Re: [No. 3 to No. 24: Iris & Sam]
Iris had never had that put-back-together-again feeling. Or if she had, she couldn't remember it. Every time something tipped over on her, things just got worse. She didn't know how to bounce back, so every falter was a catastrophe. It was something that made her throat close up every time it happened, nothing healing, only ever layering over the last thing. It weighed her down until she could barely breathe some days.
She would have argued if she'd known Sam's thoughts in that moment. Argue that she was better than she once was, and she was happy with that. Back and forth a little, sure. She didn't have everything under control, never would. When too many things hit her all at once, certain stuff fell by the wayside, and eating was one of those things. When she could focus on it, the meals were easier, planned and scheduled, meals that built off of each other, even if they were plainly simple. In Manning's house, the food was there, prepared and offered, tailored around quirks that she couldn't quite put aside. And it was good, until she got too nervous about something and her body refused to have an appetite, refused to accept the food. She'd bring it up again with her doctor, probably. At some point.
(And maybe this time, she'd be able to explain how she'd spent time having little control over what she ate, wore, did. Meals were cooked by someone else and put on the table, and that was what was eaten. Fine things, sometimes fancy. Maybe her doctor would be able to point out how food could be control in a situation, or lack of it. Maybe...)
Her head snapped up at Sam's tone, hands clenching but the injured one causing her to make a soft sound of distress and relax it again. And her own tone was defensive at first. "It was different at first. It wasn't just Louis, it was... everyone. If I stayed, he would stop. And it was fucking stupid, but I honestly thought..." She bit her lip hard, eyebrows coming together. "And I thought he had, okay? He knew things I hated about myself and said it was okay, and I was young and fucked up and running from my parents and I thought it could be good for everyone. And I don't remember everything from then, okay? I just don't. And so many people have told me that's a cop out, but I have tried to remember and I can't." She took a breath, her voice tenser and just a bit louder. "It took me too long to realize what was going on and by then I didn't know how to leave, and even if I did, where would I go? He always said no one else would take me, because that's the way it had always been. And he said if I did go with all of you, it would just be worse. And that there really wouldn't be anyone I could go to, once you all found out all the things he already knew about me. And when... after... I didn't know where he was. Everyone thinks I did, but I didn't. He'd stopped talking to me because I'd yelled at him and tried to leave, and I couldn't find him, and..." A hard shake of her head, breath coming too fast, and she turned away, back to Sam as she crouched down, arms around her shins and making herself as small as possible for a moment, her whole body trembling again.
Her voice came again, once she heard Sam's footsteps on the floor, but it was thick and shaky. "Just... a second. I just need..." Softer: "A second..."