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The box of mementos had sat stored away on high closet shelf until Iris had been seized with the need to find some obscure sweater of Barry’s. Her single-minded search accidentally knocked it to the floor, contents scattering every which way, joining the mess she had made of the rest of the room.
She picked up the tiny velociraptor fallen near her foot.
***
They had both loved Jurassic Park. Barry because he was a nerd and Iris because she had seen that T-Rex eat a guy on the toilet and screamed at the time but also thought it was awesome. They would sneak into the kitchen at night to get Jell-o, pretending they were trying to evade raptors. Sometimes Iris was the velicoraptor and Barry had to hide from her.
Her Dad had the living daylights scared out of him once when he came down for a glass of milk at 1am without switching on the light and they had both screamed in his face.
***
The memory rose so vividly that she took a step back and nearly tripped over Barry’s old sneakers. They were covered in sharpied scribbles, laces still tied together.
***
Iris had never been able to monitor her own sugar consumption. She used to eat so much candy at fairs that it made Joe and Barry sick just to watch her. She’d puked on Barry’s shoes TWICE after eating funnel cake on top of cotton candy and candy corn. Barry told her later, the morning after they had first made love, that this was probably when he figured out he’s in love with her for real, because he was too worried and exasperated to be grossed out as much as he should have been.
It hadn’t stopped him from jokingly gifting her the sneakers once they’d been cleaned. Iris had retaliated by refusing to give them back.
***
The keychain from her first car gleamed dully from under the side table.
***
Dad had given them a beat up Ford Escort for them to share when they were seventeen, but Barry had refused to get behind the wheel again till he left for college.
Joe still thought it was Iris that crashed his car. It had actually been Barry at the wheel. Iris knew her Dad loved Barry but there was always a shadow of a fear in her heart when he annoyed her Dad a little too much. She had insisted they swap seats and change their story before the cops came and never told him why. She could take her Dad’s anger. She’s his little girl. But she’s never trusted anyone to love Barry as much as she does.
***
The Titanic poster that had half-unrolled across the floor had been a gag gift from him the Christmas he had come home his freshman year.
***
They had been too young for the Titanic fever when it had first come out (except for everyone getting sick of that Celine Dion song) but when they had been about ten, Iris had taken it firmly into her head that she needed to see what the fuss was about. Dad hadn’t let them because he thought they were still babies who didn’t know about sex, which made Iris all the more determined.
She had gotten Barry to steal his parents’ DVD copy and bring it with him one day he was sleeping over at the Wests’ house. They watched it together in their basement, giggling and blushing at the sexy parts. Barry yelped and covered his face with his hands, ears burning, when Kate Winslet disrobed, and Iris covered up her own embarrassment by laughing and throwing popcorn at him.
At the end of the movie, Barry had been crying into his own popcorn but Iris was incensed.
“Well that’s….just stupid!” She steamed at the tv. “Are you CRYING?”
“NO,” Barry sniffled. “But it’s not stupid. Why is it stupid?”
“She let him DIE, Barry!” Iris fumed. “They could have shared that door! Taken turns! Or made HIM get on it!”
“It’s a minus freezing sea, Iris, not a swimming pool. You can’t jump in an out of it like that. Besides, then she would have died,” said Barry, looking at her in incomprehension.
“Well duh!” Iris huffed and threw her hands up in indignation. “You dont let the boy you love DIE for you. How is that romantic?”
“It’s romantic cause he sacrificed himself so she could live,” insisted Barry. “That’s what you do when you love someone!”
“Oh yeah, I love you so much Im just gonna up and LEAVE you, have a nice life!”
“That’s not fair!” said Barry, seeming irrationally hurt. “It’s not like he had a choice! You just dont get romance, Iris. You don’t even like musicals,” he concluded in a superior tone.
Iris gaped at him, then closed her mouth and returned to the point at issue. “Anyway. It’s stupid. She doesnt deserve him. I’d a died with my man if it was me.”
“Well then you’re stupid,” said Barry with uncharacteristic vehemence. “You’re worth way more than some guy!”
“I happen to love that guy!” Iris yelled back.
“What guy?”
“Whatever guy!”
“Fine! Go die for Whatever Guy!”
“You too! Go drown yourself for little Miss Cant-Share-A-Frggin-Door Priss!”
They glared at each other before the absurdity of the argument dawned on them and they started to laugh.
“Is everything okay down there?” Joe’s voice called down to the basement.
They looked at each other wide-eyed and at the TV before Iris scrambled to eject the DVD.
That night, after her Dad had turned off the light with a firm admonishment to go to sleep, Iris snuck into Barry’s camp bed and under his covers where he was reading with a flashlight.
“Hey,” she poked him. “Just to be clear, I know you’re a sappy nerd -”
“YOU’RE a sappy -”
“But,” she continued determined, “no sacrificing yourself for any girls, okay? I need my best friend around.”
Barry had a weird expression on his face.
“What?”
“You’re a girl,” he observed rather too casually. “Im not allowed to give you the door either?”
Iris swatted him, appalled. “Especially not me! We’re partners Barry! The whole point is that we go down together!”
“You jump, I jump, Jack,” grinned Barry at her over the beam of the flashlight.
Iris poked his pointy nose. “Except we mean it, Rose.”
***
The loft had grown dark during her reminiscing. The floor was chilly beneath her but her limbs were too heavy to move.
She simply sat, Barry’s sweater forgotten on her lap, spinning the tiny lone raptor in her hand. Lost among the debris of their life together that he had left behind when he walked into the Speed Force, the ghost of his last kiss still tingling on her lips.
You lied to me again, Barry. You lied.