Brotherly Love

13. New Friend?

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Third Person

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As she walked into school, Iris waved by to the boys before heading in the opposite direction. Nearing the bathroom, her footsteps became lighter and she stopped and listened outside the door. She moved closer trying to hear what was being said against all the noise being produced in busy halls.

Her soft palms gently pushed forward against the door, not wanting to alarm anyone inside the toilets. Iris caught a glimpse of ginger hair from a girl sat with her head tucked in her knees on the bathroom floor. She resembled a baby deer being cornered by a pack of wolves as a group of girls surrounded her continuing with their daily torment.

Her heart clenched, she had been in many situations like this before though she always ended up on the bathroom floor. Iris hurt for the girl knowing that she probably felt hopeless and alone. Gathering what little courage she had she walked towards the group of girls making sure to hide the tremble in her step, she knew if they saw her in a weak state she would fall a victim to the taunting.

She coughed to make sure her voice would come out clear, she had begun to catch the attention of some of the girls who sent bitter looks in her direction.

"Excuse me," she tried, "Excuse me," she repeated louder.

The girls now turned around irritated that someone had broken them out of their fun game as they would like to call it. As Iris looked at them she spied a name engraved perfectly on a gold chain of the neck of who she assumed was the leader.

"Have you seem a girl called Alison,"

Folding her perfectly manicured fingers over her chest a girl spoke up, "Who's asking?"

"Oh, a lady at the office just told me you were needed," she lied.

Alison nodded her head, before giving Iris a once over tilting her head to the side she questioned " Are you new here,"

"Yeah,"

Alison painted on a sweet smile before welcoming her to the school and leaving behind a confused Iris and a trembling ginger-haired girl.

The bell rang signalling registration, the remainder of girls that loitered in the bathroom walked out of the bathroom to get to registration paying no attention to the girl on the ground, as they walked out Iris walked towards her and silently sat down next to her.

Reaching in her backpack she took out a bottle of water and tissues and passed them to the girl sat beside her, she gave her a chance to gather her thoughts before the flood of questions could rush out drowning her out of her head.

Freckles littered the girls face, they were carelessly scattered over her nose and cheeks. Her eyes reflected the wings of a Blue Emperor Butterflies wings, the water in her eyes only embellished their beauty.

A soft voice floated through the air as she mumbled a small thank you, shocked that she had received even a speck of kindness from someone in the school. However, the girl knew not to get used to the comfort of having a person there; a friend.

She lifted herself up from the ground and walked towards the sink, bouncing ever so slightly with each step she took, she cupped her hands together before gathering water to wipe her face in an attempts to clear any evidence of her tears. Once she was satisfied with what she saw in the mirror she turned around to face Iris.

"Thank you," she said with a small smile, Iris just nodded over the years she had grown to understand that sometimes your presence made a bigger impact than some meaningless words.

"I'm Cora," she introduced as she played with the end of her sweater.

"Iris,"

Cora pulled at the sleeves of her jumper, trying to do anything to distract her from the fact that one of the first people that was nice to her would leave her too.

"Erm... you can leave first," she started, " I'll leave a bit later," Iris scrunched her eyebrows.

"Why would I do that?"

Cora looked away from Iris's questioning gaze, "Well you're new and if you're seen with me you probably won't make many friends,"

"Why don't they like you?"

"I'm a scholarship student,"

"That's why they don't like you," Iris scoffed, "so I got sent to a school with stuck up rich kids that's just great,"

Now it was Cora's turn to be confused.

"Let's just say I wasn't always rich, I'm still not it's technically not my money and even if it was I - " noticing she was about to start rambling she cut herself off.

"Oh," Cora breathed out a little relieved.

"You must be really talented to have a scholarship,"

A small smile grew on Cora's face " I guess I'm pretty good at art,"

"What's your first lesson," They questioned each other at the same time, light laughter filled the room as they swapped timetables.

"Ugh, we don't have any lessons together today," Iris whined.

"Well most of the time I'm in the art department so we could always meet there," Cora suggested.

"Sure,"

Both girls left the bathroom with genuine smiles in their faces, making a potential new friend excited both of them.

* * *

The rest of the day had gone by rather quickly, the two spent lunch and break in the art department despite Iris's failed attempts at painting and drawing.

The two girls walked toward the bike rack, Cora pulled out a white bike with blue vines painted onto it.

"I'll text you later,"

"Okay," Cora called out as she started to ride away.

"What's got you so smiley," Valentino question as he draped his arm over Iris's shoulder.

"I made a new friend," she grinned, " She's so nice and a little quiet but I don't mind and she's so good at art as well,"

"That sounds great," Valentino replied, in all honesty, he was just happy that she had started to settle in and make friends.

"So I can get Ice-Cream on Wednesday after school,"

"Sure, and I'll pick you up after my basketball practice,"

Iris smiled and nodded her head, this was normal, no chaos, no drama, just ordinary. An ordinary life maybe she could move on after all.

But life was never that generous.

- x -