219 Inevitable Crash 11 (1/2)
Caron came to sit by Iris' side with a grin on her face. ”You mean he never told you what his mom did when he was in seventh grade?”
Iris shook her head, feeling a bit apprehensive. Was it something serious? Should she have somehow found out about it earlier?
”Caron, stop playing with her and just say it,” another of the women said, giving Iris a friendly nod. ”It's not as bad as she makes it out to be.”
”What? Would you do it then?” Caron instantly retorted. She then turned to Iris and began her tale. ”Kyro wasn't a very social youth, so he often ended up doing projects with this other girl who had no friends. They hung out a number of times, and Jessica noticed that.”
Suddenly, Iris could guess what happened next. There was no way that Kyro's mother would have just let it be. From what Iris had seen of her, it was beyond her capabilities to leave Kyro's personal life alone.
”She pushed them together, didn't she?”
”If only!” Caron laughed. ”She actually organized a party so they could admit their feelings before everyone. The girl was poor, so Jessica feared that her son would be too ashamed to say anything without her intervention. Kyro of course refused anyway, saying he was doing no such thing, and the girl ran away in tears. He was then forced to go after her to apologize, and from then on they became almost inseparable.
”The rest of the school had went on to party like nothing happened, though. Ah, it was such a good day for gossip.” Caron smirked at the two women. ”I remember us all sitting at one table and dissing Jessica behind her back. Pretty sure I said I'd never do such a mistake to alienate my own son.”
The others laughed at that. ”You certainly didn't pull punches when kicking him out.”
”It was necessary,” Caron said a bit defensively, even if the words before had been said in a joking matter. ”Anyway, Iris, did something similar happen to you?”
”Close enough,” she said with a nervous laugh. ”She just put Kyro's whole reputation on the line.”
”Woah! She's become even more vicious over the years!”
”I sometimes miss her. We'd have so much more to talk about if she was still living here,” another woman said with a sigh. She seemed really disappointed about the fact.
”No worries, Jenny. Now we have Iris to share the latest gossip with us, don't we?” Caron glanced at Iris with a conspiratorial grin. ”You wouldn't leave us old women out of the loop, would you?”
Iris chuckled, her lip corners twitching. She didn't even know them yet, so why were they acting like she already belonged to their circle? For god's sake, she was seeing three out of four of them for the first time!
”You're just scaring her away,” said the younger woman by Iris' side. ”Don't pay attention to them. Nothing ever happens here, so they can't hold back from wanting to learn everything about you.”
”What about you?” Iris asked with interest.
The woman smiled at her. ”I work as a primary school teacher. That's more excitement than I could ever possibly need.”