Iris

Jimmy.

I let out a sigh, plopping down on the chair in my hotel room. I had driven back from Iris’s house in silence, not even the radio on. It was bothering me so much that Iris is closing up on me so intensely. I mean, it’s not like I expected her to come to me with open arms, but this was a bit cold. It made me slightly angry with myself that I couldn’t get her to trust me, like I was failing her somehow.

I grabbed my pack off the table next to me, slipping a stick into my mouth. Since the room allowed smoking and it already smelt badly of the smoke, I didn’t mind having one inside. I lit the cigarette and leaned back, smoke billowing out of my nostrils. I tapped my fingers on the tabletop a few times before sighing again. I reached into my pocket and produced a phone. I quickly scrolled to the contact I needed and set my phone on the table, putting it on speaker.

“Hello?” Was the feminine answer, sounding quite puzzled too, after a few moments.

“Hi Jocelynn. Sorry to bother you at work.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m on lunch anyways. What’s wrong? Is Iris okay?”

“No, she’s fine. Well, actually, that’s kind of why I wanted to call you.”

“Hold on a moment, Jimmy.” I could hear rustling and the soft ‘click’ of a door. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“Did you know she gets bullied?” I blurted out. There was a pause on her side, causing me to enter a rambling of how I had found her when I was picking her up earlier. At the end of my tale it was still completely silent. I waited anxiously, taking a puff off my smoke.

“Yes, sadly I do know,” Jocelynn sighed in my ear finally. “She shuns us away too.”

“Haven’t you tried talking to her or her teachers?”

“We’ve tried to talk to her plenty of times. She doesn’t listen to us, tells us its fine. She has come home different times with a split lip, black eyes, bruises, the works. She tells us it’s just accidents. Iris is pretty clumsy and does collect bruises or small cuts on her arms or legs from the incidents, but this is much different. We’ve tried speaking to her teachers too, but they say that she doesn’t acted out in class or even talk to other students. That’s why we had her go to the school’s counselor.”

“Does it help?”

“It doesn’t seem to. She’s still quite down, but she doesn’t tell us anything about it at all. Her counselor can’t tell us anything they speak about since she doesn’t seem to be a risk to herself or others, but she says that even she doesn’t seem to find the roots of Iris’s problems.”

I dug a heel of one of my hands into my eye socket, a headache beginning to thump and annoy me. “I try to talk to Iris about school, but she avoids the subject altogether. Even if I just talk about future plans, college or whatnot, she just shuts down. Am I doing something wrong?”

Jocelynn paused a moment, seeming as if unsure if she should tell me the thoughts on her mind. Finally she said, “No, you’re not. You’re probably doing the best you can do. Listen, Iris has never really enjoyed school for, er, special reasons. Has she mentioned anything like that to you?”

I removed my hand from my head, frowning at the wall across from me as I racked my brain. Special reasons? I had only deduced the bullying, but it was obviously deeper than that. Bullies wouldn’t shun her from college or think she couldn’t make it there. “No, she hasn’t. Why?”

“If Iris hasn’t told you, it’s not my place to tell you. I’m sorry Jimmy. You’re a great man and I know you’re trying to be the best father you can for her, but if she hasn’t told you these things about herself, I can’t do it for her. When she opens up to you more, she’ll tell you herself.”

“Oh.”

Jocelynn let out her own sigh. “I know you probably feel like you’re not doing this parenting thing right Jimmy, believe me, I’ve been there. But you’re not. Sometimes children just don’t want to tell you everything. And it’s mostly because they have to come to term with these things themselves. Once Iris feels comfortable with telling you more personal things, she’ll spill her guts to you. You just need to hold on for it.”

“Okay. Thank you, Jocelynn.”

“No problem Jimmy.” She quickly interrupted me as I began to say goodbye. “And Jimmy?”

“Yes?”

“I just want to let you know, I really am happy you are coming back into Iris’s life.” I was silent, confused by her words. This seemed particularly off topic. “Iris has been so unhappy for a while now, and I was beginning to believe she’ll never be happy again. But, having her around you the last few days, I think there’s definitely something there again. I’m hoping that those feelings will grow and I actually hope she will choose to move with you.”

“Wha - ” I just stopped, my throat closing up. This was very different than what I had anticipated by making this phone call.

“I know I sound like a bad parent, like I can’t handle her, but it’s not that. As her mother for the past thirteen years, I just want her to be happy. And she’s not like that here. Maybe moving with you and starting over will bring the old Iris back. It will kill me to have her somewhere that I can’t see her every day, but her happiness is much more important to me than my own is.”

“I – thank you, Jocelynn.” That was all I could say. There were no words to describe the emotions I was feeling. It was a mixture of being extremely proud, happy, and an awful lot amount of gratitude. But it was all those feelings in one, times infinity. It nearly made me lose all processed thought.

“No, thank you, Jimmy. I’m sorry, but my lunch is up and I need to return to work. You know how hospital patients are.”

“Oh, no, no problem. Have a good evening Jocelynn.”

“And you Jimmy.”

With that we both hung up. I sat there for a few minutes, finishing off my cigarette and just staring at the wall as I put it out in the ashtray. I hadn’t realized I had picked up my phone and dialed someone until I heard the ringing in my ear. Just as I was about to hang up, the call was answered.

“Hello?”

“Zacky, what are you…?” I pulled the phone back from my ear to peer at my screen. Yeah, it clearly said ‘Brian’ on the ID. It even had the stupid looking contact photo of him wearing a purple tutu (that night involved a lot of alcohol and blackmail pictures). “Where’s Brian?”

“I see you value Brian more than you do anyone else,” Zacky scoffed.

“No it’s not - ”

“I’m just pulling your leg, bro,” Zacky laughed. “We’re fixing up your guest room. I went to get water bottles and heard his phone going off.” I could heard people grumbling as he opened the door. “Oh, shut up you lazy assholes. Besides, Jimmy’s on the phone.”

“Jimmy, my man!” Johnny’s voice shouted, suddenly becoming clear. He had apparently decided to steal the phone from Zacky’s grasp. “You know, I’ve missed you.”

“Okay, stop being excited because you don’t have to clean the room right now. Keep in mind, you’re doing this to earn the right to meet Iris.”

“That is such bullshit. What is this, a battle to win her hand in marriage?”

“Don’t care, I’m doing it. That’s the rules.And if you even suggest that again, I’m ripping off your balls.” I heard Johnny grumble and the phone being passed around. A short click let me know that the speaker had been turned on. “Why are you guys even fixing up that room?”

“Because Iris needs somewhere to sleep you dumb fuck,” Brian chuckled.

“I meant, I could have just done it when I got home. It wasn’t that much,” I argued.

“Jimmy, you know that’s a damn lie. Now what’s on your mind?”

“Why does something have to been on my mind?”

“Because you haven’t dodged everything this bad since you had to tell us Leana was pregnant,” Matt remarked. That thought was a very sobering one. I ran a hand through my hair, scratching the back of my neck. “Sorry, that kind of, just, came out.”

“No, it’s fine.” It really was. I was used to the idea of talking about Leana now that I had thirteen years to get ready. Time helps heal wounds, it was true. If anyone told you different, they’re stupid. “But there’s not really anything to talk about.”

“Then why’d you call?” Brian questioned.

“Just to check up.”

“Which would be fine if we were your children or one of us was sick or something.”

“I’m sick! Sick of freakin’ fixing this room,” Johnny remarked.

“Shut up Johnny. Seriously, what’s up Jimbo?”

I paused for a moment, unsure of how much I should tell them, before sighing. These were my best friends. If I couldn’t tell them, who could I tell? So I retold the tale of picking Iris up from school, our meal afterwards, and Jocelynn and I’s phone call. At the end not even Johnny, who was notorious for making stupid and annoying comments, had nothing to say. Not much could stun my friends into silence, but it seemed this was one of those things.

“Can we, like, break these things up and talk about them separately? ‘Cause I’m going to be honest, this is too much to process all together,” Matt remarked after a minute or two.

“Great idea, I like that one,” Brian agreed.

“Then can we start on the fact that this Jocelynn chick is my favorite character in this?” Johnny spoke.

“This isn’t a video game or movie idiot, she’s Iris’s mother,” Zack scolded. “But he’s right, this woman is pretty awesome, Jimmy. She could have reacted terribly to all this but she’s actually rooting for you.”

I couldn’t agree more. In a parallel universe, Jocelynn could probably be my biggest enemy and do all she could to sabotage any chance of Iris wanting to come live with me. Actually, she could have never agreed to let me see Iris at all and I would have never of met her.Thinking about it that way I just wanted to called Jocelynn back and leave twelve voicemails just telling her ‘thank you’ over and over.

“But this bullying thing is very familiar, guys. We have to stop it,” Johnny spoke, sounding very un-Johnny like. He was right though. In high school we all had to deal with bullying. Matt, Brian, and Zacky all escaped it through sports. Matt in football, he and Brian soon also did so through basketball, and Zack had his baseball. I had just bullied back and ended up looking menacing. Johnny was the worst case. He never quite escaped those things until our band got big. He had dropped out his junior year to tour with us, leaving his problems unresolved.

“We can’t stop it, Johnny,” I sighed. “Only Iris can. And if she’s still avoiding just talking about it with her parents and I, then how is she supposed to stand up and fight it?”

“What about that brother of her’s, Trevor or whatever?” Brian asked. “Does she talk to him about it?”

I paused, racking my brain that was swarming with the conversations Iris and I have had. I shook my head before realizing my friends couldn’t see me doing so. “I don’t know. I know she’s kind of close with him, but she’s never spoke about him much. So she might, but there’s no way to tell unless I ask. But I kind of get the idea that he still doesn’t trust me very much.”

“He needs to get over it already. Yes, you’re going to get into her life. It doesn’t matter what he wants,” Brian scoffed.

“Keep that in mind the next time McKenna gets a boyfriend,” Zack teased.

It was quiet for a moment for Brian spoke, “That’s completely different.”

We all shared a chuckle at him. Looks like Brian needed to get over his own issues. “Keep telling yourself that, Bri.”

“Can we now talk about what I feel is the most important? This stuff about Iris thinking she’s stupid,” Johnny demanded. Again, sounding very un-Johnny like. Bullying and people thinking they’re stupid are his two, biggest pet peeves. Since he dropped out and had to take GED classes, he always felt he wasn’t as smart as everyone else he knew who got “real” high school diplomas. It took a lot of years of us telling him otherwise before he finally believed us when we told him he was just as smart as we were.

“Well, I’m not sure what there is to help that either. Jocelynn says there’s something going on with her, but didn’t care to elaborate. Told me she couldn’t since Iris didn’t mention it. Maybe it’s not that she thinks she’s stupid, just not able to handle school.”

“Jimmy, give it a little more time and it will be that she just thinks she’s not smart enough,” Johnny warned me. “It starts out as thinking high school is too much for you to handle. But then, after a while of seeing other people adapting easily, you just think you’re too dumb to make it like everyone else.”

It sounded logical enough. And as if I hadn’t been worrying already, it was now much worse. I subconsciously popped another cigarette in my mouth, lighting it up with my zippo. As I breathed out, Matt spoke up. “It looks like we’re just going to have to slowly work on it when she gets here Jimbo. That’s the only way to work out...whatever is going on with her.”

I paused for a moment, my lips pursed in a line. “...You have an idea of what’s going on, don’t you?”

It was completely silent on either end of the call. Matt, no matter how much he argued, as particularly bright. Especially with how much Val makes him watch those crime shows like Law & Order, which he now enjoys himself. He’s become a master of deduction and could possibly give Lennie Briscoe a run for his money. Y’know, if he was a real detective.

“Yes, I have an idea or two, but there’s no point in worrying you if it may not be true,” Matt finally admitted.

“Oh God, it’s serious enough to possibly worry me?” I groaned, assuming everything that could lead to death after a few years. Cancer, some kind of memory lapse that will lead to a coma, organs failing. I had way too active of an imagination that sometimes I worried for my health.

“Jimmy, you would worry about it no matter what the cause is,” Zack remarked smartly. “Just, stop freaking out until you get a chance to properly talk to Iris about it, okay?”

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled.

“Good,” Brian announced. “We’ll let you go now so we can finish up her room. Take it easy and we’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks guys.”

Once we gave our goodbyes I set my phone down, working at my cigarette. Don’t worry. Just, don’t worry. It’s nothing life threatening or it would have been told to me from the get-go. Well, it should have been, right?

I never was too good at not worrying.