favorite liar | xavier thorpe

2. obligatory transition chapter

"Of course," Iris nods promisingly.

"And you'll look after yourself?"

". . . Of course," Iris seems to hesitate at this.

It's not like she lacks self preservation habits, she's just so used to everyone around her emphasizing family and the importance of looking after others, especially Pugsley because he's younger and especially Wednesday because sometimes she lets her lack of emotions get the best of her.

"We've sent you to this school to help you find yourself, my scorpion," Gomez notices this and takes it upon himself to give his daughter one last reassurance.

"You've sent me to this school to help me find the version of myself you want me to be," Iris allows herself to express her concerns about her family's expectations for her now.

"Of course not," Gomez guarantees with a slight shake of Iris's shoulders. "Always remember, you are perfect the way you are. All we've ever wanted for you was happiness. . . and torture. What better place to give that to you than here?"

"I know," Iris looks down, feeling ridiculous now. She knows her parents love her almost as much as they love each other. "I think I'm just scared to disappoint you."

"Oh, you could never disappoint us, my dark void," Gomez pulls Iris in for a deep hug. "You're mother is leaving Wednesday with a crystal ball, and we'll talk to you in a week," he then parts with.

Iris nods as she moves to stand next to Wednesday who's just finishing her conversation with their mother, crystal ball case in hand.

"Bye," Iris waves after the hearse and Pugsley who's waving through the window as Wednesday just stares darkly.

Freshly charged with her father's words of reassurance, Iris takes a deep breath and turn to walk back into the school.

"Come on," Wednesday turns similarly, but with different intentions. "We need to come up with our escape plan."

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

"An Iris," Iris acknowledges as Ms. Thornhill hands her a potted plant in her dorm room.

Yoko, the roommate, is still nowhere to be seen, and Iris was just finishing neatly displaying her vinyls on a small shelf where her record player rested when the school's plant teacher - or whatever she does - and her dorm head came in to properly introduce herself.

"You're lucky, this was the last one I had left after my crop died out from root poisoning," Ms. Thornhill explains in response before going into her spiel about dorm rules and whatnot. Iris goes to put her namesake plant on the same shelf her records rest on as Ms. Thornhill changes the subject:

"So, your sister-" Iris almost rolls her eyes. She loves Wednesday more than life itself, but she'd like to have a conversation with someone at least once in her life without them somehow weaseling her psycho sister into it - and she uses psycho as the highest form of compliment.

"Whatever trouble she's caused you-" Iris starts her rehearsed apology that she's used to giving teachers when Wednesday does something out of pocket and leaves Iris to explain how her sister's complex personality causes her to be kinda a bitch sometimes.

"No, no, nothing like that," Ms. Thornhill hastily interrupts. "Not yet at least," she adds quieter to herself. "Just, she's very. . . eccentric, isn't she?"

"That's a word."

"I just mean-" Ms. Thornhill finds Iris's dry remark amusing, "-is she always so. . ."

"Rude? Terrifying? Alarming? Strange? Unnerving? Sinister? Daunting?" Iris lists as Thornhill trails off.

"Isolated?" The redhead fills in her own word.

"Oh," Iris takes in the considerably tame adjective. "Well, yeah, of course." As Wednesday's said quite often, why be around others when you can by yourself.

Iris has never really agreed with the statement.

Sure, she took a quiz and her personality type is ISTJ (something about being introverted and logic-based), but somewhere in the back of her mind, growing up feeling like she doesn't fit in - too normal for her family, to weird for other people - Iris finds herself trying to fit into any and every conversation just to feel like she belongs somewhere.

"Well," Ms. Thornhill recognizes she's lost Iris to her own thoughts and claps her hands as a placeholder movement. "I'll let you settle in."

And she walks out the door, leaving Iris alone in the room once again.

a/n:
spending too much time watching tavier edits instead of writing this story anyway lmk what u think :)