“You have to stop blaming yourself for things you can’t control.”
“You’re always telling me that.”
“Because you never listen.”
She finally allowed him to kiss her and he reasoned with her;
“It was so close though.”
She smiled wickedly as she asked;
He could’t find humour at her joke. She could have died and he wouldn’t have been fast enough to save her.
Her grin dropped as she pulled him away by the hair and ordered;
“You have to let go, Barry”
He feigned pain as he asked;
“Wow! Ok! Can you let go of my hair?” and as she did he informed her; “By the way I love your other scars too.”
She rolled her eyes to it, shaking her head, and he kissed his way through them, saying;
“The appendicitis one, the one from the time you fell off the skate”, which was on her inner thigh. Iris had landed on a tree branch that day, and Barry had never yelled as loud as he did when he called Joe, who was back inside the house, petrified by amount of blood that suddenly filled her clothes, not knowing if he should leave her to get Joe or stay with her, and all Iris did was whine about the hole that had ruined her favourite shorts while the thing was stuck inside her thigh.
“The chickenpox one”, he continued, she had given it to him when they were in 4th grade and they both spend the week itching like hell while his mom, who took care of both of them while they couldn’t go back to school, kept telling them they were going to scar.
That last one was barely visible. It had faded to nothingness during the years, which she pointed out now. But it was right by her upper lip, so he took gladly as an excuse to kiss it. “And I was there every time”, he concluded.
She smiled back at him, as something sweet filled her eyes, brushing his hair off his forehead, and for a moment there was no room for guilt, just gratefulness as she confirmed;