"aggression, affection, violence, love

how does she separate them when she learned so early that they're inextricably bound,

tangled in a constant tug-of-war"

-

Iris lays in her bed with a snoozing Michael next to her. She winces every time he shifts, the movement making him hit one of her bruises or bumps.

She lays awake all that night as she thought about her love. All of her relationships have been like this. Not that she had many, but they were all alike. She didn't enjoy this time with him anymore, but she didn't speak a word about it in fear of setting Michael off.

It's the next morning as he asks her to run away with him. To leave this town and to travel around the country with him. New faces, new places-it's all she's ever wanted. His hands with hers, she goes to tell her parents who live only a few miles away from her. They hear the news and their faces fall. Their sweet, innocent, young girl is leaving them.

It's back to the fighting and yelling she's used to, this time with her parents. Iris had grown up with the sound of anger and eventually had fallen right back into it. Michael had left, as Iris's parents had asked him to. As Michael leaves, he angrily bumps into Luke without spitting out an apology. Luke's heading inside to see his best friend.

Luke is faced with two angry parents who aren't thrilled to see him, considering they're in the middle of something important. He waits patiently in the living room, as he decides if he needs to leave since they're fighting about Iris wanting to move away with Michael. His heart breaks at the roaring voices, but he's used to it. He's been over plenty of times where either her parents are fighting with each other or Iris is fighting with them.

A smack and a second of silence is all it takes for Luke to come rushing in. He finds Iris looking as stoic as ever, her parents standing in front of her as they've seen a ghost. At first he doesn't know what to do, but he watches as her mother steps forward with tears brimming at her eyes, mumbling a thousand apologies. Her father pulls his wife back, taking them both away from the two teenagers and upstairs to
their master bedroom.

Iris turns to Luke as if nothing had happened.

"Did she-"

"Yeah."

That conversation was all it took for him to take her hand in his and lead her out of the house. He originally came to tell her something important, but he decided it could wait.

He couldn't imagine how she was feeling, having her own mother have a quick palm against her cheek. The more he thought about it, the weirder it seemed. Iris didn't even react. He knew she'd been hit once by Ashton, who she dated freshman year. He was oblivious to the rest. It didn't seem to affect her anymore.

As for Iris in the moment, she kept silently scolding herself for making her mother angry, for making both of her parents angry. No parents deserve to have a fire burning underneath their feet. She knew that she was hit out of frustration and that her mother was just worried and frustrated, and she instantly forgave her for it. At least she had said she loved her.