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Jiao isn’t stupid. She knows that Iris thinks she is, knows that a lot of other people think it, too. Other people usually communicate it more subtly, though, with do you need helps and sly smiles, laughter behind Jiao’s back. Iris’s blunt cruelty is refreshing by comparison, a dash of cold water to the face.
Refreshing, but wrong. Jiao isn’t stupid; her grades aren’t as good as Iris’s, but they’re still pretty good. Her scores are definitely higher in English than any of her classmates could get in Mandarin, Iris included. She knows things, she understands things, even if she doesn’t let on.
And so she’s fully capable of recognizing that Iris doesn’t see her the way Jiao sees Iris. There’s no tenderness when Iris looks at her, no softness in the way she digs her fingers into Jiao’s wrist or spits fire in her face. Iris is a rocket blazing into orbit, a ball of hot ambition, and Jiao is the space dust being dragged in her wake.
So maybe Jiao is stupid, a little bit, for still trying to keep up with her, for thrusting her hand into the flames again and again. She runs until she can’t anymore and Iris is always one step ahead of her, her beautiful face twisted in scorn when she deigns to look over her shoulder. The light brushes her glasses like a struck flame, bright as her bared teeth.
Do you think we’re supposed to be friends because we’re from the same country? she’d snapped once, and stomped off before Jiao could explain no, it wasn’t like that. It’s not their similarities that draw her to Iris, it’s their differences. If Jiao wanted, she could make all sorts of friends from her parents’ community.
They’d be nice, these hypothetical friends and lovers. They’d be clever, they’d be gentle, they’d make Jiao’s parents happy instead of the way their brows wrinkle when Iris deigns to enter the house.
But none of the others would be Iris, who is sharp and cruel and brilliant like no one Jiao’s ever met. There is no one quite like her at school, in the country, on the planet. Nobody can give Jiao what she needs, except for Iris.
Jiao doesn’t say I haven’t cut myself since I met you. Iris’s tongue is all the razor she needs, flaying Jiao open enough that the weight slips off and she can breathe again. Iris’s fire scorches her to the bone, but it also keeps her warm in this freezing country.
Jiao tries to imitate that sometimes, but it fails, as her disastrous attempt to dress up as Iris shows. She can’t give herself the pain she needs anymore, her razors don’t cut deep enough. Iris can, though, and Jiao will do anything if she keeps doing it.
It’s not just the pain that drives her, of course. Maybe if it was it would be easier for Jiao to find someone who could hurt her like that, in a starburst of ugly clarity. But that would be too simple, and things are never simple with Iris.
Instead, Jiao finds herself knotted in the soft movements. When Iris grows weary after reluctantly letting Jiao study at her side and lets her head sag, resting against Jiao’s shoulder. When she’s in Iris’s tiny, cluttered bedroom, Iris presses her lips to Jiao’s neck like she’ll die of starvation otherwise. When Iris cries after they have sex, letting her troubles spill out as Jiao hums and nods and strokes her hair.
And there are other moments, too, strange moments that they don’t talk about. When Iris seems almost purple out of the corner of Jiao’s eye, her clothes and hair flashing an impossible shade. When Iris’s voice comes softer than Jiao has ever heard it, asking questions about things she should already know. When she listens while Jiao eagerly explains, her eyes wide, as if Jiao is someone special to her, as if—
It doesn’t matter. The softness, purple or otherwise, doesn’t last. Iris grits her teeth, shoves Jiao away. What the fuck? I didn’t say that. Fuck off. Tail lashing, teeth bared, a walk of fire between her and the world.
The soothing rake of claws doesn’t last either, as Iris withdraws into icy isolation instead. It takes more and more to reach her, broken rules and rigged contests and a desperation that catches Jiao herself off guard.
She wonders, somehow, what her breaking point will be. When the tether snaps and she can’t abide Iris anymore, what is left of Jiao? Will the razors be enough? Selfishly, she wonders if Iris’ll miss her when she’s gone.
Or maybe there’ll be no breaking point, and Iris will just vanish to the ends of the earth. Bury herself, maybe, far underground, change the world from the confines of a secret base. Iris could do something like that; Iris can do anything.
So Jiao continues to stare, no matter how many times Iris calls her a fucking creep, trying to drink Iris in before Iris breaks her for good. And she continues to hope, to pray, to wonder if maybe she can convince herself not to fracture and Iris not to leave if she just loves Iris hard enough.
Stupid. Silly. But hey, there are aliens in the sky today, right? Anything is possible, it seems, no matter how miraculous. Anything at all.