its not LOVE. It's HORMONES

Chapter Thirty-One: Separation Anxiety

IT'S BEEN SO LONG! I KNOW I FEEL HORRIBLE! I GOT THE FLU AND THAT MEANT I HAD A LOT OF HOMEWORK! BUT I'M BACK! THIS CHAPTER HAS A CLIFF HANGER SO BE AWARE! 

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Chapter Thirty-One Separation Anxiety

“Why did you call all of us here?” I asked Rebecca as she led the whole group down the hallway. The whole gang was here, even Kimberly, who was holding onto Blaine’s arm.

“I was walking down the hall because I heard what sounded like a cat screeching in pain, but when I went to check out the noise, I found this,” Rebecca said as she opened one of the bedroom doors to reveal Iris, slumped on her floor and sobbing loudly.

Leo was the first one to react, jumping fifty feet to get his arms around her.

“What happened, baby?” He asked, but Iris kept on screeching.

Fifteen minutes passed with all of us yelling incoherent things at her before she actually took the time to look up at us. I'd never seen Iris without make-up she looked scary. She was pale, tired, and tears were splattered all over her face. Everyone flinched except Leo, who was too busy having a spaz attack at seeing his girlfriend in such emotional distress.

“I...g....” She couldn’t even complete a sentence without sobbing between every other syllable. What sounded like “dje-dfkje” was actually “I got in.” We all looked at each other, trying to figure out the rest of her sentence. It wasn't until Leo looked at us and explained to us what she was saying that we finally understood.

“She got into the art school in New York.”

We all stared at her in confusion because Iris had been talking about this school and how it was her dream since she was little to get in. Now that she finally did, she was crying as if someone shot her in the face.

“That’s great.” Blaine said hesitantly, and when he did, all hell broke loose.

“It’s great! It’s great?! Are you stupid, Patterson? This isn’t great!” Iris changed from emotionally broken to emotionally enraged in two seconds flat. Blaine stumbled backward as Iris advanced towards him, ready to claw his eyes out.

“What’s going on, Iris?” Sareen asked, putting her hand on Iris’s elbow so she could direct her attention elsewhere. “I thought you wanted to go to New York.”

“I did. It’s just-” She looked at all of us in complete vulnerability and continued. “I just won’t have you guys there,” she whispered. “I've always wanted to go to New York. When I got the acceptance letter, I was very happy until I realized that we all are going our separate ways.”

Leo came up from behind and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend’s waist.

“Babe, I’m going to NYU,” he responded trying to comfort her.

Iris just gave him a sad smile before giving a sappy speech.

“I know you are and I'm happy, but the rest of us aren’t going to be together after this year. You and I might be together, but Sareen is thinking of going to Washington D.C and Blaine is going to Arizona State University. We're all going our separate ways and I don’t want our family to fall apart,” she said as another tear formed in her eyes. “I never had an actual family, and when I met you guys, I finally figured out what I was missing out on. Now that I have it, I never want to let it go.”

Blaine moved forward putting his arms on Iris’s shoulders. “We will still keep in touch.”

Iris started shaking her head. “We will keep in touch for the first couple of months, but then we will soon get busy with school and our lives and new friends and we'll just stop talking to each other,” she explained.