ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.

It was her. It was her. It was her.

Lyra Sinclair. In the flesh and blood and, most importantly, alive and well.

Years younger than she'd been when she died, sporting a short and messy golden bob instead of the curtain of pale blond hair she'd been known for after graduation (Iris remembered when she first started bleaching it and how she'd wince at the burning feeling on her scalp), she was there, all right.

Iris could never forget the first moment she'd ever laid eyes on her, standing on the dust-filled hallway of their dorm floor, discovering their rooms were right next to each other. Lyra was wearing her septum piercing, which she'd abandoned at some point during junior year, sniffling thanks to her crippling allergies, yet she still looked far more composed than Iris could ever aspire to be.

Allergy-free, Iris had still walked face first into her closed dorm room door. That explained her disorientation—the original one, at least. This new version of her, influenced by all the years she'd rewound and lost to the void, had other thoughts swarming her brain. Maybe her true past self had been too flabbergasted by being the target of the attention of someone like Lyra Sinclair, but you couldn't rewind time and expect to come out unscathed, especially when faced with the girl you'd been killing yourself to try and save.

Lyra was standing right there, close enough to be touched, and Iris' first instinct was to launch herself into her arms and hold her tight enough to break her bones. However sentimental she was feeling, though, she had to reel those feelings back in, as Lyra didn't know her yet in this timeline. In this timeline, Iris could even convince herself they still had time for such developments.

"Your forehead is all red," Lyra commented, still oblivious to the inner turmoils of Iris' mind. "Do you need ice?"

"Oh," Iris muttered, instinctively brushing her knuckles against her forehead, right where she'd bumped it against the door. "I think I'm okay. Thanks."

Lyra frowned and her nose wrinkled, as it always had—though she didn't know how familiar the expression would feel like to Iris. It hit Iris square in the face, even harder than the door or even a brick wall. "Well, at least it's your own door, right? You're not walking around, knocking on random people's doors with your face, or anything. You could've knocked on my door."

Iris wiped her clammy palms on her jean-clad thighs. She'd almost forgotten how painfully awkward their first conversation had been and reliving it, knowing what had happened next and how everything had ended, felt even more like a punch to the gut the second time around.

To get everything Iris wanted, all she had to do was keep Lyra alive. That sounded easy enough in theory, but she had never been able to keep a plant alive for long, and clearly she'd failed at ensuring Lyra's survival in their original timeline. There was no way of knowing the full consequences of rewinding time more than once, messing up the universe beyond repair, and Iris didn't want to stand there and think about everything she had already screwed up thanks to a selfish whim.

She'd erased years of her life from history and, in turn, had inadvertently changed the lives of everyone else who had ever crossed her path during those now missing years. By returning to this moment, Iris had lost all her college years, her graduation, her internship, her job, and everything in between. That was just what she had lost; what about Lyra herself? What about their families, their friends? What then?

How fair had it been to rob all those people of life-changing experiences? Who had given her the right?

There would be no second chances, then, Iris decided. It was either this way or the highway, no matter how strong the temptation to keep rewinding following every single mistake, regardless of how small or insignificant it could be. She had already risked too much by rewinding this far back once, and her worries were chomping on her insides the longer she thought about what she was doing.

She gritted her teeth. She could very well have given herself the grace and more time to properly think things through instead of jumping headfirst into the unknown, placing all her trust in a power that had materialized out of thin air—exactly when it had been convenient for it to do so.

More and more doubts rose in her head, doubts about whether she was doing the right thing or not, about whether or not she'd be able to fight against the urge to redo anything she deemed inappropriate or detrimental to Lyra's survival.

Those were the questions that truly mattered, not what she'd do after looking like a fool during a work meeting no one would remember an hour later, and she couldn't—and wouldn't—blame Lyra for any of those unwanted, unforeseen consequences.

After all, the version of Lyra standing in front of her wasn't even the real one. The real Lyra was dead, and would never know the lengths Iris had gone through to try and repair the damage she'd caused. She would never know the damage Iris would continue to cause after trying to repent for those mistakes. She would never be aware of the cycle Iris had inadvertently trapped herself in—just because she couldn't move on.

Just because she couldn't stop loving Lyra. Not even death had put those feelings on pause. If anything, it had made her hit rewind.

"I'm Lyra, by the way."

Lyra kicked open her dorm room door with her knee. It was an unusually sunny day, so the extra light illuminated both the hallway and Lyra herself perfectly; if there had ever been any doubt she brightened up every room she was in, the sight right in front of Iris' eyes would clear them in an instant.

She looked like a perfect golden angel, but the sharp, angular bone structure of her face, the cat-eye liner she used to elongate her almond-shaped eyes, so strikingly cerulean like the summer skies, and the slight smirk stretching her lips also gave her the sly appearance of a fox that knew more than she let on. It was ironic, Iris thought, how that was her name, not Lyra's, and how she was the one possessing more knowledge about her than the other way around, yet Lyra still found a way of beating her at her own game.

Back when Lyra was a real, alive girl and nothing bad had happened (or so Iris had thought at the time, but danger was lurking right around the corner), she refused to wear her heart on her sleeve. All things considered, she'd hid her pain from the entire world, Iris included, with resounding success, but there was a point in every girl's life when stuff started slipping and the masks fell off.

By then, it had been too late.

Back when Iris was a real, moderately happy girl with happily married parents and a life that wasn't torn apart at the seams, she ignored every silent cry for help hidden between the lines of every sentence Lyra would utter simply because she'd asked her to.

Iris would always know they were there, but Lyra couldn't bear the thought of being seen as needy or vulnerable. That was how they complemented each other, Iris supposed; Iris needed to be needed, but she could also keep a secret and pretend to turn a blind eye whenever it was convenient just to please people, especially the perpetually unimpressed, elusive Lyra Sinclair, that wildfire of a girl. They'd always understood each other, even when it went unspoken.

So, Iris was secretly thrilled she got to beat Lyra, at least once. Even if the circumstances were far from ideal, even if that wasn't her Lyra, anyway.

(Realistically speaking, Lyra Sinclair had never belonged to anyone. How could she?)

"I'm Iris," Iris replied, one beat too late, and her breath got hitched in her throat—the same way it always did whenever Lyra would look at her like that. "I'll be living next door to you, it seems."

"So it seems." Lyra looked back inside her room, then at Iris again—just in time to miss the swarm of butterflies fluttering right outside her window. Iris, however, noticed them. She always did. "Have you unpacked your stuff yet? Or do you have any other doors you'd like to slam your face against?"

"I think I could use the help."

Lyra's face was brighter than a beacon. For a moment, that made everything worth it. "Sweet. I've lived in Emelle Bay all my life, yet I feel like I've never seen any of these people before, so it's probably a good idea to stick by you."

She stood next to Iris then, moving so quickly she could have blinked from one spot to the other, and playfully elbowed her in the ribs. Iris had forgotten how bony they both were at the time and how the gesture had left her bruised for two weeks.

She'd forgotten how she'd spent those two weeks tracing the outline of the circle, documenting its colors and creating its own palette. It was one of the few things about her and Lyra's relationship she hadn't fully committed to memory (or maybe she'd subconsciously attempted to push away, for it was more painful than the physical reminder), but everything was slowly returning to her.

Suddenly, and then all at once. Like a tidal wave.

Like a hurricane.

ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.

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