as she turned on her flat-iron. Straightening her hair took longer than she would liked. Realizing that she only had 10 minutes to get to work, and it took 15 minutes to get to her job, she quickly took her heels off and dashed to her car. Iris dialed her job's number in, hoping a supervisor wouldn't answer, but Iris was never that lucky.

"Thank you for calling Zazzles, my name is Naomi." The voice on the other end greeted.

Iris silently cursed herself, she needed to think of an excuse, "Hey Naomi, it's Iris," Before she could continue she could hear a heavy sigh of annoyance.

"You're going to be late today? You realize that this is the 3rd time this week you've been late." Naomi stated flatly.

"I was actually calling to see if anyone wanted a soda? I'm at the gas station right down the road and thought to offer the staff a drink." Iris hoped that Naomi bought it.

The lie seemed to have worked because after a moment of silence, Naomi's attitude changed. "Oh, I'm sorry, girl. Today has just been so crazy. Yeah, go ahead and buy some soda. We'll see you when you get here."