ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.
"See, I don't trust this Lyra girl," Iris' mom confessed, twirling her glass of rosé like the sommelier she enjoyed acting like. "I don't know, baby. There's something . . . off about her. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is, but I don't think she brings out the best in you." She sipped her wine, lips delicately puckering around the mouth of the glass. "I know people. It's my job to read them. She just screams troubled and trouble to me."
That almost made Iris giggle and correct her, although she restrained herself. Mischa Fox was many things, but she wasn't a therapist or a counselor, and she knew people because she charged them enough to learn all about their likes and dislikes, their dreams and worst case scenarios.
She enjoyed drinking and the finer things in life—she could certainly afford them, thanks to a successful career as the CEO of a wedding planning agency, endorsed by various celebrities—but her knowledge didn't run as deep as she believed it to. She knew what tasted good—all wines, especially whites, and most cocktails that didn't include egg whites, so no whisky sours, thank you very much—and what didn't, and wasn't overly worried about undertones.
Iris didn't mind, though; it was that money that was paying for her college tuition and had allowed her to live more than just comfortably, however undeserving of it she found herself to be. She was grateful to have grown up with the opportunities that she had, but, most of all, her gratitude was directed towards her mom having an occupation that kept her happy and distracted whenever Iris couldn't be there for her.
So, when Iris realized they had to play opposite roles for once in their lives and she could no longer act like the parent (when she shouldn't have ever had to do, in retrospect; she was the child, her mom was the adult), she just had to seek refuge in the one place she knew how to call home—wherever her mom was.
The dangerous thing about turning other human beings into your home was how fickle and unpredictable they were, which could leave you stranded without warning, and Iris suspected it was why she hadn't ever found the courage to put Lyra through it.
Her mom had always been more constant, easier to predict, and a child's bond with their mother was unlike any other—blood or not, that was the person who deemed you worthy or not of salvation. That was the person who might not have birthed you, but had given you a home nevertheless—not just a physical one, with a wall, windows, and a roof, but had enveloped you in her arms when you were at your lowest. When you were shipwrecked.
"She's not that bad," Iris argued, knowing full well her descriptions of Lyra in this timeline weren't painting her in the best light, not like she would do originally. Though her mom had hardly been Lyra's biggest fan, she'd always been thoughtful enough to keep the biting comments to herself, especially following her death, mostly because her relationship with Iris, however it had ended, had been generally friendlier and more digestible. "We're just going through a rough patch."
"Honey." She set her glass of wine aside. "Do I need to remind you why you're here and what you told me over the phone?"
Iris gritted her teeth. If regrets could kill, she'd be the drowned one, not Lyra, but she'd had no choice.
She'd had no one or nowhere else to turn to, terrified she had screwed things up for good, and it wasn't like she'd been expecting her mom to pick up the phone and invite her to spend a couple days with her. Sophomore year was supposed to be demanding, after all—and it was kicking Iris' butt, even the second time around—but she'd never known how to say no to her mom. She'd been the one to ask (beg) for help and couldn't turn her back on the hand that reached out towards her to offer it, so there she was.
Embarrassment coated all her thoughts, all her actions, and, though she had more pressing matters to be concerned about—Lyra, always Lyra, alone with people Iris didn't know, engaging in dangerous behaviors simply because she felt robbed off her freedom and, worst of all, felt suffocated and stifled—she couldn't help but feel like she was treading dangerously close to rock bottom.
"Look, honey, I know you like this girl, but you can't expect her whole life to revolve around you simply because you're so concerned something bad is going to happen," Mischa expertly said. Iris had retained enough strength of spirit and common sense to not tell her she'd rewound time and that this conversation hadn't actually happened, as it would be yet another complication she wouldn't know how to explain. "You'll have to trust her. Even if she's giving you no reason to, even if you're basing all these concerns on previous bad experiences, there's only so much you can do. People aren't machines. They're not meant to be perfect. They're supposed to mess up sometimes, even you."
"I know." Iris picked at her Caesar salad, the last thing she wanted to eat with a sore throat. Her mom's kitchen skills had improved considerably, with the divorce having been finalized, and, when she had a break from work, she dedicated herself to learning how to cook and bake to keep herself occupied. It beat having to face an empty house filled with memories, so she'd been doing a much better job than the Iris from the original timeline had done when she chose to return to Emelle Bay. "In theory, I know that. It's just . . . I'm always worried about her. I don't know how to not be worried about her, especially when things keep getting worse. Our relationship is in shambles, and I can't tell whether she's self-destructing because she knows I'll want to stop her or because she thinks I can't."
"Or maybe it's not about you at all."
Iris knitted her brows together. "How is it not about me? It's all I've been doing ever since we first met. Something happens, and I have to bail her out; she keeps saying that's not what it's about, but then she'll resent me for not being there for her. I know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I weren't there for her, either, so there's not much I can do here, is it?"
"Iris." Her mom sighed, then leaned forward to take her hands. For the first time in forever, the butterflies hadn't forced their way into the room, looming menacingly by the windows. "I know you have the best intentions, and I understand this is what your heart is convincing you needs to be done, but you're not a doctor. You're not a surgeon. It's not your job to fix people. It's not your job to save them. If not even psychotherapists can do it by themselves without the person continuing to make that choice by themselves, for themselves, over and over until it's cemented, what makes you think this is your responsibility to carry?"
Iris hated that she had to do a double take then and there.
To properly answer that question, she would have to explain everything to strenuous detail—time rewinding included. She would have to explain exactly why she was so invested in saving Lyra and her life to the extent that she was and why she was separating the two things; after all, you could physically save someone from death, which was considerably easier to do at times than the former.
She knew all of that. She knew. She also knew she couldn't be fully honest with her mom, and her heart digested itself with all the lies she had been swallowing. It was as though she was taking sips of acid.
"You can't save people from themselves, especially when they don't want you to," Mischa continued, refilling her glass. It was just her second, so she hadn't turned into a functioning alcoholic—yet.
It hadn't happened in the real timeline, either, as she'd kept herself healthy and occupied through the aftermath of the divorce and a shattered mirrorball of a daughter thanks to her job and assorted hobbies. She'd made it out, while Iris had gone the opposite path, allowing grief to consume her instead of the other way around. Normal people learned to live around their grief until it became comfortable, until it didn't bother them anymore, but Iris had clung to it because it was the only thing Lyra had left her with. In a way, it hadn't been her fault, but she couldn't blame the dead love of her life for her inability to move on.
Then who could she blame? Who could explain why she was so unable to move on? Hadn't she developed those time rewinding powers exactly because she couldn't move forward with her life post-Lyra? Even before Lyra's death, she'd still been holding on to the smallest details, chasing every piece of her she could clench her fingers around although she had run away from her—she had crossed an entire country to steer clear from Emelle Bay, Lyra Sinclair, and all its trauma and drama.
"I know," she whispered, staring at her half-eaten salad. "It's more complicated than it sounds, and I can't explain it. Everything I do pulls me right back to her, like this is what I'm destined to do, but the harder I try to reach out, the harder I reach for her and try to help, the further away she gets from me. I love her, she loves me, and it's not enough." She sniffled, watching as a fat tear fell onto her bowl. It was humiliating. "She thinks it's useless, all this help I've been trying to offer. All the help I have offered. She feels stifled. I need her to be okay. It's the only thing I'm here to do, and I can't do that."
Mischa wrapped an arm around her shoulders, snuggling her close. "You're here to do beautiful things, baby girl." With her free hand, she placed her index and middle fingers under Iris' chin to make her raise her head, which she did without much resistance. She was too drained to fight back, staring back at her mom's cerulean eyes—the same shade as hers. She saw nothing but clear blue skies, but, somehow, her own looked murky and dull. "You're here to make friends, to love and be loved, to grow as a person, but you need to allow yourself to want to do those things. You need to take a good look at yourself and remind yourself there's only one person in this world you can save. And that's not Lyra Sinclair. It's not me."
"Is it me?"
"It's always you. You're here to love. You're here to save yourself, and let the world love you back. The longer you spend chasing a comet who doesn't want to be caught or redirected, the more hopeless you'll feel. I know it's not easy," she added, when Iris dared to look away for a fraction of a second, "and I understand it will feel like the most foreign thing in the world to you when you've spent your whole life looking after other people and putting them first, but this is your time. It's time for you to show yourself as much grace, as much kindness as you do other people." She paused, dropping her hand from Iris' hand once it was clear she wouldn't run away. "It's time for you to give people the opportunity to choose to save themselves, too. It's not about fate to me, but, if people repeatedly chase the same goal, even if unconsciously, they're bound to reach it. Whether it's a good goal or not."
The hand squeezing Iris' heart, threatening to explode it, eased its grip just enough for her to catch her breath. It sounded different, more serious when Mischa said it—she didn't know the full story, not like she did, or the majority of it, like in Lyra's case. It was a different, fresh perspective from someone who didn't know nor needed to know the full context to be helpful.
Iris would much rather immolate herself than give up, especially after all the suffering, all the pieces she'd shattered herself into for Lyra's sake, but there was a side of her that knew what she had to do—no matter how much it would hurt her.
That pain would be temporary. Redoing the same things, rewinding time on repeat only to reach the same ending ad infinitum would make no one happy, and she couldn't do that to Lyra, either. It would be like deciding she had to stay just because she could, but overusing her powers was actively harming her now.
Usually, she wouldn't mind. It would mean she was succeeding. Now that it was evident she wasn't—she'd been causing the exact opposite effect than intended—she knew, deep in her heart, it was time to protect her own limits for once. It was time to let Lyra save herself—if she so wanted to.
Iris exhaled.
Outside, the swarm of butterflies finally relented.
ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.
one more chapter + an epilogue (if i have the words for it). oh baby
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