Iris Halle’s reply was totally expected, the world could probably be ending tomorrow and she would go to the office today.“Yeah, but…” I reached out toward her, placing a hand on her. Granted, she wasn’t pale, and she didn’t look tired. If anything, she looked much better than the day she was discharged. But still. I had seen just a little bit too much confidence harm someone. It suddenly struck me, remembering one of my high school friends, Betty. Her mom got admitted to the hospital due to an accident. While Betty was mostly fine, her mom wasn’t. By the time the doctor said she was fine and ready to go home, Betty’s mom spent two days at home and died in her bed due to complications from a surgery she had. Of course, Halle couldn’t be compared to that. Still, I was worried. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” She smiled a rather kind smile, shook her head, and somehow tapped me on the nose with an index finger. “I’m fine,” she said. “Not really perfect, but the whol
Tiffany I stood staring at myself in the antiseptic-smelling air of the ladies' room, of course be-speckled with the scent of various perfumes and other air fresheners. Still, it left my nose powerful enough to pick out anything sometimes. This time, however, my focus had been so much on the mirror, on myself, on the dress I frankly hated, especially when compared to hers. Damn it, my sister was supposed to be living badly. She was supposed to be suffering. Her life was not supposed to be anything I wanted. It wasn't supposed to be anything I desired. So why? Why was her dress an early sub? I had seen the dress in several pictures. I'd loved it. I'd raved over it. I wanted it more than anything itself. And yet, my step-sister showed up in that dress with a billionaire dressed on her arm. She smelled impeccable. In a custody battle, I had seen the bottles. They looked almost like crystal. I'd wanted it, but frankly, the thing cost a little more—nearly as much as my car. And then
DaveThe signature blue flashes of sirens illuminated the night outside. It clashed against everything and everyone, but even aside from that, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the smoke—high pillars of smoke moving unfettered toward the night sky, while large pillars of fire did the rest of the illuminating if the sirens weren’t enough to see. “Can you tell us what happened?” I snapped back into my mind while seated and found myself in the holding room of the police station. There was a female police officer staring at me, her arms folded across her chest. Her hair had been slicked back, making her look like a cat, I thought to myself. “I didn’t see anything,” I said. Of course, that was a lie, but they didn’t need to know that. “Look, Mr. Rover. We know exactly who you are.” She placed a hand on the table, revealing her ugly nails. No, seriously, her nails were uneven, pointing in all directions, and coupled with her terribly kept fingers, it all stirred a sense of dis
DaveMy initial instinct was to bolt out of the room, get into my car, and never come back again. But suddenly, it hit me. I had paid him back, right? What the fuck did he want? I cleared my throat, patting myself on the chest. Right now, I began to walk towards the both of them. "Yes, I believe I am the wife," she said. "But what exactly do you want?" Ivan shrugged by the time I could hear their conversation. "What do you want?" I pulled Tiffany back by her arm, stepping between her and Ivan. "Ah, my friend," he said in his Russian accent. "Why is your life always stopping about you?" "Do you want to see me?" I shoved my hands into my pockets, hoping it would hide the sudden amount of sweat that had pooled there. "Yes," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder and leading me outside. I followed him to the staircase leading to the roof. The hall itself was rather built more like an observatory, with the glass ceiling being one that could be visible from where we both now s
OrchardThe event hall buzzed with energy, the kind that only came from a gathering of influential people all dressed to impress.I stood next to Iris, trying not to let my nerves show. This world of high-society events wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to me, but tonight felt different. Maybe it was the way people’s eyes lingered on us a second longer than usual, or the way their whispers seemed louder.I glanced at Iris, and it hit me again just how breathtaking she looked tonight. She was easily the most beautiful woman in the room. How lucky am I?Her dress clung to her in all the right ways, highlighting her elegance and confidence. Her hair was in soft waves down her back, and her makeup was subtle yet striking, emphasizing her sharp cheekbones and full lips.But it wasn’t just her appearance that made people stare, it was her presence. She carried herself with such poise, one could easily tell she was not to be messed with.Standing beside her, I felt both proud and in awe, knowing ju
Iris"Are you all right?" I felt Orchard's hand on my elbow, pulling me gently towards him until I nearly rested my entire weight on his body. "Peachy," I said. Just slightly shaken, I wanted to say, but frankly, he didn't need to know much about the conversation with Dave, or did he? "I ran into Dave," I said. His reaction was unreadable, but it was clear he wasn’t surprised."From the ladies?" I felt his arm around me tighten just a little bit. His face remained the same, however. It was his eyes. His eyes were where the money was. "Give me the word," Orchard said. "Give me the word, and I will have him slain for coming near you. I would rip apart his skin, I would cut him into pieces, but I'd make sure he wasn't dead yet. And then serve him up on a platter for you." The worst part to me about what Orchard was saying was the fact that he said it with a straight face, save for the burning emotion in his eyes. "That wouldn't be necessary," I said as I tried to hide a smile.
IrisI found myself frowning as I looked back towards Andrew. He had lightish brown hair with golden highlights. It was either the beach that helped him bleach it or he got those highlights from the salon. Either way, they seemed too generic to be man-made. He had cool, honey-brown eyes that seemed to twinkle in amusement, but it was his face that I couldn’t quite place. I was halfway going to bet that as a prepubescent teen or as a teenager, he might have had one of those faces riddled with pimples. He could have been a shy boy. And what was worse? He might have been one of those who had a crush on me. I was quite a looker. I nearly patted myself on the back. "We were nerds?" I raised an eyebrow. Suddenly, Andrew burst out laughing, just as the other members of his company did. "To them, yes," Andrew said. "I was into nerd stuff so bad. I loved UFOs and other funny stuff like that. I loved dinosaurs. I loved books about dragons. It set a few words to me in senior high. But
IrisI adjusted the hem of my dress, trying to keep myself busy as I observed the crowd. Just as I was lost in my thoughts, I felt familiar arms wrap around me from behind. The warmth of the embrace instantly grounded me, and I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.“Look,” Orchard whispered softly into my ear, his voice was full of excitement.I followed his gaze towards the stage, where Halle had just stepped up. The room quieted almost instantly, the murmurs fading into silence as all eyes turned to her.“Good evening, everyone,” Halle began, her voice carrying easily across the room. “Thank you all for being here tonight. It means so much to me to see so many friends, colleagues, and loved ones gathered together.”The crowd responded with a round of polite applause, and I found myself smiling. Halle always had a way of making people feel welcomed, even in such formal settings.“As most of you know,” she continued, “tonight we are celebrating a new chapter for my company. M
Tiffany I watched Dave. Not because I was beginning to quite enjoy stalking, but just watching him, and I knew that he was hiding something. They say every woman knows when a man is doing something like that, and I was no stranger to this. After all, I had been on the receiving end. "Let’s just try one more time," I told myself as I crawled into bed beside him and reached him. "Not right now," he said, confirming my suspicions. Until now, he was practically hanging off the edge. I wanted to spite him just a little bit. I felt like it, and he would deserve it in some ways. But somehow, even as I watched him shift within me, I told myself to just let it go. I hugged myself into a ball. It was a strange thing, I thought. Admitting it was even stranger. But my sister didn’t even really get the nicest things, men included. If not for me, Dave would still be with her. And probably, if you thought about it really deeply, if not for me, in the next few months, Orchard would still be
Iris My dad placed a hand on my leg, squeezing—a strange kind of contact, I decided. When was the last time he ever touched me? When was the last time I felt the warmth of his hand or the worry in his voice? "I'll be fine," I said. "You know what? Just… let's drop it," I added, using the opportunity to wiggle myself out of his grasp. At that instance, my phone buzzed. Reacting to the activity, my hand dove into my bag, and I pulled it out. It was my mother-in-law. "Iris," she wrote. "I found this really funny article online, and a few of my friends were talking about it the other day, you know, about your mother. I believe Chameleia was her name or something like that? Yeah, they mentioned how she was quite popular... I know this might sound weird—I mean, she was your mom—but they say your mom was sort of like a prostitute. I just wanted to confirm and tell them off, you know, tell them that it wasn’t true. But I already did! I already told them it was impossible, someone like
Iris "You see, your grandfather on your mother’s side died young, but not before making my marriage to your mother a pain every step of the way. When we started the company, he didn’t see us as those who cared much. In fact, he didn’t. She begged him for support, but he gave nothing, so we had to look for money on our own to start. "She would be the one talking to people because, Lord knows, I was bad at that. But she was pleasant, you know. You have the same smile," he said suddenly, catching me off guard. "She could convince anyone to do anything, and so she was the one mostly going out, looking for investors. We made quite a team," he said. "Until, you know, the decline started, and everything seemed as though it was all rubbish." He stayed silent suddenly, breathing in and out heavily. This is my moment, I thought. I needed to tell him about Dave. "Dad," I said, calling him what I used to way back when I was younger and when our relationship was less rocky. "Dave," I said
IrisThis was the last place I wanted to be, especially after the events of the past few days, but I needed to pay my respect. Being normal of a graveyard, there wasn’t much activity. But I found a familiar car just as he reached the parking lot. Then again, it could also just be my mind playing tricks on me, but I waved it off. The closer I got to Mom’s grave, the more I felt a rather impending feeling, something strange was going to happen. As if the thing with Dave wasn’t bad enough, whatever fate was about to throw at me again, I didn’t think I was much ready for it. I reached Mom’s grave and nearly screamed out loud. Of course, I mean, everything wasn’t fine. It wasn’t just the flowers, though. The entire place had been unearthed, looked on, touched. In fact, the only problem had arrived in the person in front of it. It was the hunched figure of my own father. “What are you doing here?” I asked, too angry to hide my disdain. He stood, glaring. “I wouldn’t see you in
IrisI sat still in front of my mirror, staring at my reflection. My breath, strangely enough, came out in short pants as though I had been running for my life—but I had, in my dreams, that is. I had been running from him, eager to get away—Dave, that is. Granted, it was quite satisfactory seeing him get beat up like that, but the way he crawled across the battlefield, reaching for me, was a little too much. My husband, however, had been as comforting as possible, pulling me into a hug and keeping me still through the night with my head placed on his chest, listening to his heartbeat until I was lulled by it to sleep. "Work today?" I heard him ask someone behind me. My eyes finally went out of focus, away from my reflection, and found him standing in front of the long floor-to-ceiling window with his arms folded across his chest. "No. Today is…" I turned away from him and looked down at the top of my vanity. Somehow, my words felt caught in my throat as an inexplicable feeling
Orchard I didn't know why my mind kept going back to Iris. But it did. If not for Richard in front of me constantly reminding me of stuff, I would’ve, of course, forgotten. But I did, didn't I? Or was it yesterday? "Focus," Robert snapped his fingers in front of me. "Your nice little weekend getaway cost us too much." "What now?" "Sozo," Robert replied. "Some idiot is causing some trouble. I don’t know who. Looks like Russians for some lotteries and—" Suddenly, it hit me at that point. There was a Russian at my mom's party. Did that have anything to do with it? "Can I take a break?" "No," Richard and Robert answered at the same time. "Do you two have a strange fetish for watching me work myself to death?" Richard raised his eyebrows. "You’re not dead, and you’re not going to die. At least not unless you’re Hades yourself. Well, last time I checked, you’re not it, Golden Boy." Just as I was about to hit him with a retort, a phone call snapped me out of it—from an u
Iris"Don't look at me like that. I mean it," he said. "I still love you." Suddenly, I found myself chuckling. I was definitely being pranked. The sheer humor was underhanded, perhaps much needed, and, if anything, low but understandable. After all, it would seem Dave was still very interested in pranking me. "Funny," I said, catching my breath as finally my mind was taken off the attempted kidnap. "I'm not lying. I'm not joking. I'm not trying to be funny." Dave grabbed me roughly by the arm. In that moment, I felt the same feeling of revulsion, almost as though Dave stunk. He stung to the point where my body recoiled, and I had no choice but to scoot further into the bed. "Don't touch me," I said, holding up a hand. "You've lost your right," I said. "Long ago, you lost that right. If I need to remind you of why and how you lost it, then you're an even bigger idiot than I thought." "I'm not an idiot," he stated harshly. "Is it wrong for a man to change his mind?" His
Iris"Only a matter of time now," my mother-in-law had muttered when she came back a few days ago, and those words seemed to echo in my mind. But instead of leaving me breathlessly shy, I simply blushed and turned my eyes away from hers. Even remembering it now, in the car, was bad enough. "How was work?" his voice came to me over the phone. "Same old, same old," I mumbled. "Can’t wait to get home and pull off these shoes," I said, wiggling my toes in my heels despite how impossible it was. "Can’t wait to take off the shoes and other things too," I said with a smile as suggestive as I could, even though he couldn’t see me. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?" His question was slow, his voice low, sparking easy memories. I smiled. "It’s easy enough to guess what you’re thinking," I said when suddenly the smile fell. I hadn’t told him about Dave and meeting him. That was bad enough. That alone had caused no small amount of guilt to eat away at me. But it wasn’t as though I’
Tiffany As fun as the trip was, it came to an end a little too quickly, but only one question had remained resounding several times in my mind, even as I slept after we came back. "Give the company to me," Dave had said. "Transfer your rights as acting president. Of course, I understand your father is the CEO." "Can we stop?" I interrupted him, grabbing his hand. "We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves." His face fell. Did I make a mistake talking? Should I have just let him continue? "It's okay," he said. But of course, I knew it wasn’t okay. I knew by the way he looked at me that he wasn’t happy. Dave was pissed about something, and it was my fault. Even after we had gotten back home, things were strangely strained between the both of us. It was like a rubber band that had grown slack several times over, and we were trying our best to shrink it back to size. I simply decided to let it wait, thinking maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. "Can we talk?" Dave suddenly