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Iris imagined that the reason Barry’s tears were dampening the top of her head and his body was shaking with sobs was because he was overwhelmed. She could relate, and mused on it as she tucked Barry into his single bed, and placed his head on her lap so she could stroke his hair.
Barry's name etched into her skin hadn't been exactly what she'd expected either. A swelling part of her had wanted it more than anything. But wanting something didn't mean expecting it and Iris definitely hadn't seen it coming.
Barry’s own twenty-first birthday had come and gone without a peep about the identity of his soulmate. Iris had assumed it was like what happened to most; Barry didn’t know who his soulmate was and didn’t plan to seek them out so their name was irrelevant to everyone but him.
On the night of his twenty-first, in her room Iris had packed up her feelings for Barry. It was strange that she’d thought she could, now that she looked at his relaxed sleeping face. But at the time she had theorized that it had all been a childhood crush, though she knew that was far from the truth. She’d always harbored feelings for Barry and they always meant...something. But to Iris, her unresolved feelings weren't as important as Barry feeling safe, happy, and secure, and so she’d had to let go of those feelings, though it had been difficult to accept that the best person to protect Barry was his soulmate because Iris had been doing just fine at that their whole lives.
But she tried. She attempted to fake it, always too bright and too tactile with Barry. She may as well have been constantly shouting, ‘This is fine! It doesn’t mean anything.’ Though she knew it was a lie.
At least until that morning, where she realised she didn’t have to try anymore.
When morning came, she’d been giddily excited about the concept of a soulmate. Barry had been as far from her thoughts as he could be (which really wasn’t far at all).
At the sound of her alarm she'd had bounded out of bed excited but trepidatory. Her hands had been shaking as she’d peeled back her covers. She’d been frantic in her sleep and had kicked every single pillow off of her bed. Her unfinished assignment on supply and demand was settled on her desk, where last night she’d pressed the pen nib too far into the paper and it had torn. It was scary; her life was so full with assignments and being inspired and finding herself and... family (including Barry) that she couldn't imagine herself being swept off of her feet by some guy.
It made so much sense to read Barry's name off of her skin. When she’d first turned around to regard the itchy skin on the back of her neck she hadn’t been able to read it properly. Her eyes had been full of tears that blurred her vision, but she still knew it was him. She’d be able to recognise his small, non-descript scrawl anywhere after the countless caffeinated hours they’d stayed up to help each other with essays. This changed everything about what she’d previously thought about soulmates. Her soulmate, it wasn't just 'some guy' at all. It was Barry!
Of course her life felt full! Her soulmate had been there all along. She assumed Barry hadn’t told her because he didn’t want to pressure her into a relationship. It was so like him to stand on the side-lines and wait for her. It wasn't her favourite decision. She didn't like having secrets between them. She’d have liked to know what was coming. She could have had a year of dealing with this thing between them before it came to fruition on her own skin.
She fell back onto her bed and lay in a surprised daze.For a long while she'd been afraid of some unknown male entity with sinewy limbs and stout legs invading her personal space. She always imagined electric shavers and gross AXE body products. She grinned as she realised that Barry would never do that. When he stayed over he always tried to grow out his facial hair, forcing Iris (for the good of her corneas) to chase him around with a cheap orange razor and her tropical fruit scented shaving foam. After last year when he'd given her a giant shaving foam beard and she'd threatened to thread his moustache in the night he seemed to be fine with shaving to appease Iris. That was the summation of their relationship to Iris. Barry had never been threatening to her. He didn't know how to be. Their relationship consisted of playfully pushing each other out of their comfort zones and loving so much the people they were when they were with one another.
Iris rustled through her wardrobe for her photo albums. She seeked out a particular one from when they were sixteen and seventeen. The leather backed album was covered in 'BFF' and 'Best Friend!' stickers from a magazine that Iris had religiously followed during teenage years.
Iris giggled as she looked through the photographic evidence of their short-lived rebellious stages. Barry's frosted tips and her dedication towards brown lipstick and rings of smudgy eyeliner were equally embarrassing. At least they’d been together for it. Iris remembered kissing Barry on the cheek at a house party and leaving a rusty smear of lipstick. He had definitely noticed it but hadn't cleaned it off for the whole night.
Iris’ giggles gave way to pensivity when she found two photographs of them on Spirit Day. Iris was cheerful with bows in her hair. Barry was her opposite, moody, pale and trying his best to be uninvolved. He’d found his enthusiasm when Iris won National Debate. She had run towards him, pigtails flying in the wind and he'd beamed at her. There were several pictures of their celebration. In the first Barry had her lifted up, in a mimicry of the infamous scene in Titanic. They’d just seen it on T.V. and Iris’ calls out to Barry whenever he left the house ‘I’ll never let you go, Bar!’ kept it fresh in their memories. At the time, Barry holding her up with her head close to the cubby in between his neck and shoulder and his hands around her waist hadn’t seemed as obscenely romantic as it now looked; but she’d have been lying if she'd said that it hadn’t flustered her. It had just been another one of those things that she explained away to her friends with the same: ‘Oh, it’s fine! Barry and I have known each other for so long that it’s really not weird for us to cuddle/hold one another/watch romantic films together/hold hands/carry each other’s books’
It was the picture across from this that was really worth looking at. Barry had let Iris down and she had her arms around his waist. They were looking at one another, tentative, nervous and too young; the tenderness in Barry's eyes was reflected in Iris'. There had always been tenderness in them, fledging and imperfect, but perhaps this was the year when it turned into something more. Iris saw more than the goofy puppy-love stricken eyes that they’d always made at one another. In this there was raw unbridled need. Iris realized, that it had never stopped, not for her at least and from what she knew about sweet, loyal Barry… not for him either.
She'd loved him then and she loved him now. But Iris had never been a fairytale kind of girl, and she'd known that the realities of loving Barry would lead to losing him or never losing him because she was entangled in some romantic situation that she hadn’t chosen with him. Both been equally terrifying until now.
As they grew up being in love with Barry became normal. Everything was fine; from the butterflies in her stomach when he brushed against her, to the fact that she balked at marriage to the boys she dated but fantasized about Barry looking at her, eyes full of tears, as she walked down the aisle.
It was 'fine' until now. Because now her heart palpitations seemed to indicate that her heart wanted out. Out of the cold carved cavity of her chest and into Barry's embrace. She realized suddenly that she was okay with this right now.
Iris had heard horror stories of people being caught up in the haze of love and losing their own selves. She’d heard about people being snatched away from the precipice of beautiful careers or life journeys for their soulmates. She’d heard about it all becoming about ‘us’ rather than about ‘me’, and she’d always found that strange for people in their early twenties. She didn’t want someone new, who had a plan that she’d be forced into. She wanted to be her own person, and to accomplish all that she could individually, and then some. She wanted to finish her degree and to decide whether she wanted to be a lawyer or an economist or a psychologist or a teacher. She wanted the opportunity to try it all, to put one finger in every pot and to draw them out and taste all of her futures. She couldn’t have someone smash every possibility into dust for a roughly hewn domesticity, but luckily she knew Barry could never do such a thing to her. Their paths had been intertwined since dust, and Barry’s life plans were so aligned with her that nothing either of them could suggest would be much of a departure. Her guiding him, him guiding her. After all, hadn't protecting Barry always been her guiding light?
With that thought she'd bounded up and out of bed, elated and electric. She knew she had to see him and so after fixing herself some toast she was ready. She was halfway through the door when an amused voice cut across the silence.
'Baby?' Joe’s arms were folded and his eyebrow was raised as he regarded Iris.
'DAD! Dad..I'm really sorry I totally forgot to tell you.' babbled Iris in between bites of toast.
'Forgot to tell me..?' came the thunderous laugh of her Father. ‘You forgot to tell me the identity of the person you’re going to be spending the rest of your life with?’
‘Um, yeah. I guess..’ she was suddenly flustered, and scared of the position this was putting Joe in, she was scared of how he’d take it, and how he’d support it… he meant so much to the both of them, and she couldn’t imagine doing anything that in any way subverted their little haphazardly formed family.
She needn’t have worried. ‘It’s Barry, isn’t it?’ said Joe, laughing at Iris’ shell-shocked face as she spluttered for breath,
‘How….how..?’ and then she accepted that if it had been evident for her, as a child, that it would probably have been equally evident to Joe, as an adult, watching a fairytale blossom right under his nose. ‘What do you think, Dad?’ she said, suddenly hesitant and trepidatory. All of a sudden everything was too clear, too real and she was hurrying into an intangible future.
‘Do you love him?’ said Joe pensively.
‘Yes, Daddy.’ She said indignantly. Joe threw his head back and laughed.
‘Don’t worry, baby girl. I know.’ He said in between his chuckles. After he was finished he fixed Iris with his stare. ‘I have known that you were Barry’s soulmate and that he was yours for at least ten years. The only person who didn’t know was you.’
‘Really?’ she inquired; feeling silly and foolish suddenly for what she’d thought was her own private secret.
‘No, Iris. Here’s the thing. You’re the smartest person in the whole world, and I’m sure the moment you looked into Barry’s eyes you guessed. But I don’t think you were ready to take a leap of faith and..’ he paused and regarded her ‘…to be honest I’m glad you didn’t. Last thing I needed was two hormonal teenager soulmates under my roof.’ He said sternly. There was a moment of silence between them and then Iris burst out laughing.
‘Dad! I thought you were going to explode that night that you walked in on me and…’
‘Don’t remind me of it!’ he said sternly blocking up his ears, and then after a pause ‘But I think you do have it in you to take that leap of faith now, and so I think everything is going to be fine for you and Barry from now on, it has to be. Now all you have to do is tell him that.’
‘Thanks Dad’, Iris said, tears welling up in her eyes. It was a lot. It felt like the multiple revelations she'd embraced this mornings were a new truth. Barry's love for her and her love for him were the doctrines that framed their lives. She couldn't believe the unspoken nature of their bond. Could it be that they'd always known somewhere deep down that they were soul mates? No one had felt enough before she read Barry's name off of her hand. But, she'd never actively looked for 'enough' as she struggled against the current to date people that weren't her 'everything' but who had been for long stretches of time her 'something'. It was funny really. The reason she'd been unable to pursue Barry was to do with soul mates. She'd known that if she started...everything that her and Barry would no doubt be, she wouldn't want to stop. Not even for an unfamiliar name emblazoned into her skin if it hadn't been him.
But it was him and so Iris' carefully, constructed corundum tumbled around her. There could no longer be the easy compartmentalisation of her relationships from the rest of her life that there had once been; this is my guy he sees me on the weekend where we go out and then hang out at his house. Even now in the house that was impossible. Barry smiled out at her from the mantlepiece. Memories of movie nights and couch cuddles were embedded in the very fabric of the carpet. If she were to accept her fate she'd have to agree to building upon this. She'd have to saturate her whole life with 'Barry and Iris', from friends to soulmates to... more and more progressively.
But wait...
People spent years finding themselves without the intention of finding their soulmate and...she wanted Barry. God, she'd wanted him for years in varying capacities, when she wanted a partner, a confidant, a mirror. Barry had been all of that. In many ways the gentle suggestions and ideas he'd had led her to speak up, to be stronger and less yielding so that she could protect him. Like, when he told her that she could totally run for class president and when she’d won she’d given everyone who ever looked at him sideways detentions for the next month. In return for his gentle suggestions, she'd watered him like a plant, pulling him up from the depths of his tragic roots and letting him become someone who stretched and grew towards what he wanted. Apart from, apparently when it was her that he wanted, then he shyly swayed away.
He knew her better than anyone else and perhaps that's why he'd waited so long to tell her. It all made sense. If he'd been so happy to do that, to let her come to him, they could take baby steps towards her destiny. She could remember their discussions on the subject in their youth.
'So, what actually is a soulmate?' she'd put to him, inquisitive.
'What..what do you mean, Iris? You actually pay attention in English. You probably know better than me.'
'No! I mean... Like, I know what... what having a soulmate makes you feel like, but...'
'You do?' he’d said, red and frantic.
'No... I mean, yeah... I know what the assortment of poetic old white guys we study had to say about it. I know, Shakespeare said that, 'A soul is nothing if not split in two...' because of his two names and... I know Shelly thought the prescence of a soulmate, like dragged you up 'To the height of the sublime..' and away from 'your disfiguredly naked soul'...'Barry whistled and grinned, 'I see you're prepared for finals'.
Iris grinned back, 'Valedictorian has my name on it.' and then after a moment more of flustered smugness. 'No, but I mean... what is a soulmate really..?' she gesticulated wildly, looking for the word, '...like empirically, scientifically... what actually is it?'
Barry's eyes glinted excitedly as he regarded Iris. 'Well we don't actually know anything completely solidly...'
'But...?'
'Buuut, the most common theory is centred on quantum entanglement. It suggests that subatomic particles have memory...sort of... and so there's some cluster in our brains that remains similar to how it was during The Big Bang and…Iris?’
Iris blinked rapidly, 'Uh. Yeah, Bar?'
'You were looking at my shirt for the last part of that...'
'Oh, I just think you'd look good in a dress shirt, and was trying to think how you'd style it. Maybe under a sweater...' she said dazedly and then looking up at Barry, 'Oh! Bar, I'm so sorry! I just didn't really understand anything after 'quantum entanglement' but you looked so excited I didn't want to stop you.'
'Iris. You don't have to just let me talk at you if I'm boring you.'
'You could never bore me, Bar. But noted.' Iris replied after punching Barry's shoulder. This dissolved into a slap fight with Barry ending it by holding Iris' wrists up between them in a firm way that made the blood rise to both of their faces.
'We were talking about something, so...?' Barry struggled breathily to voice.
'Right!' Iris said, a too bright smile on her face, 'So can you simplify a little..?'
'Um. I don't know.' and then he looked at her, staring up at him, hands loosely resting on his own wrists. 'It's...Your soulmate is someone who knows everything about you, because there's an important part of you that was once a part of them. Well… Not technically I guess, more like your brain is connected with a one or a few other brains in the world, because they’re so… similar on a quantum level and so… They're everything you need, like you're you and that's...that's perfect but they show you how...how perfect it really is to be you.'
And with that thought Iris started up her car and drove off, into the reassuring and physical embrace of Barry Allen. She would drive up to his college and they’d have to figure it out. She didn’t really know what her plan was, or whether she was ready for a relationship with him or being in love with him. She just knew she had to see him, because he was her best friend, and he could probably help her walk through the unconventionality of her feelings, little did she know, how unconventional their situation would really prove to be.