overdue [private]

His genuine laugh caught her off guard. She had wanted to make him laugh, but the fact that he actually did just.. surprised her. Her eyebrows knit together slightly. She wasn't entirely sure how she felt about making someone else laugh at the expense of herself.
She had sworn to herself long ago that self-preservation would always be her first priority. She wouldn't be stupid and expect too much from anyone else again. She'd made that mistake too many times for her to count now. Jonathan was pretty much a saint, but if she cared about him, trusted him, he would let her down. When it came down to it, everyone did.

She regarded him for a moment before averting her eyes and lifting her shoulders in a shrug. "It's no big deal, Johnny boy." She said breezily. She didn't know what it was about Jonathan Adams but she couldn't help but want him to be okay. It was currently frustrating her to no end.

When he asked about her boy scout story, she started to chew on her lower lip. "Sorry to disappoint but it's really not as interesting as you're probably imagining it to be." The corner of her mouth tugged upward a small bit.

"It was summer and I was 11. I thought girl guides was stupid so I cut my hair and joined the boy scouts - nobody really asked any questions." She shrugged her shoulders like it was nothing out of the ordinary, gathering a handful of sand and watching the grains sift through her fingers. "Three weeks after I joined I remembered that I didn't like it outside and retreated back to the great indoors." She wrinkled her nose. "But you know what they say - once a boy scout, always a boy scout." She actually wasn't sure if anyone said that, but it sounded like something that should be said.

She watched his face as she talked about the mes hall and was surprised by what she found, and even more surprised by what he said.
It must have sparked something inside her because before she knew it, she heard herself spewing out words and thoughts that on a normal day, she would never have shared out loud willingly. "Yeah, I just feel like I don't... belong, I guess, for lack of a better word. If I think about it for too long, I start thinking - realizing I should say - that I never really have. Maybe one time, a long time ago but then... People always let you down, you know? And camp is so full of people and I just - I'm so tired of being let down. Before - when I wrote you that letter - I thought that if I got out, I would find somewhere, something for me, but then I actually got out and... I guess I didn't like what I saw and I came back thinking maybe -... but..." She ran a hand through her hair, visibly flustered.

She gave herself a moment - took a deep breath and composed herself again. "Never mind. Just - just forget I said anything." She turned away and allowed the confusion to creep back in again. She wasn't sure why she had said all the things that she had. Maybe because she saw the look on his face and knew that he understood, or because she felt like he would because he was him. She doubted that she would have talked otherwise. There was no point in talking about certain things with people if they didn't know what you were talking about.

Or maybe. Maybe it was because Iris Andrews was in love with Jonathan Adams, her half-brother. And at the moment she realized, she inwardly laughed at how it was the most unexpected and consequently most destructive thing that could ever happen to her. So much for self-preservation.
She was even more abominable than she thought.

"Doesn't every normal girl cut her hair off and pretend to be a boy at some point?" She asked incredulously. "I swear it happens in every other movie."

She was trying desperately to ignore her earlier realization. Iris wasn't one for denial, but she couldn't help but cave into it in this case. Maybe if she ignored this particular crush, it would fade away like all others did. She refused to address it. Not yet.

Although, Jonathan really was not helping.

She inwardly heaved a sigh. He had no idea what he was doing. She stared at him and ran a hand through her hair. "I won't hold it against you if you do, Jonathan Adams. I'll probably let you down at some point myself. I am still human despite my unearthly beauty." She was incredibly tempted to give in and believe him. She wanted to believe that there was no possible way that someone so Jonathan Adams-y would ever let her down but she knew he would. Especially because of the current state she was in. Realistically, she knew that she didn't have a chance and that nothing would ever come from her feelings for him. She knew all this but still she couldn't force herself to stop. She wondered when she had gotten in so deep.

She laughed when he asked if she met someone - a short, terse laugh. "You're a bit off, I'm afraid. This summer, I went back home and found out that my father now has a nice, normal life complete with a nice, normal, mortal wife and 3-month old daughter which he has deigned not to tell me about for almost two years." She shook her head and smiled.
"I wished you could have seen the look on his face when I showed up at his house - it was... I've never seen the blood drain from a face so fast before." She laughed again and twirled her fingers through the sand, remembering how he had stood in the doorway, blocking her path. Reluctantly stepped back after not saying anything for almost a minute. The way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking. How he begged her to leave when she had been back home for not even an hour.

She remembered in the detached way that she did. It was easier not to care about things when you distanced yourself from them. Easier to look at them objectively and determine just how inconsequential they were. Within ten seconds of her father opening the door, Iris had realized that her father was not who she thought he was, that he never had been, and therefore was at the bottom of the list of things she would waste her time with.

She shrugged her shoulders again and her thoughts of her father fled to the back of her mind, where all the unimportant thoughts went. It didn't hurt if you didn't let it. "You know, when I walked over here, I thought we were going to talk about your problems." She said accusingly.