"Hey, you're that kid, right?"

"Huh?"

Barry was at his locker, one knee propped against the frame and holding up his backpack so he could stuff the books he needed for his next class into it. The hallway was bustling around him, loud with students calling out to one another and locker doors banging shut. He wasn't really paying attention to the person talking to him. He had to get to his next class on time—it didn't matter how bright Mr. Patterson thought he was, if he was late again it would be a deduction from his final grade.

"You're that Iris kid, right?"

At her name Barry's head shot up. "I'm sorry?" he asked. The person in front of him was a boy about his age, though shorter. Better looking, too, Barry noted with a bit of annoyance, with a square jaw and blonde hair and a tan, even though there were still mounds of packed snow in the school's parking lot from the winter. He had the kind of arms boys were supposed to have, the kind Iris and her friends giggled over in her room when she came home from basketball practice, not all long and spindly like his. Barry had no idea who he was, had never spoken to him before, probably because he spent his time playing some kind of sport that required a high level of coordination, like lacrosse, or soccer or something, instead of making lists of his favorite lines by character from Deep Space Nine.

"Sorry, I mean you're that kid Iris is always hanging out with. Iris West?"

Barry thought that maybe he should be insulted that this guy didn't even know his name, and that it shouldn't make him feel so good only to be known as Iris's friend, but he smiled anyway. He could tell it was a dopey smile, wide and loose and a little higher on one side, and it probably just made him look goofier than he usually did, but that's how he always smiled when he thought of Iris. He ducked his head to hide it because he'd only recently realized what Iris made him feel was, and he didn't know yet how to carry that knowledge openly. He wanted to keep it to himself, keep that feeling safe, somehow.

"Um, I mean, yeah, I know her," Barry said. He tried not to sound cocky about it. He shouldered his backpack and shoved his locker shut. "Why?"

"Because," and the guy started following him as he made his way through the crowd, "I kind of need your help with her."

"My help?"

"Yeah, listen, what's your name?"

"Barry."

"Right, of course, Iris is always talking about you."

Barry almost tripped over a freshman in front of him. He couldn't hide his smile this time, and he couldn't keep the delight out of his voice when he asked, "She is?"

"Yeah, look," the guy had to almost jog to keep up with him, "since you two are so close, I was hoping maybe you could kind of help me with something."

"Something for Iris?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"Well, you know prom?"

Barry bit back a groan. This always happened. A guy would have a crush on Iris, and instead of going to her, or going to one of her girlfriends, like Shawna or Linda, he would come to him. These guys always had rationales that made Barry cringe—he seemed more "approachable" than Iris did and they wanted to ask him if she really was as friendly as she seemed; they thought the reason Iris didn't date much was because of her dad and wanted tips on how to "get past" him; they wanted to know if he could get her to come to one of their games, so they could talk to her "on their own turf." He sometimes felt there was some kind of code that the other boys in his school had between them and held fast to, something that had to do with a similarity in how they were supposed to treat girls, and how they were supposed to talk and look and act, in order for it to be recognized that they were boys. But Barry didn't really know what that code was. It confused him, the things Iris's crushes said when they came to talk to him about her.

The worst thing, and one that came up uncomfortably often, was that they would think he was playing some kind of "long game," and that he wasn't really friends with Iris, that he was just biding his time until he could make his move, or something. They came to ask his permission to "step in," like there was a queue, and they were being courteous as they cut in front of him; or worse, they would ask if he'd "gotten close," if living with her "helped," if it got him some kind of special privileges that the other guys at school didn't have access to. When he told them how wrong they were, they would either look at him incredulously, or shake their heads with pity and utter something about how much the friend-zone sucked.

What they couldn't seem to understand was how lucky Barry felt to be Iris's friend. For him, she was his very best friend. He was comfortable around her in a way he wasn't around others, and yet he'd found that one of the pleasures of being so close to her for so long was in how their affection deepened and changed, so that even though they knew each other better than anyone else, they could still surprise each other. He liked the nights turned to mornings he spent talking to her, drifting from one subject to another without any pause, their voices growing hoarse with use until they couldn't keep their eyes open anymore; and he liked, too, the silences they shared between them, comfortable and inviting—nourishing, even, because those silences fed their thoughts and daydreams. He liked being there for all the mundane moments of Iris's life, like when she was bored, or studying for a test, or going to the mall, and he liked being there for the moments Iris celebrated, like when she won first place in their year's essay writing contest and got to visit the Library of Congress. He could tell her anything, everything, and nothing was too banal or too personal for her to hear. He liked her. He liked his time spent with her. And the best thing was, Iris felt the same about him.

"I'm not giving you her number," he said.

"Oh, no, that's not it."

"And I'm not going to ask her to prom for you."

"Dude, no, that's not it at all. We're already going together, to senior prom, actually. I'm Ethan, by the way, her date."

Barry stopped in the middle of the hallway, and the students behind them shot him dirty, impatient looks as they shoved past. The guy, Ethan, held out his hand, but all Barry could do was stare at him and say, "Oh."

He hadn't known Iris was going to prom with anyone. He'd thought maybe she was planning to go with a group of friends. But of course she wasn't. She was kind and popular and beautiful. Of course someone, some senior jock, would have asked her.

"Oh," Barry said again, and Ethan awkwardly took his hand away, let his arm hang by his side. And as Barry took him in, he realized who he was. He was Ethan Mariano, and he didn't play lacrosse. He played football. He was the starting running back for Central City High, and it was rumored he was so good he would get a full scholarship to Penn State. Barry knew this about him because he'd overheard Iris gushing over him with Shawna and Linda. They'd spent an entire afternoon talking about his stats, and they always used his full name, like he was an institution or something. So it wasn't just some random jock she was going with, but with someone she knew and liked.

"But it is prom that I need your help with, actually," Ethan said. "I don't need you to ask her for me, it's just—" he swung his backpack around and unzipped it, dug a couple of folded, crumpled papers out of it. "I kind of wrote something for her, to give to her. Cause I want prom night to be kind of romantic-like, you know? But I didn't want to do anything too cheesy. So I thought I'd write her a letter. And I was thinking, I was hoping, I mean, that you could look it over, maybe? Since you two are so close and all, and you probably know what she'd like to hear."

Barry was still processing the information that Iris, his Iris, well, not his really, but Iris-who-liked-to-tickle-him-when-he-was-being-mopey, Iris-who'd-been-to-every-science-fair-he'd-participated-in, Iris-who-always-stole-his-dessert, that Iris, was going to senior prom with future-NFL-star-Ethan-Mariano. That Ethan, seeing that Barry hadn't spoken another coherent word to him, took Barry's hand, placed his words to Iris in Barry's palm, and folded Barry's fingers over it. "I have to get to class, but I'll come find you tomorrow to see what you think, ok? I owe you big time, man."

Ethan probably got to class on time, but Barry didn't manage to make it to his until well after the bell had rung. By then he was in such a foul mood that he didn't even care about the pointed look Mr. Patterson gave him.


It wasn't that he had been planning to ask Iris to junior prom himself. He'd looked at tuxes, and at how much it would cost to rent a limousine, and his stomach would twist up in knots whenever he thought of what Iris would look like in a fancy dress, if it would be too much if he got her a necklace to wear as well as a corset, or if he should just be normal and only get her flowers, but he'd never thought of asking her. He'd just assumed that they would be there together, and that maybe, if his limbs would cooperate, he could dance with her, and leave his hand on her back or her hip, whichever she liked better, without it getting all sweaty. He'd even thought that afterwards they could go to the local diner Iris liked out by Route 32, with Shawna and Linda and their dates, since Iris probably wouldn't want to go to any of the parties, with all the drinking they had and how Joe would be on her all night about it. But Iris had other plans. He knew that now.

In class what Barry wanted to do was scrunch up the papers Ethan had given him and throw them out, or maybe tear them into such tiny pieces that they could never be put together again, and then flush them down a toilet. But instead he unfolded them, apprehensively because he didn't know what he would find, and with a scowl on his face because he was sure whatever he did find would only upset him more. A petty, vicious part of him wanted to see Iris, want to go to prom? scrawled messily on them, with 2 boxes drawn for her to check off, one for yes and one for no. But what he found instead was something that could only be described as a love letter. Ethan wasn't a poet. From what Barry read he had serious doubts about whether Ethan was even moderately literate, and he told himself that he didn't think that just because of some mean, jealous part of him that immediately disliked any boy Iris spoke warmly of.

Ethan's letter to Iris had spelling mistakes, and the grammar he used made it difficult to read, and his handwriting was large, like he hadn't yet learned how to write on college ruled paper, but the sentiments and thoughts in it were clear. Ethan wanted to tell Iris that she was funny and beautiful, and that he was glad to have met her. Ethan wanted to tell Iris that in the last few weeks since knowing her, she'd made high school bearable for him, when he hadn't even realized that it was a burden weighing him down. Ethan wanted to tell Iris that she was one of the best things to have happened to him in a while, and he would be honored that she was going to prom with him.

Reading Ethan's letter, Barry felt as though his chest were bruising. He rubbed himself there, the feeling hit him with such clarity. What struck him about Ethan's letter, other than how sincere it was, was that he knew exactly what Ethan meant when he wrote that Iris was easy to talk to, and that she made him feel like it was ok to be who he was, even though when other people looked at him they saw only what they wanted. He recognized something in Ethan's letter. He recognized himself. He recognized a shade of the feelings he had for Iris.

Barry read Ethan's letter three times before he folded it up and slipped it into his pocket. With each reading, the scowl on his face lessened, and the immediate antipathy he'd felt when Ethan had told him he'd be going to prom with Iris was replaced with something almost kindly. Because how could Barry hate someone who cared about Iris the way Ethan seemed to? He had to laugh, because of course Iris would do this. Of course she'd get him to look at someone who was so different from him, someone who could easily be dressed up in all the stereotypes of the bullies who had mocked him and shoved him in lockers, and make him see someone who wasn't very much unlike himself. She was always doing that, making people come together. It was one of his favorite things about her. Ethan probably liked that about her too.


That afternoon Barry stayed late at school in the library so he wouldn't have to take the bus with Iris. He waited until he knew that she was on it and then texted her to tell her to go home without him. He didn't know how to face her, and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to see her. He was rarely ever mad at her; in fact he couldn't remember one instance in which her ever had been, but ever since realizing just how much he liked her, and understanding why he liked the look of the back of her neck so much whenever she wore her hair up, his feelings would sometimes get all twisted up inside of him. Sometimes it wasn't as easy for him to be with Iris as it had always been, because sometimes he wanted her to kiss him. Sometimes he wanted to hold her hand and lace his fingers with hers. And sometimes he didn't want to go home with her at all, but wanted to walk her home and leave her at the door, maybe with a kiss, and then wait on the sidewalk to see her light in her room go on to make sure she was in there safe. Sometimes he wanted to be able to walk to some home he didn't share with Iris, so he could think about her and how much he liked her without being scared that she'd walk by him and see what he was thinking written all over his face.

When Barry did come home that day Iris was sitting at the kitchen table with her calculus textbook open and sheets of loose leaf paper spread out in front of her, a scowl on her face. She'd could have taken Algebra II this year and finished up her math requirements, but Barry had encouraged her to take pre-calc because he'd never known her not to challenge herself. She'd grown a habit of looking up from her homework and declaring dramatically, "You did this to me." He'd make funny faces at her until she stopped glaring. She was in what she called her "home tights," with an oversized sweatshirt on over them, and the thick socks she liked to wear cause her feet were always cold bunched up around her ankles. She'd been trying out different hairstyles lately, and right then she had her hair in these long, thick twists that she had cascading down over one shoulder. She liked to run her fingers through them to straighten them out. When Barry closed the door behind him she looked up from her work and smiled at him.

"Barry, you're home!" she cried, her smile growing wider.

Usually Barry would make his way over to her, drop his backpack on the floor, and pull out a chair opposite her. They'd be there at the table for one, two, three hours, just talking about their day and their homework, and since Joe wasn't coming home till late they'd play-argue over what to order, even though Barry always went with what Iris wanted. But instead of joining her Barry made his way to the stairs. He nodded at her as he passed by, and ignored the sinking feeling in his gut when she frowned at him. Barry almost sprinted up the steps, but he heard Iris scrape her chair back and follow him. He had to stop when she called out her pet name for him.

"Bare?" she asked behind him. "Hey, is something wrong?"

They were in the upstairs corridor now, and Barry was facing away from her. He felt the touch of her hand on his shoulder, and then she came around to face him. "Bare? What happened?"

Barry didn't look at her. He kept his head bent and bit his lip. She probably thought that someone at school had said something about his parents and wanted to comfort him. Thinking that made the twisted up feeling inside of him denser. He knew that she liked someone else, Ethan had told him as much. But sometimes he thought maybe Iris could like him, that maybe she did. It wasn't that he felt that only someone who liked him like that would want to comfort him; it was just that sometimes Iris treated him with such care and such tenderness that he thought she just had to feel what he felt. Like the smile she'd given him earlier; was it selfish of him to think that was a smile she saved for him, was it wrong for him to be happy that he could make her smile like that? He knew that Iris liked someone else, but he could have kissed her right then. He wanted to. He wasn't going to do it, he was going to tell her that nothing had happened and that she shouldn't worry, but before he could work up the nerve to speak, Iris took a step up close to him and hugged him. She slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his chest. She had her eyes closed.

"Hey," she said, quietly, almost in a whisper. Another greeting. She did that with him sometimes, started over with something easy when she thought that maybe he had too much to say.

"I missed you today."

He'd missed her, too. He'd avoided her all day, not once stopping by her locker, and skipping lunch with her with an excuse about having to see his guidance counselor. All Barry could answer was a noncommittal "Mmm" from somewhere in his throat. But, tentatively, because Iris was so warm against him, and because her arms around him were so familiar, and because he wanted something to blunt the edge of the aching he had, he brought one arm around her shoulders. She was so much smaller than him, when for the longest time she'd been taller and bigger. He gave her just one quick squeeze and then shifted away from her, pulling out of her embrace.

"I, uh, have a lot of homework. It'll probably take me all night, so I should really get to it."

"Oh," Iris said, "Oh, ok." Her voice was still quiet, but it was of a different kind, now. She sounded disappointed. Barry kept his head bent as he went to his room. He almost never closed his door, just in the mornings when he was getting dressed and at night when he switched into his sweats and sometimes when he'd just come from visiting his father, but he did now.


Barry lay in his bed that night staring at his ceiling. Iris had stopped by his room a little earlier to say goodnight, and she'd lingered by his door as if she'd had something she'd wanted to say. He hadn't asked her though, just kept pretending the notebook in front of him was absorbing all of his attention, when really what he'd been thinking was that he wished Ethan Mariano had never come up to him, so that he could have spent his afternoon teasing Iris about all the things she did to distract herself from actually doing her calc homework. She'd been standing right there in front of him, in his room, and he was missing her. Before leaving she'd asked, "Are you mad at me?" and he'd said, "No, I'm just busy, is all." He'd never lied to Iris before. It felt awful. It unnerved him to see how easily he could do it, that he still did it even though he hated it. But she'd lied to him too, hadn't she? She was going to prom with Ethan, was probably even maybe dating him, and hadn't told him.

Ethan was hardly the first person to like Iris, though he was the first boy Barry felt anything other than a deep and fixed dislike towards. He didn't know if it was maybe because he'd seen for himself firsthand evidence of how much Ethan liked Iris, but something felt different about him, somehow, about him and Iris together. Iris hadn't even told Barry about him, and she told him about all the boys she went on dates with. She'd never kept anything from him before, he didn't think. So if she hadn't told him about Ethan…it must mean that it was something she couldn't, or didn't want to, share with him. Iris had had boyfriends before, but it had never changed anything about their relationship. She would go out with a boy over the weekend, and then she'd come home and flop down on his bed and complain to him about how the boy didn't like ketchup on his burgers, or how he'd inadvertently made fun of one of her favorite movies. She hadn't done that with Ethan. So maybe they were serious. She was going to prom with him. She'd be getting a dress, and getting her hair done, maybe even wearing it up, swept back from her collarbone and her shoulders and her neck, in that way that always made him flush. Joe would be taking pictures, ones that would probably end up on the mantelpiece. And he'd have to watch it all. He wanted to cry. But in the dark of his bedroom Barry could be more truthful with himself than he had been at school, surrounded by his schoolmates, and earlier, when he'd been facing Iris. More than that she was going to prom with someone who wasn't him, more than the prospect of her seriously dating another boy even, what unsettled him was that she hadn't told him. It made him wonder if maybe something was happening to them that he'd somehow missed, if maybe they were growing apart, and he was the only one who hadn't realized it.

Barry still had Ethan's letter in the pocket of his jeans, which he'd thrown over the back of his desk chair. He wondered how many letters like that Iris had gotten. He'd gotten lots of letters from her. One summer he'd gone away to a space camp that he'd been saving all year for, but which Joe had ended up paying for anyway, and she'd written him a letter every day, collected them throughout the week and sent them to him at the end of it. He still had them, tied up in little bundles with string. He had Valentines from her dating back to when they'd been in the first grade together and their teacher had made them exchange cards. Iris hadn't picked his name out of the hat their teacher had passed around the room, but she'd written him one anyway. They'd kept exchanging Valentine's cards right up until that very year, each time making them sappier and sillier, trying to one up one another to see who could make the other laugh the hardest. He had notes from her, too. Post-its left on the fridge, doodles she made in his notebook when he lent it to her so she could study, the notes she would write in the margins of the essays he asked her to look over. When he read a book he thought Iris would like, she sometimes gave it back to him with her favorite sentences in it underlined. He didn't think Iris had noticed it, but he kept all his books that she'd written in on a special shelf on his bookcase, just because he felt like they'd become little gifts from her.

Barry thought all of this, and he wondered at his behavior. Was this who he was? Was this who he wanted to be to Iris? Someone who hurt her because he was jealous, who lied and pushed her away the moment she found someone who genuinely liked her? He thought of Ethan's letter, which he'd almost committed to memory now; he thought of how Ethan looked exactly like the kind of guy Iris usually went for; and he thought of how much he liked to make Iris happy. It was one of the things he wanted most in the world, for Iris to be happy, and it was one of the things that wasn't impossible, that wasn't outside of his ability to make happen.

Barry wrote Iris a love letter that night. He sat cross-legged on his bed to write it, with the reading glasses he only wore at home on, in the notebook she'd gotten him the month before because it had outlines of microscopes and little amoeba printed on the paper. He scribbled the words down as they came to him, not thinking, not choosing them so they sounded right, only trusting that when he got out what was in him, he could look at it and not feel abashed. When he was finished he had something that came close to explaining how he felt about her, though he knew words could only ever be approximate:

"Dear Iris,

I love you.

I think I've loved you for a long time. I think maybe what I feel for you, this love, is one of the things I've felt longest in my life. I can't remember not loving you. I don't know how not to. And I don't want to know what it's like not to. I think maybe I know what love like this is because of you, because it's you. Do you remember the night Joe brought me here, brought me home? It should have been one of the worst nights of my life, but it wasn't. Because you were there. Because you held your hand out to me, like you always do, and you listened to me, like you always do, and you didn't laugh at me when I told you that some guy in a yellow mask killed my mom. I didn't start loving you that night, I've loved you since even before then, but you were so kind, you were so good, and for the first time since I'd seen that man in yellow I felt something other than scared and angry and lost. I felt calm. I felt hope. You told me you believed me, and it made all the people who'd called me a liar not matter. I wasn't a liar because you believed me. I wasn't just some scared kid making stuff up because you believed me. I wish I had the words to tell you what you mean to me, but all I can say is I love you. All I can say is I want to be for you what you've been for me. I want to be good to you. Is that all right? I want you to know you can tell me anything. If you're sad, or if you're hurt, or if you're angry, you can tell me. I'm telling you all this, but you don't have to do anything with it. I don't want you to feel burdened by it. I just want you to know. I promise it doesn't change anything, I promise I'll still be the same Barry you've always known, and if it makes you feel weird, or if it upsets you, please just ignore it. If you'll let me, I can go on loving you like this, like I always have, quietly, endlessly, and with everything in me, because that's what you deserve.

Your best friend,

Barry"

Barry stared at his letter for a long while after he finished writing it. He'd learned something about being honest when he was younger, that sometimes, when you were too honest, it set you apart from others in ways that could hurt you. He knew Iris would never hurt him, but he felt so vulnerable, like he was standing at the edge of something, and even the slightest of breezes could topple him over. Carefully, he crossed it all out, line by line. He ripped the paper out of his notebook, crumpled it up, and threw it at his waste paper basket, where it fell in cleanly. Then, on a new sheet of paper, he wrote another letter. It was shorter and simpler than the one he'd thrown out. He tried to cleave it as close to Ethan's letter as he could, but knowing who would read it, knowing he was more of a coward than he wanted to admit, he wrote it to carry some of the taste of the confession he had lingering on his tongue. He wasn't telling Iris the secret he had, he wasn't telling her what she meant to him. But writing Ethan's letter eased something in Barry. Ethan had signed his letter with "Love." Barry allowed himself one little act of selfishness. He signed it "Sincerely," then added Ethan's name.


The next morning Barry woke up early and went to the kitchen, where he gathered up all the ingredients he needed to make his special blueberry muffins. It wasn't his recipe, really. It was his mother's. When she was alive, she'd bake him the muffins so he could have one for his morning snack at school, and she would always give him an extra one to give to Iris. The year before Iris had presented the recipe to him as a present for his birthday. She'd remembered how the muffins tasted, and she'd spent months experimenting, until she'd come up with something close to what his mother had made for him.

When Iris came down the stairs, she was cautious around him. Her smile was small, and instead of joining him at the counter, she grabbed the box of Frosted Mini-Wheats from the cabinet and sat at the kitchen table. She was avoiding him. Maybe she thought that was what he wanted. It made him feel how callous he had been with her the day before, and he promised himself he'd never make it so that Iris was like that with him again.

Barry knew he had to speak first. He took a breath, and then he said, shyly, an awkward hand at the back of his neck, "Hey."

"Hi," Iris said. She popped a frosted square into her mouth and gave him a quick look from beneath her lashes.

"I made muffins, if you want any."

"Oh?"

"They're your favorite, right?"

Iris shrugged. "They're ok."

Barry nodded. He took another breath, squared his shoulders, then took the tray of muffins and brought it over to the table. "I'm sorry about yesterday," he said, "I was being a jerk."

Iris was quiet for a moment, and then she finally looked him in the eye. "Yes, you were." And she smiled. A warmth spread over Barry at the sight of it, and he grinned back at her, slipped into the seat next to her, eagerly pushed the tray towards her. "Go ahead, have one. I made them for you."

"Thank you," Iris said, and this time she was the one who sounded shy. She reached for the tray but stopped short.

"Barry."

"Yeah?"

"Did you grease the cups?"

"Grease the—oh. Shit."

Iris giggled. He hung his head.

"Shit, I'm sorry Iris. I really thought I hadn't forgotten anything."

"It's all right, Bare," and, still laughing, Iris got up, got two forks from the dishwasher, and handed one over to him. Together, they each dug into a muffin, straight from the pan.

"So how'd that calc homework go?" Barry asked. Iris just scrunched her nose at him and took a generous bite off her fork. "I can look over it for you, if you want," Barry said.

"Really?"

Barry nodded.

"You don't have to, you know."

"I know. But I want to."

Iris looked at him for a long moment, then, and her gaze was so searching that Barry had to duck his head. "Barry," she said, and he tried not to think that she had a special way of saying it, that his name never seemed to sound like that, so soft and inviting, when anyone else said it, "Was something wrong?"

He didn't have to ask her what she meant. Barry thought about the letter she'd be getting, maybe later that day or tomorrow, and he thought about the letter he'd thrown away. He gave her a smile and said, "Nah. I was just being moody."

That day Barry couldn't have lunch with Iris because he really did have to meet with his guidance counselor. But he did sit next to her on the bus ride to school, and he did walk her to her locker before homeroom. He settled into the comfort and the delight of her friendship, and he tried not to be too giddy with the knowledge that no matter what, be it crushes or prom nights or any secrets he might have, they would always be the very best of friends.


"…Barry?"

"Hmm?"

"Barry?"

"What is it?"

He and Iris were in their new attic, taking a break from moving up all the boxes they'd left scattered about the house since their move. It was really their old attic, where he and Iris used to crouch amidst old furniture her mother had bought with Joe, shining flashlights into their own faces while trying to scare each other with ghost stories. The West home, now officially the West-Allen home, had been in Iris's name for years, but they'd only moved in a few months before. Joe had recently moved further out from the city, into the suburbs where it was quieter and he could enjoy his retirement in a smaller place that didn't require so much upkeep. Dawn and Don were with him for a weekend visit, and Iris, in a sudden burst of productivity, had decided it was the perfect opportunity for them to finally finish unpacking. Barry wasn't using his speed; he liked to spend this kind of time with Iris, their homemaking time, he liked to savor every second of it. Iris had her back propped up against a wall with her legs stretched out in front of her, and Barry lay with his head in her lap. He had his eyes closed and was enjoying the play of her fingers in his hair.

"Babe, what is this?"

Barry opened his eyes to see what Iris was talking about. She was holding a crumpled piece of paper with sharp creases down its middle in her hand, which she'd taken out of the battered old box that was next to her. Barry shrugged.

"I don't know. What's it say?"

Iris didn't answer him. Instead she peered at the paper intently, her eyes wide. Barry turned his head to the side to get a better look, and that's when he noticed that the paper she held had faint little illustrations on it, little microscopes and amoeba.

"Hey!" he cried. But before he could snatch it out of her hand she held it high over her head, out of his reach. Which was silly, because he was taller than her by almost a foot. He sat up to grab it, but Iris had a mischievous look on her face, and the moment he was off her lap she sprang up and darted away from him. Barry could have used his speed, but he didn't.

"Iris," he said warningly.

"Bar-ry," she mimicked him.

"That's mine," he told her.

"How can it be yours? It's addressed to me. See, right here, it says 'Dear Iris'!"

He thought for a moment that she might continue on to read it out loud, but she didn't. Instead she trailed her fingers down the surface of that old love letter, a fond smile on her face, and then folded it up again along the same lines he had, all those years ago. She tucked it into her back pocket.

Iris took his hand and pulled him to the very middle of the attic floor, where they had more space to move. She pressed herself up against him, so he could feel her warmth all along his front. They were half hugging, half dancing to the quiet that surrounded them.

"When did you write that?" Iris asked.

"Mmmm," Barry said, trying to remember. It had been so long ago. "When we were in high school, I think."

"Why didn't you ever give it to me?"

Barry didn't answer. He remembered the night he had written it, how furiously it had come out of him. He had a job now, a wife, children, and, ironically, monthly car payments, because his speed couldn't carry his family around for a summer road trip. But he still tried to retain that earnestness he'd had when he was young. He remembered how, the morning after, the morning he'd apologized to Iris, he'd fished the letter out of the trash, smoothed it out, and tucked it into the pages of the notebook Iris had gifted him.

"I wish you had," Iris said, "It would have been nice to have it while you were gone."

"I came back," Barry said, "I'm here now."

"I know." Iris tightened her arms around him.

She felt very delicate under his hands. She kept one hand at the nape of his neck, where she stroked him gently with her fingers. They kissed there in their home, with the afternoon light streaming in through the window, making all the dust motes in the air look like fairy dust. Iris gave him small, pretty little kisses that he pulled back from so he could gaze at her, and open-mouthed, languorous, wonderfully pouty kisses that left him lightheaded and grinning.

"I memorized that letter, you know," he whispered in her ear, between her kisses.

"You did not," Iris said, and her voice was teasing.

"Oh yes I did," Barry said, and he wasn't even embarrassed at how proud he sounded. In the 10 years since they'd been married, he'd already told Iris everything that he'd written in that letter, back when he was just a teenager and didn't yet know how to tell her what he felt. But right then, holding her tight and luxuriating in a life spent with her, he recited his letter, word for word.