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When Iris was in seventh grade, she had a crush on Steve Palmer. He was in Barry’s homeroom class, and she would always talk to him while she waited for Barry to go back in his classroom three times to grab things he’d forgotten so they could walk together to first period.
He could do jumps on his skateboard, and he always noticed when she added new charms to her charm bracelet.
Before the first dance, Iris enlisted her friend Jennifer to talk to Steve and ask him to ask Iris to the dance. Jennifer approached him at morning break with Iris just within earshot.
“Do you like anyone?” Jennifer had ventured demurely. She was so good at this.
He’d shrugged.
“Well, what about…Iris?” She suggested. Casually. Of course.
He’d shrugged again. “She’s black,” he’d said quietly. Like it was an answer. Iris had supposed it was.
Iris was popular. That wasn’t supposed to have happened to her. She was confused, but she shrugged it off, and her cheery demeanor convinced Jennifer she had forgotten about it by lunch. Iris went to the dance anyway, alone, and left early with Barry to go to the comic book store since new issues came out that afternoon.
On their way home, they invented a game where they each had to summarize the comic books they had just read in ten words. The game quickly morphed into a bizarre storytelling competition where they each tried to make up increasingly difficult ten word stories, laughing hysterically at the results. By the time they got home, Iris honestly wasn’t thinking about the dance anymore.
When Iris was sixteen Luke Griffin came to her sweet sixteen birthday party. The party was actually the week after she turned sixteen because on her actual sixteenth birthday, Barry, who was a month older, drove them to Starling City to see Stevie Wonder play. They had been given permission to stay out until 1 am, and brought home a t-shirt for Joe in return.
The night of her party, Iris was putting on make-up when she decided to try to go for a smoky eye look that she had been practicing for weeks before bed. She followed the YouTube tutorial perfectly, and was rewarded with a bright smile from Barry who deemed her “gorgeous.” But Barry always said stuff like that.
When Luke arrived, he had given her a once over and a small nod hello before joining some of his friends already inside. Later that night while analyzing his reaction, Iris’ friend Liana relayed information she had heard.
“Luke said you looked nice, but that your make-up just looks kind of ghetto,” she had explained, clearly unaware of the bombshell she was dropping. Iris has laughed softly and rolled her eyes, grateful that her bubbly personality had become such a convenient defense mechanism in these moments. She faked a phone call from her dad an hour later to get everyone out of the house, and told Barry she was just “birthday’d out.” She headed upstairs to take a shower.
The make-up washed off. The embarrassment didn’t. When she came out Barry suggested a movie, but Iris was too tired. Instead, they agreed on making up ten word bedtime stories, which weirdly helped Iris fall asleep.
When Iris was eighteen she lost her virginity to her first college boyfriend Eric Barns. He was a sophomore, and they shared a major and a handful of classes. They only dated for a few weeks, but Iris was ready, and insisted they get tested and be safe and she felt very proud of her sexual maturity. They had her dorm room to themselves because her roommate was out of town, and when they finished, she had rolled over to grab a headscarf to tie her hair up before bed.
Before she left for college, the only person who had ever seen her tie her hair up at night had been Barry, and he had always watched in quiet interest when she did it. One night he insisted she teach him, a request that came in handy sophomore year in high school when she sprained her wrist and couldn’t do it herself for a month. He had tied her hair so gently, choosing which of the four scarves she kept by her bed he would use so carefully, it had seemed romantic. So when she turned to Eric and asked him to help her, she had done so as a gesture of vulnerability. Which is why it stung when he laughed awkwardly and told her he didn’t know how, and asked her to forgo the scarf because her hair looked so pretty down, and declared it would make her look like Aunt Jemima. She didn’t sleep that night, and when he left the next morning, it was for good.
And that was why. That was why every time Barry looked at her a little longer than he needed to, or stood closer than would have strictly speaking been necessary to see whatever she was showing him, or smiled at her like she was the only thing on earth that had ever been worthy of being smiled at. That was why every time he treated her like more than a friend, but different than a sister, or she caught him watching her when she wasn’t paying attention, or he seemed like maybe he was trying to work up the nerve to say…something. She suspected it could be – but never let herself think just maybe – he could have feelings for her.
It wasn’t that Iris was oblivious. It’s that she was quite observant. And she had been here too many times before to be fooled again.
So when Barry confesses his feelings for Iris, her tears are out of confusion. And frustration. And then anger.
“Why didn’t you tell me before I found someone, Barry?” She asks quietly. So quietly, she’s afraid she didn’t actually say it out loud. It turns out she had said it out loud. But he had already left.
The next week is hard. Full of awkward run-ins and fake smiles in front of people trying to mask the tension. She can count the texts they send each other on one hand, and that’s the first time she can say that since they went on an unlimited family plan when they were fourteen.
The week after that, she can’t help being short and petulant with Barry. She reminds herself that he’s hurting too, but it all comes to a head after she can’t stop herself from taking a cheap shot when she comes home to grab a box of DVDs she had left behind when she first moved out. He’s eating cereal out of the box when she walks in. He makes a joke asking her not to rat him out to Joe, and she responds by saying, “like the time I enrolled in the Academy and you sold me out?”
And it’s not fair. And it was years ago. And he’s apologized to her for that so many times, and she’s forgiven him just as many. But even so, now they’re fighting about it again like it was yesterday and finally he stops them.
“Jesus, Iris, come on! If you’re going to be pissed at me, can it please be about what you’re actually pissed about?”
“Barry, you don’t know what I’m actually pissed about,” she seethes.
“Look, I’m sorry. OK? I put you in a horrible position. I know that. But I couldn’t keep lying to you about – ”
“Barry – ”
“If it means we can go back, please just forget I ever said anything – ”
“Please don’t.” Iris’ voice is desperate, and she almost doesn’t recognize it because she’s speaking through tears, and she doesn’t remember when she started crying.
“Don’t what?” Barry freezes.
“Don’t take it back. Don’t – please don’t take it back.”
Barry looks at Iris and she’s shaking a little, and when he moves toward her, she takes a small step back, so he stands still.
“I don’t – ‘don’t take it back’?” Barry is incredulous. “How are you asking me not to – you didn’t say anything, Iris!”
“You didn’t say anything, Barry!”
“No, I’m talking about after I told you I loved you. You didn’t say anything!”
“And I’m talking about our entire lives!” Iris bellows. You didn’t say anything! And that’s just…cruel.”
Iris’ voice breaks, and she’s crying again, and Barry just looks at her, destroyed. “After everything I’ve been through – after everything you watched me go through – asking me to assume it was anything more than what you told me it was is just mean. So you now? Resenting me because I didn’t see it earlier? That’s actually an act of cruelty, Barry.”
When Iris walks out she doesn’t take the box of DVDs with her, and for a moment she considers going back and giving a sheepish smile while she collects the box, once again letting her ever-present smile and quick-to-forgive personality smooth the entire situation over and silently communicate on her behalf that none of it is really that big of a deal. But that doesn’t feel right this time. So she leaves.
The next week is cold, and they barely speak. Iris is quietly devastated, but she smiles a lot, and no one seems to notice. Sometimes she wishes she were a slightly worse liar, but she genuinely wonders if she would have survived growing up in Central City if she were.
The week after that Eddie brings a box home from the precinct that he says Barry dropped off for her. It’s the DVDs, which she expected. But inside she also finds a charm bracelet, a black eye shadow and eyeliner, and one of the headscarves she used to use in high school that she always suspected he’d stolen when he left for college. He also leaves a note that brings tears to her eyes, even though it’s only ten words. “I should have told you sooner. Sorry – I’m always late.”