✾ Iris ✾

I ran my hand over the canvas, smoothing my fingertips along the edge and letting my nail catch on a seam. I swear I could feel his heart beating beneath the blank surface like a hummingbird's. It thrummed with possibility.

But I wasn't ready yet. I couldn't pick up a brush. Something inside of me was paralyzed. Or maybe it was something in him. I couldn't tell which.

I wanted to listen. I did. But he didn't want to talk. Beau was the chipped teacup, discarded in the corner. He was alone. 

It wasn't pity I felt. I didn't want to be his savior. It was as much myself that I was digging out of the hole as it was him.

I walked quietly into his room. He'd left the door ajar, probably so that the breeze would cool him down as he slept. The floorboards creaked a little bit as I walked, but he didn't even stir. I knelt slowly beside his bed.

Those wild curls sprawled across his pillow. His eyelashes fluttered a little bit, golden in the morning sunlight. His lips were slightly parted.

"Hey." My own voice surprised me. I sounded strange. "Copper. Hey." He didn't move.

I clenched my jaw and sighed, giving up. I hadn't wanted to touch him because I knew I would replay the moment in my head later. "Copper," I repeated. I reached out and touched his arm. His skin was soft. Fuck. "It's nine," I said. I shook him a little.

Finally, his warm brown eyes cracked open a sliver. He seemed confused. I smiled. "Good morning."

He raised his head slowly. I watched as consciousness returned to him. He glanced around the room, trying to ground himself. "You're a heavy sleeper, huh?" I said, amused.

Beau looked at me and smiled. I felt lighter. "Yeah," he said. "Sorry."

"I envy you," I said, standing up. "Come on, though. I made you breakfast."

"Food?" he questioned. He shot up at that, his blanket falling away. He wasn't wearing a shirt. My eyes lingered on his smooth chest a little bit too long. Beau wasn't necessarily fit, but there was something so beautiful about his body. His skin was a creamy coffee color, warm. But it was a new kind of warm I hadn't yet encountered, one that quietly existed instead of clamoring for attention.

He was just so unusual, with his flaming red hair and dark skin. It made me wonder what his parents had looked like and how such a paradox of a human could exist.

"Food," I confirmed. "You're not a vegetarian, are you?"

He shook his head. I nodded. "Good. Get dressed. I'll be in the kitchen."

I still felt guilty. Beau was younger than me, yes. But worse, I'd taken him in while he was vulnerable. I could tell that he was scared. It felt sort of like he'd imprinted on me in a time of need, and I was just leading him along like a stray duckling.

I hated that I loved it a little bit. I liked that he relied on me because if he needed me, he wouldn't be able to go far. And I wanted him to stay. 

❦

Ren. Ren. Ren. Ren.

I groaned loudly, dragging my hands across and smacking my face lightly. I tugged my shirt over my head, staring at myself in the mirror. The color of my hair clashed violently with my red t-shirt, but I didn't care. It didn't really matter.

What did matter? It mattered how screwed I was. I woke up to Ren's face and felt. My whole body had ached with emotion. It was good. It was really good.

Which was bad. What right did I have? Since when did my shriveled, wasted heart have enough blood in it to beat for Ren?

I headed to the kitchen. Breakfast was good, unsurprisingly. Ren could cook well.

"I'm dysfunctional," I said out of nowhere. But where do you slip something like that into a conversation? It felt like the end of our nonsense small talk. Or maybe it was the end of what came next, even before it began. As if Ren would ever let a statement like that be final. I meant for it to be. Or, I thought I did. But what I believed felt slippery these days.

I was expecting something else when he said, "Me, too."

I wouldn't have accepted a simple: no, you're not dysfunctional. But this was better. This was more than that.

"You don't seem like it," I said, attempting to balance my fork on the edge of my plate.

"We all are...at least, a little," Ren said, standing up and picking up my plate.

"Thanks," I said quietly, watching him turn around. He nodded as he did, dropping my plate in the sink. I watched him without saying anything as he squeaked the faucet on. The comforting sound of water running filled the silence.

"How are you dysfunctional?" I asked finally.

Ren didn't stop washing the dishes. He didn't turn around. "A lot of ways. I'm living alone, fresh out of quitting college and barely making a living."

I bit my lip and stared at my hands in my lap. "That's not what I meant." I said it so quietly I assumed the clanking of dishes would have drowned it out.

But he heard me. "I know," Ren said. He turned the water off and picked up a towel, drying his hands as he turned around. He looked at me, and I looked at him. He held the towel tightly. "To be honest, I'm alone for a reason. My past, the life I've lived...I'm not sure I'm capable of letting anyone in."

Ren turned back around, putting the towel on the counter. "Not even sure what love feels like these days."

I swallowed and traced a darker vein in the wood of the kitchen table with my fingertip. "It feels...good, I think."

Ren turned and looked at me over his shoulder. I realized abruptly that my sentence could have been misinterpreted. Ren was probably straight, so maybe he hadn't even thought about it. But I found myself stumbling over my words anyway. "I mean, I loved my mom. It was good. It is good, I guess. But also bad. I mean-"

"I get it," Ren said, that smirk rearing its devastating head again.

"Yeah," I said, pulling my knees to my chest and resting my bare feet on my chair.

"So, how are you dysfunctional, Copper?" Ren asked.

I felt the question like a sledgehammer. "I just am."

"Vaguest answer you could have given me, but I guess if you don't want to tell me, that's fi-"

"I want to do so much, but I don't want to," I blurted. My face heated up. I clutched my knees. "I want to live, but I can't."

Ren had frozen. He was staring at me like I'd pressed his pause button. Finally, he hit play again. "What do you want to do?"

I glared angrily at my knees. "I want to be something."

"Be something," he repeated.

My heart grew heavy. I felt the grief before I realized what was happening. It was like a tsunami had somehow crept up on me, huge and world-shattering yet invisible until the very moment before landfall. It was too late to do anything about it now. All I could do was sit there and suffocate.

"I want to make my mom proud, but I don't know..." My tears came fast. I could barely breathe through them. I collapsed in on myself, grasping the table to steady my body. I pressed my other hand against my chest to keep my heart from falling out, already broken before it could even hit the ground. "I don't know how to do that without her."

Ren's face shattered. I thought of all the moments he'd touched me before. I cherished them, like the first buds blooming in spring. Something was changing. I had to believe that.

I needed it now. I felt my will draining out of me, my strength. I was leaning forward now, relying on the table to hold me up. I needed hope. He probably never thought of those stolen moments, the ones that were branded into my heart. But I wanted to believe they were real because nothing else felt real.

Ren slowly closed the distance between us. I sat there sobbing, shaking, waiting for him. I tilted my head back as he got closer, meeting his eyes. I knew I looked a mess, but I didn't care. I just wanted to be close.

Ren reached for me with an urgency I wasn't expecting. He stood beside my chair. His cold hands fell onto either side of my face, guiding me closer to him. I latched onto him, grabbing his shirt tightly with both hands. I could feel the solidity of his hips beneath my hands, masked mildly by the soft fabric he wore.

One of his arms rested across my shaking shoulders, keeping me close. The other hand lingered by my face, soon moving to stroke my hair. I sobbed openly, crying out in pain as he held me. It was the only way I could communicate my grief to Ren, to the world, to myself. "Copper," he whispered, but it only made me cry harder.

Eventually, my cries quieted down. My tears didn't stop, though. I still felt the burn and ache behind my eyes. They were probably puffy and reddish. But Ren's hand never stopped weaving in and out of my curls.

"Can you stand?" he asked quietly.

I nodded weakly, my face still resting against his solid stomach. "Come on, then," he said, easing me forward on my chair. I forced my legs to straighten, but Ren had to pull me a bit of the way. I followed him as he guided me to the living room.

"Lie down," Ren said.

I did, more collapsing onto the couch than reclining. He sat near my head. "Lift your head up, Copper." I did, weakly. He slid beneath my neck, letting me rest my head on his lap. His hand returned to my hair, touching me to remind me that I wasn't alone. It was real. Everything was real.

I closed my eyes, letting him comfort me. "Sorry," I whispered.

"My mom used to do this for me," Ren said, hushed. Cars honked far below us. The window curtains blew like specters in my room. I focused on the sound of his voice and my own heartbeat. "When I was hurt. When I was sad. When I cried. She would say to me..."

I waited, realizing only in that moment of suspense that my tears had ceased.

"All you have to do is breathe."