Stronger Than You Think

Chapter 26: More Information

John leads us into the giant white room and the first thing I spot two pictures of two girls who look about 3 months old. One has chocolate brown eyes and blonde hair.

She looks like Alannah. Eda's little sister. The other has bright green eyes and brown hair so dark it looks black. John walks up to me and points at the little girl with brown eyes.

"That was Tanika before we did the experiment" he says and then points at the other little girl. "And that-" I cut him off "Was me".

He nods and I feel the tears start to fall out of my eyes. "I was beautiful" I say an touch the picture in front of me. John's hand rests against my shoulder.

"You still are" he says before walking to a desk. He pulls out a book and flicks through a couple of pages.

"You're parents are you're birth parents" he says and Tani and I walk to the table. "As I said in the letter they volunteered to do the experiment on you" he continues.

"Tanika's parents thought it would be nice to have a child that was different, but Iris your parents weren't so happy with the result" he says and I scoff. Obviously.

"I told them I was willing to take you up as my own if they didn't like it, but they argued and I let it go. I didn't think that people would exclude you to as much as they did" he says.

"Life isn't always fair" I say and he nods. "You found friends and I found that maybe my doubts weren't all that bad" John continues "Then the bullying started. Exclusion led to loneliness. Loneliness led to depression. Depression led to cutting".

I look at Tanika in surprise and she has the same look on her face when she turns to me. "Okaaayy" she says. "How'd you know about that". "I keep in contact with your parents" John shrugs.

"Society obviously didn't believe you were 'beautiful' as they say" he says an I chuckle. "That was all I needed to know before I tried any more experiments

"Then high school started and suddenly for people that related to you they thought you were cool seeing as you were different

"I lost contact with your parents and soon of you" he says and frowns "Until the locator went off when you were in the woods Iris" he says and looks up at me.

"How?" I ask and raise an eyebrow at him. "You were with your chosen animal and it tends to happen" he says "Seeing as it was your birthday in two days I guessed you were having a get together with your friends"

I nod and he smiles. "Anyway that's not the reason I brought you down to the lab" he says shaking his head "I wanted to know if you wanted to change back?".

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We leave Dr Gradens home.

As our true selves.

Red hair and all.

Tani loops her arm in mine and we walk to the closest McDonalds to celebrate. Dr Graden had told us that he had left $20,000 dollars for us each after all his success in science and seeing as he 'won't be around for long' wanted to give it to us.

His achievement

His daughters

"So?" Tani says as we sit in the booth right next to the door. I'm no longer ashamed of who I am and have gained so much self confidence.

"So" I say and look out the window. "What are we gonna do?" she asks and I shrug. "We have enough money to buy a house and we're old enough to move out" she says and I laugh.

She smiles "I'm serious". "I know and I think it's a good idea" I say and reach over the table to pat her hand.

"Our parents will still have to pay our school bills though" she says and that just makes me laugh even more. I stand up. "Imma go order" I say and walk over to the greasy bench with Tani's suggestion in mind.
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Sorry it's short guys. 4 chappies left Chels 😂. Hope you enjoy reading this an tell your friends about it coz I have more then 1K now! 💘💀✖