Extra

8- Living On The Edge

Iris Morton: I should give people a chance and learn to open up because some people are just trying to be friendly. (Holds a decent conversation with Hudson)

That note is taped to the front of my car as I'm leaving for lunch the next day. I want to feel annoyed at this, I want to crumple it into a ball and throw the little piece of paper into the trash and forget that I ever read it. Instead, it makes me smile and I stuff it into my jeans pocket. I have no idea what's going on.

"A love note?" Marina asks me as she's getting into the passenger seat of my car.

"I don't know," I lie, getting into the driver seat so that we can drive off to get lunch. We only have half an hour today for lunch, which means that we're going to be pretty busy today. That's good because I need to keep my mind off of things.

"It wasn't a parking ticket, was it?" She wonders.

"Nope, just a stupid note," I explain quickly. "Where do you want to go for lunch?"

"Somewhere quick and close. There's a fast food place down the road," She suggests and I pull out of the parking lot, heading toward the closest fast food restaurant. "How's your head feeling?"

"Better than yesterday," I confirm with a nod. I took the bandage off and luckily, the swelling isn't too bad. It's just a small red cut on my face, barely even noticeable with the makeup that they caked onto my face. "I've gotten worse."

"Really?" She wonders. Yesterday when she found me after she got back from lunch, she didn't ask me how it happened, she just asked me if I need help. I think that everybody just assumed that I'm in an abusive relationship or something because that just seems to be how people had treated me when they saw the cut on my face. Kurt isn't somebody that I'm ashamed of though, he isn't a dirty little secret in the back of my closet that I need to keep in the dark.

"Yeah, my brother had a schizophrenic episode," I tell Marina. "And he was trying to get free so that he could get to me. The whole thing was my fault, it was just a mess."

"Oh, Iris, I'm so sorry to hear that," She frowns at me with just the slightest bit of sympathy. "So that's what you meant when we went to the bar, when you said that your brother is sick?"

"Yeah, that's what I meant," I confirm with a nod. "Everyone thought that it was such a big deal yesterday. Hudson Gray stuck his assistant on me to babysit me after I ran into him."

"Really? That's sweet," Marina coos with a small smile.

"He isn't sweet," I argue. "He's annoying. He babied me and he doesn't even know me. It's ridiculous."

"He cares about you," She defends him. "I mean, I'm the least in favor of falling for their celebrity crap and how entitled these guys think that they are but... I don't know, maybe I'm more naïve than I thought that I was but I think that he actually cares about you."

"He doesn't even know me," I insist and I feel like maybe Hudson is paying her to tell me exactly what he had told me a few days ago when we were sitting in the hallway together. "He said that he knows that I stick up for myself and that's why he keeps talking to me. You stand up for yourself too though and how many times has he talked to you?"

"You do have a point there," Marina confirms. I park in the fast food parking lot and we go inside for a quick lunch.

"Thank you," I sigh. "Because I was starting to think that I was going crazy."

"I mean, he could have a crush on you," She suggests skeptically. "Or they could be playing some sick game to see who can screw the most extras. I've heard of movie stars trying crap like that but I could just be paranoid."