The Story of Iris

Iris and I had only one class together, and it was Spanish so if we had to talk, teníamos que hacerlo en español. Iris wasn't my only friend, though. We all hung out together in a small group. Mikey was my best guy friend, he was short and doughy  since his two favorite passions were cooking and eating. He had a twin brother, Kyle, who looked exactly like him in the face except that he broke his nose when they were ten and it never straightened out correctly. Kyle was incredibly tall and lanky, undoubtedly the tallest in our group of friends. He was into sports and had the world's biggest crush on Iris, even though she pretended not to notice. Iris had another best friend, even though I was her most trusted sidekick out of everybody, and that was A.J. Her real name was Ariana Jordan, but for as long as I knew her she was just A.J. She was unbearably hipster with coarse brown hair that she bleached blonde at the tips, too many band tees for her own good, and wore only Toms. Ever. She wore thick-framed, knock-off RayBans ("RayBans are so mainstream now.") and was the most annoyingly closed-minded person I'd ever had the displeasure of meeting. She carried a camera around her neck at all times and had never went a day without earbuds in one of her ears everywhere she went, although I never even knew what mysterious music was playing through them. I bet she even wore them in the shower.

Iris and A.J. were really close, but everyone knew that she and I were dynamic. Where Iris was invited, I was invited and vice versa. 
  
We arrived in the atrium in time to witness Kyle and A.J. having a heated debate. 

"Of course you'd die first, you'd probably stop to take a picture of one before it ripped your skull open," Kyle scoffed. He disliked A.J. just about as much as I did, but we all put up with her for Iris's sake.

"At least I'd have the sense to die in a situation like that," she argued, scrolling through her secret iTunes library. "You'd probably just get bitten and turn into one yourself! Then you'd make everything worse." 

"Yeah, well I wouldn't stop to blog about it, that's for sure." 

"Guys," Iris interrupted, but A.J. waved her off. 

"Please, my followers aren't even worth the gory details of zombification, they barely reblog when my life isn't in danger," she scoffed.

"Yet you still continue to blog!" he shouted, waving his hands over his head in exasperation. 

"GUYS, I GOT A CAR!" Iris yelled over them. The two of them stopped fighting and looked over, smiling as if the argument hadn't even happened. I swear those two only argued to pass the time. 

"No way, that's awesome!" A.J. said. 

"What kind is it?" asked Kyle with a derpy smile on his face that most girls at this school would kill to receive. The smile that I would kill to have girls to actually look my way. 

Mikey just smiled, standing by my side and not saying anything, like usual. Mikey was mostly seen and not heard unless he had something particularly important to say. 

"It's a bug and I already named it Willy. Like Willy--" 

"Wonka and the chocolate factory," we all finished for her in unison. It was her favorite movie and she was constantly babbling about how as soon as she got a car she would name it Willy. 

We followed the crowd of students through the atrium doors and poured into the hallway to find our homerooms. 

"So, who would die first in a zombie apocalypse?" Kyle asked, itching to return to his pointless argument. "I'm thinking it'd be A.J." 

"Shut up!" A.J. interjected, thumping him on the back of the head.

"I think it'd be Iris," Mikey decided. "No offense, Iris, but I bet you'd sacrifice yourself before you ever let Charlie die. At least to buy him some time." 

"Hey, I could defend myself!" I said. "Iris is my friend, not my protector." 

Iris shrugged. "Nah, he's right. If you were about to die, I'd punch any zombie in the face." 

"There's no way I'd let you." 

"You'd do the same thing for me, right?" she asked nonchalantly. "So let's make a pact, then. If any one of us is about to die, we should do our best to protect each other." 

"Deal," I said, although I doubted either of us would be in a situation of self-sacrifice for one another in our lifetimes. Not much interesting happens when you live in the middle if nowhere.

"You guys are making me barf," Mikey interrupted. "I'm barfing all over this floor right now." 

The warning bell rang and we rushed to our classes, a pact in place that changed every aspect of each of our lives.