Eyes of Iris (COMPLETE)

| 2 |:| Life As It Is |

I nodded. "Would have been better to have an excuse to spend the night."

Sarah captured Geo's averted eyes. "I didn't know you were even trying out for the dance team."

Geo shrugged. "I wasn't going to, but I..." Geo trailed off poking at her nachos. "I told myself I would you know senior year and all."

I nodded chancing a glance at Rob. I sighed. He was laughing at something Dave Giles said. Rachel tossed her blond hair showing her phone to Rob.

Why weren't guts something I was born with? I pulled on one of my curls. Or super shiny blonde hair. Life would be easier, right?

*~~~*~~~*

"Iris?" I looked up at my mother from the pencil sketch i was barely paying attention to.

"Yeah ma?"

"Your math teacher called."

I nodded. "Mhm." Uh oh. They didn't waste any time did they?

"Are you going to be ready for the quiz?"

I frowned at her. "Of course." I lied. Geo was supposed to be helping me but she wasn't returning any of my calls. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Mother nodded and leaned on the computer desk to face me. "I know you've been through alot lately is all but if you fail this next test you could lose your scholarship. "

Oh crap the scholarship! "Mom I'm fine, really." I really needed to stop lying. I quickly navigated to the scholarship website to check when the application was due. I tried to hide my look of relief when I saw the deadline hadn't passed yet.

My mother nodded and looked away as if there was something else, but she was debating on whether to say it.

"You can say it. Whatever it is."

She smiled hesitantly. "I never asked why you were over there, at Mrs. McDowell's, in the middle of the night."

I looked down for a moment. "I go there to think."

She frowned and crossed her arms. "Think about what?"

Oh how you and dad never shut up long enough for me to get a decent night's sleep. Think about how things would be better if you and dad would just get a divorce already and stop making Issie and me suffer. Think about getting the hell out of this house, city, better yet state for college.

All of those things would have crushed my mother's already fragile hold on reality so instead I said, "I go there to think sometimes when... things get loud over here."

It was guilt that washed my mother's soft features. "Aw sweetheart. I'm so sorry it's just..."

"You don't need to explain." I didn't really want to know.

"I think I do. Your father and I have been going through some things for quite some time as you know, but we're trying to work things out for you and Isabell."

I stood up a lump in my throat. "For us? You think yelling at each other until crazy hours of the night it good for us? I think alternate weekends would be better than that. At least we'd be able to sleep through the night." I winced after the words came pouring out like water from a hose, unchecked, uncharted, uncensored.

"Iris..."

"No mom really." I was already on a roll, a boulder plowing down a hill there was no stopping me.

"Well divorce isn't as easy as it sounds either. I would have thought you'd want us to work it out."

"Face it. You two are miserable. We see that. We're not stupid." Unfortunately, my mother was the town at the bottom of the hill.

"I never thought you were." My mother ran shaking flustered hands through her thick mane of curls. "Your sister and I are going to the mall to do some late school shopping. Did you want to come?"

"When did you and Issie ever do anything together voluntarily?"

My mother stood up tears threatening her calm. "A simple no would have been sufficient."

I did feel bad when I saw her walk away, shoulders slumped arms wrapped tightly around her midsection. I was just so fed up with so much. I tried so hard to take a brighter outlook on life like Mrs. McDowell encouraged me. I tried to water good seeds and be positive, but so much negativity surrounded me I was drowning. How was I going to survive without her? I laughed as her words played in my head:

"The thing about seeds is that if you water them they grow. If you pour life on bad seeds negative energy will prosper and grow if you pour life on good seeds however..." Mrs. McDowell looked up at me from the crouched position in her garden.

"Somehow I think I already know where you're going with this."

"So wise so young." There was a twinkle in her oceanic blue eyes.

We laughed. She was a beautiful woman inside and out.

When I turned off the shower water I groaned. The arguing started early. Maybe it would end early too. I ran a big toothed comb through my curls while I wandered over to the window that looked at Mrs. McDowell's house. Even under the dim moonlight, I could make out her rose bushes. She was always out there caring for her landscape. They were like children to her. I frowned when a light clicked on in the basement. I knew I shouldn't have felt so upset, almost betrayed but I was. That was my space. I closed the blinds and made my way over to the bed. I couldn't imagine someone else pruning Mrs. McDowell's shrubs or trimming her rose bushes.

There were just too many variables in my life and I wanted stability.

____________________

|:| A/N |:|

I'm not in high school anymore. In fact, it's been a minute...or two since I've been in high school so it was a wonderful challenge to write from this perspective. Ode to high school politics and all that drama lol. 

Hope you are enjoying the journey so far don't forget to leave me a COMMENT / VOTE. Until the next time. ;)