chapter 2

Iris went to school Thursday morning with a headache pounding in her skull - is was not because of the alcohol, she refused to be such a lightweight - not knowing what to expect. She had stayed up late into the night devising strategies the R5 might use against her and how to outmanoeuvre them. Then she spent an hour this morning trying to figure out a plan to attack them before they could get to her.

Not once did them not doing anything cross her mind.

When Iris arrived on campus, it was as if she had never existed. Her locker was clean and her chair wasn’t suspiciously missing. No one looked at her and spat their insults, no one tripped her up or took her school uniform while she was in PE.

It was the most amazing days she had ever since she joined Crawford Academy.

However, Victoria seemed to be taking everyone’s example. When Iris had waved to Victoria at from across the courtyard Thursday morning, Victoria pretended like she didn’t see it and scurried off to join Melissa Cohen under one of the many trees shading the courtyard. Iris didn’t even know they were friends.

It hurt. It really did. And it pissed her off. Especially since Iris was in this mess because she stood up to Orion for Victoria. And now the pretty brunette is going to pretend like she didn’t know Iris? As if her weak backbone wasn’t the cause of this.

Iris let Victoria know about her feelings Friday when they had PE before lunch.

They were playing soccer and it turned violent between the two opposing teams. Iris was surprisingly allowed to participate and was even passed to when she was open. Her teams’ desire to win clearly outweighed the need to ignore her. While Iris was not the best player in soccer - or even on the field - she did know how to play. Specifically, she knew how to play dirty.

While Zoya did play hockey, her advice of going for the ankle suited any field sport.

Iris took full advantage of the apparent aggression on the field. Admittedly, it was strange that this game turned out as violent as it did when both teams were co-ed.

The ball had been passed to Victoria and she steadily dribbled the ball towards their goal. Iris had run as fast as she could, kicked the ball from Victoria’s feet and hooked their ankles together. She pulled and sent Victoria backwards.

Victoria tumbled to the ground in a similar fashion as when she spilt ice cream on Orion’s shoes. Iris couldn’t help but say, “People who abandon their friends are lower than trash.”

With that Iris had run away and joined the rest of the players on the field. It all happened so quick that Iris didn’t even get seen.

Other than that, nothing seemed to be happening on the campus of Crawford Academy.

Which is exactly why Iris was tense over those two days, the weekend, and the following week. No one bothered her, not even Stephanie Nicholson and her badly copy and pasted minions. In fact, they seemed to go of their way to stay away from Iris.

It was suspicious. Hence why Iris didn’t take Elsa’s advice to let it go, but rather her parents’ and concealed it, not letting any of her anxiety show. While she was on campus she made sure to look as unaffected as possible: she skipped to class, ate her lunch in the library, she may have also made friends with the librarian. He was a nice old man with grey hair and whimsical blue eyes with a love for romantic pirate stories. The ones with a naked man on the cover of the pages.

As relaxed as she looked on the outside, internally, Iris was on constant guard because she knew what R5 was playing at. They wanted her to be anxiously looking over her shoulders, waiting for when they were going to strike and while Iris was doing exactly that, she wasn’t going to show them she was.

Constant vigilance!

It was Friday, a week after Iris’s confrontation with the R5 members and the school day had ended. Victoria still hadn’t spoken to her and Iris refused to apologise for her justifiable actions on the field. Besides the teachers - and, of course, the sweet librarian - no one had even looked at to her. Iris hoped it stayed this way for as long as she attends the Academy.

“Lookie here, girls,” came the voice of Stephanie Nicholson from behind Iris.

Iris spoke too soon.

She turned to face Stephanie. Almost, Iris mourned, she was almost out of the gates, mere steps away from weekend freedom. Behind Stephanie, stood her two attempted doppelgangers named Bethany and Brittany. No, Iris was not joking. Yes, that was their actual names.

Iris has always thought that Stephanie was a strange-looking girl. She was constantly tanned with short bleached hair she dyed every other week or so and had piercings covering her earlobes. That was not what made her strange though. Her eyes were different colours: her left eye was icy blue and her right eye was borderline pitch-black. They were also slightly slanted as if they had been botched from previous cosmetic surgery. Iris suspected that it was a lasting side-effect from Stephanie’s K-pop phase.

Iris could see Stephanie as one of those fans.

“Stephanie, Bethany, Britanny.” Iris nodded to each of them. “You all looking shockingly unwanted today.”

“You must be feeling brave,” Stephanie said. “You think you can speak to me that way after what happened last week. My, my, who knew a spine hid between the fat you lug around.” Bethany and Brittany tittered behind identical manicured fingers.

Iris rolled her eyes and forced a smile onto her face. “I can speak to you any way I want to. And really? Calling me fat doesn’t stop you from being as ugly as you are, you botched koreaboo.”

They gasped in unison. “How dare you speak to me that way? I am not a koreaboo!” Stephanie shrieked. “You think you’re safe because you haven’t seen much of us this week?”

“No,” Iris said and raised her chin stubbornly. “I do, however, think that you and the rest of this hierarchical joke just can’t think for yourselves. You won’t touch me with your leashes in Orion’s hands. And not a koreaboo? Stephanie, we all see the plastic surgery gone wrong. We all went through phases we aren’t proud of. Tragically, you were the one who just the money to go further.”

Iris shook her head sadly and walked towards the gate, rolling her eyes at the dramatic screeches they sent her way. The last two weeks had made Iris realise that rolling over and playing dead as she used to before was not going to work. While they might have left her alone for now, Iris knew it wasn’t going to last. Iris also knew that no matter what they did to her that she would be the one who would end up blamed.

If Iris was going to get in trouble for punching back, the very least she could do is punch hard enough for them to bruise.

She crossed the threshold of campus and turned to take her usual route to work. She was really looking forward to the weekend. As it was Friday, Danika and Iris were only working until four and afterwards they had plans to go to Zoya’s. There really was nothing like getting pampered with drugstore products with the girls.

It was only when she was halfway there that she noticed a car following her.