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“I can't,” Feenie says, eyes widening and eyebrows scrunching and lips pursing in an adorable little pout. Iris' teeth grind inside her closed mouth. “I'm so sorry. But I have to keep it.”
“Please, Feenie,” she coos, used to their ritual by now, “I really need it back, alright? Just for a day. I'll return it to you afterwards.”
She doesn't even care if she can keep the promise; this is their eighth date and she is running out of time. Feenie has taken her to the slightly less busy part of the student cafeteria, again, and bought her a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream, again, since apparently that is where his idea of romance ends. The halogen lights are harsh and the tables are sticky and Iris doesn't even like hot chocolate. It's far too heavy, the cream too sweet.
Oh, but what an uncharitable thought to have! After all, Feenie is sweet, as well, sweet like the fizzy pink drinks Dahlia keeps in her dorm room fridge, sweet like the raspberry-flavored chewing gum she has on her nightstand. A sweetness that coats the mouth. Iris should be all over a guy like that; Dahlia seemed to think she would be.
“But I'm scared,” he admits, still pouting ever so sweetly. “That as soon as I give you the necklace back, you're going to disappear and never return.”
“Of course I won't,” Iris lies, making a circle with her fingers behind her back so the spirits won't get angry with her for the falsehood. This is all for Feenie's own good: if Iris can get the necklace back, Dahlia won't risk getting arrested, and she won't be forced to do anything reckless to him. “I'll stay with you, promise. Just give me the necklace, okay?”
Feenie shakes his head. The movement jostles the necklace around, the little glass vial glinting in the halogen lights. “It's not that simple. Look, the pendant is heart-shaped.” He gently cradles it in his palm. “You gave me your heart, Dollie.”
There it is. Iris swallows down the nausea that always rises sooner or later on these dates, the one that she can't blame on the heavy cream. Dollie. Feenie is in love with Dollie, goes on dates with Dollie, gives sweet closed-mouth kisses to Dollie. She is not Dollie; she is Iris. He says Dollie and she thinks: Dahlia.
What is it to you? Dahlia would say, teasing. Don't tell me you like him!
I don't, Iris would say, because she doesn't. She says her prayers in the morning and again in the evening and does not think of Feenie at all.
Still, jealousy sits at the back of her throat, sharp-toothed. Iris takes a sip of her chocolate in an attempt to wash it down; her mouth tastes sweet long after.
When they were six years old, Dahlia told Iris that sometimes, an unborn child will eat her twin in the womb.
“Just swallow her whole,” she said, her big round eyes sparkling with glee. “Like she never existed.”
Iris started crying, then, and Dahlia laughed at her and called her a chicken and a scaredy-cat and all kinds of names. She must have thought the story had frightened her.
It hadn't. It took Iris a while to understand, but that day, she had cried out of grief. Grief because she desperately wished that Dahlia had swallowed her; grief because she hadn't.
The sweater that Iris made for Feenie lies discarded on her dorm room floor. She had hoped it would be an acceptable substitute for the necklace – she knitted a heart onto it and even said, see, i'm giving you my heart all over again – but no such luck: Feenie broke into joyful tears and thanked her profusely and bought her another hot chocolate with whipped cream and didn't give the necklace back. Now the sweater is pooled on the carpet in a pink heap, along with most of Feenie's other clothing. He's still wearing the necklace. If Iris were Dahlia, she could rip it off his neck.
"Why don't you take that off?" Iris says, trying to sound sultry. "It'll just get in the way."
Feenie laughs. "How would it get in the way?"
That's a good follow-up question. "It, um – my hair might get caught in it."
"I'll be careful," Feenie promises with gentle eyes and kisses her.
Iris expected that to happen: she spent the whole afternoon chewing on Dahlia's raspberry chewing gum in preparation so that her mouth would taste perfectly sweet just like Dollie's was supposed to. Feenie would not be able to tell that he was kissing Iris. In fact, the taste is so intense that Iris isn't able to tell that she's kissing Feenie, either.
“I, um, I've never,” Feenie says. Iris only half-listens, trying to stealthily unfasten the necklace. It's difficult with his face so close.
“You should finish undressing,” she says, a last-ditch effort, but of course Feenie doesn't consider the necklace a part of his clothes. He awkwardly peels off his underwear, then just sits there, all pink and hard and like he has no idea what to do with himself.
She looks at him, naked on Dahlia's bed, Dahlia's necklace around his throat, thinking he is about to sleep with Dahlia, and she is wearing Dahlia's dress and has Dahlia's sweet chewing gum taste in her mouth, and she's hit with a wave of – something. Pity for him, disgust with him, jealousy of him. He does not belong here. This is Dahlia's room, and now it's hers, too, at least until she gets that necklace off of Feenie and Dahlia decides she's outlived her usefulness and sends her off to the temple again, like she did when they were seven years old and Dahlia told her it was for the best and Iris cried into the sleeves of her new robes as though her sister had split her heart in two, which she had.
“I've changed my mind,” Iris says. Feenie, unfailingly, tooth-rottingly, stomach-turningly sweet, looks crestfallen.
“Did I – did I do something wrong? Was I going too fast? Am I not – ”
He looks down at his lap; and how comical of him, to make this all about himself. Feenie thinks he's in love with Dahlia, but Dahlia would spit in his face if she saw him like that. Iris can't help but laugh. It's not a nice laugh. It sounds like Dahlia.
“Put your clothes back on,” she says, still sounding like Dahlia and meaning every word. “I don't want to look at you anymore.”
Feenie looks like he's been slapped. Iris feels bad about it immediately, a million apologies on the tip of her tongue, except then his face suddenly clears and his eyes start to shine something fierce.
“I get it,” he whispers. “It's okay, Dollie. I have to earn it first, right?”
There's nothing to earn, Iris thinks wildly.
“Wow, he really said that?” Dahlia says a few days later, brushing Iris' hair. “What a joke.”
Iris stares into the mirror. The wooden bristles of Dahlia's brush run along her scalp, catching on the occasional tangle. Dahlia's pink bathrobe is loose and plush on her skin. The air smells of Dahlia's rose shampoo; the inside of her mouth tastes of Dahlia's fizzy pink drinks. Iris has been drinking a lot of them ever since she ran out of Dahlia's raspberry chewing gum.
“He's not that bad,” Iris says, dutifully, because that is what she has to say. Dahlia is the mean one; therefore Iris is kind.
“Of course you'd think that,” Dahlia says, disgusted. “You nearly slept with him.”
“I wouldn't have,” Iris protests.
“Right,” Dahlia says. “Not sweet little Iris.”
She puts the brush on her vanity and runs her fingers through Iris' hair, gathering the strands to make the crown-like braid they came up with when they were still small and innocent and inseparable. Intertwined. Iris has to believe it means something that even after all these years, Dahlia styles her hair the same way.
“I can't believe that you still haven't gotten then necklace back,” Dahlia says, idly, nails scraping just enough to leave tiny shivers in their wake.
“I – I'm trying,” Iris says. “You – you're pulling too tight.”
“Yes, but you're failing, aren't you? Hold still.”
“I didn't – Dahlia, it hurts.”
“It would hurt less if you stopped fidgeting.”
Iris shuts up and holds still.
“I wonder,” Dahlia continues. “It's almost like you don't want to leave him. Do you like him, after all? Or do you just want to sleep with him that badly?”
“I don't like him,” Iris says.
“It's not going to be anything special, you know. Have you seen his hands? No nuance. It'll be all, oh Dollie, let me grab at you like you're the blow-up doll I keep in my closet!”
Dahlia's voice drops comically on her last words. Her hands leave Iris' scalp to sneak under the bathrobe, lightning-quick, and squeeze Iris' breasts.
Iris sees how this should play out, can almost hear her own undignified squawk, a reprimanding Dahlia! Stop it! and an unapologetic Gee, I get it, turn back around and let me finish your hair. That's not how it happens.
“Iris?” Dahlia says after a moment, hands unmoving.
“You,” Iris says, swallowing. “You said I should hold still.”
She hears Dahlia laugh with genuine delight, then, fizzy like the drinks in her fridge. “Right. I did. And will you?”
Iris does her best as one of Dahlia's hands slips out of the bathrobe again, then lower, all the way down to the hem. Her fingernails are carefully manicured, painted a soft pink with a white edge – french tips, Dahlia calls them. She pinches Iris' nipple with the other hand; Iris bites her tongue and presses her thighs together.
“No moving,” Dahlia chastises. She runs her hand up Iris' thigh, dips between her legs, just briefly, before drawing back. Iris squeaks, shifting her hips up and regretting it immediately. She can see herself blush in the mirror, ugly red spots on her face, sees Dahlia's sharp-toothed smile behind her, and closes her eyes against it. How stupid, to show this kind of weakness now.
Dahlia strokes her thigh like she's soothing a spooked animal, which is not something Iris has ever seen her do. “I had no idea you would make these kinds of noises. I can't take you seriously like this, really.”
She pinches Iris' nipple one last time, then closes a hand over her mouth. Iris dips her head back, tries to get away, but she only ends up falling back against Dahlia's shoulder, a fresh waft of rose shampoo filling her nose.
Dahlia's hand slips between her legs again, teasing and rubbing, and Iris knows she should be holding still but she lost that battle already. Her legs fall open; one of Dahlias nails skirts along her sensitive skin. Dahlia sets a rhythm like she's done this countless times before, like it's herself she's touching, familiar and overwhelming. Iris muffles all of her cries against Dahlia's palm.
Abruptly, Dahlia stops. Iris whimpers into her hand, pushes her hips forward, says something like please, Dahlia, I promise I'll earn it –
“Well,” Dahlia whispers right next to her ear and rubs at Iris again, mercifully quick. She doesn't stop even after Iris comes with a loud whine, face burning with shame and over-stimulation.
While she tries to catch her breath, Iris opens her eyes again, sees Dahlia's in the mirror. They are wide and curious. Mostly, they are empty.
There might be a chance to stop this, stop Dahlia from sending her away, again, and splitting her heart in two, again, so that Iris may stay here, between plush rugs and lace-covered pillows and rose-scented air. She twists around, suddenly desperate. Dahlia draws her hands back.
“Dahlia,” Iris says, still breathing heavily, leaning in, “you – please, let me – ”
Dahlia frowns. “What? No. Are you insane?”
Iris touches Dahlia's cheek. Dahlia swats her hand away.
“Put the bathrobe back on properly,” she says, disgusted. “And you need to try harder, with the necklace. I can't keep you around forever.”
The she gets up and leaves. Iris hears the sink running. There is nothing to earn.
When Dahlia returns, she finishes up Iris' hair. The braids come out perfect, as they always do when Dahlia does them.
The halogen lights are harsh and the tables are sticky and Iris is sipping yet another hot chocolate with whipped cream. Its sweetness coats the inside of her mouth. She longs for a fizzy drink to burn the back of her throat, longs for raspberry chewing gum to rot her teeth.
“It's so funny,” Feenie cuts himself off after ranting at her for the past ten minutes. “I keep waiting for you to ask me for the necklace again. It's almost like this ritual we're having, right?”
Iris smiles. “Well? Are you going to give it back?”
Feenie laughs, as bright as the halogen lights. “Obviously not! I'll keep it forever!”
“Oh Feenie,” Iris says. “How sweet of you.”
“You think so?”
“If it means that much to you,” Iris says. “I don't think I want it back, after all.”
Feenie cheers; the light makes his skin look washed-out, ashen. Dead. There may not be anything to earn, but some things still come at a price. Behind her back, Iris makes a circle with her fingers.