𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗢𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗖𝗘 - 𝘄.𝗿.

v. 𝗼𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘀.

THE GROUPIES
DAISY & IRIS JONES

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INTERVIEWER: what exactly caused you to leave? can you walk me through it? only if you're comfortable. i promise i can handle it.

IRIS JONES (singer, songwriter): oh, god. [laughs] it was about a month and half after that party i had told you about. a week before my eighteenth birthday. my parents were still away for business and i was at a club on the sunset trip.

i went out that night to get some air and new scenery. i had recently found out that my boyfriend, matthew, had a major alcohol problem. i was so upset with him that we got in a dramatic fight about it, so i decided to go out for awhile.

it definitely was abnormal for me because i don't usually go out when i'm upset, i'll just sit at home and write music, play my guitar, or stare at the ceiling while listening to 'the beatles'. but, i couldn't be in that house anymore, everything just felt so heavy all of a sudden.

so there was this club, "cafe trocadero" that everyone went too. id never been, i mean i was seventeen at the time, so of course i'd never been. but i stood in line waiting to get in while flirting with some, i don't know, thirty year old guy so he'd tell the greeter that i was his plus one.

i got in.

i was at this club for hours. dancing the night away like there was no tomorrow; drinking like there was nothing better than the taste of bourbon and bacardi. taking shots like no other. i was not myself that night.

everything felt so... corpulent and burdensome. every single thing that i'd ever been through was on my mind. my sister being a drug addict, my sister leaving me in an emotionally abusive household, my mother being the biggest bully when it came to my looks. my constant assault by jim, watching my father and mother fight constantly leading to physical harm. putting myself in the exact same position with matthew. constantly being hit and buried by my own boyfriend whom i loved very much.

i didn't have any friends, i didn't have another home to go to. i had no escape. i was stuck in this world filled with drugs and alcohol, abuse and assault. pain and suffering. obligation and responsibility.

my whole body ached for happiness. it ached for me to just smile, laugh until i couldn't breathe. i wanted to cry in happiness and not despair. i wanted a person. a friend, a real friend. someone who fucking loved me. [sniffs]

i was out until two a.m. that night. left at about nine. when i got home, he was sitting on my bed. bottle of jack daniels in his hand. matthew was just staring at the floor, in some kind of trance. when we got into a fight we weren't at my house, we were at his. so seeing him at my house was odd. how he even got in is beyond me.

i walked into my room drunk off my ass, him drunk off his ass. he looked up at me, his eyes were bloodshot red like he'd been crying. i almost tripped backward when he looked at me, honestly i hate saying this because i sound like the biggest bitch, but he didn't cry. at least not in front of me, seeing him like that, oh my god i can't believe im about to say this out loud. seeing him like that, like he was fighting for his life, felt so fucking good.