"Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new

Now I've thought it through."

- "Do I Wanna Know?", Arctic Monkeys

"You'll hate him," Dahlia says, finishing the braids in Iris's scarlet hair. The color doesn't suit her at all, even with the careful dye job it's too dark for anyone who knows Dahlia quite well to believe it's the same color. Fortunately, there's only one person who knows Dahlia that well, and that is Iris herself.

When she steps into his car and gets a good look at him, she understands what Dahlia meant when she described him as 'weak and dumpy.' He's a little bit scrawny and gawky and he smells like hair gel and aftershave, but he's smiling at her and he's got a nice smile. An honest smile that she can pretend is for her, Iris, the naïve, demure twin.

He's got a nice car with soft leather seats and he drives her slowly and carefully to the action movie they're seeing together. He chews his popcorn loudly and puts his arm around her and holds onto her tightly at the parts that are even remotely scary. He kisses her on the street outside of her and Dahlia's apartment, and Iris doesn't have the heart to tell him it's the first time she's ever been kissed.

Needless to say, she doesn't hate him.

His name is Phoenix and at first it's a mouthful for her to say, so on their second date she slips out "Feenie" as a nickname. He laughs and says he loves it, kissing her on the forehead. He calls her "Dollie" and Iris can almost pretend that that's actually her name. It's easy for her to pretend to be Dahlia, to pretend that there is no Iris and there never has been.

She knits him a sweater for their one month anniversary, staying up until midnight with only the sound of her needles clicking together and spinning the pink, red, and yellow yarn into something that she hopes will tell him that she loves him and desperately wishes it wasn't like this.

"I think you've forgotten your original objective," Dahlia says dryly while Iris sits in front of the mirror applying makeup clumsily. "It's been two months. Get the necklace. You are only to get the necklace. Nothing more, nothing less."

Iris stays over at Phoenix's dorm that night because it's Friday and he insists, and they fall asleep on his bed watching some old corny movie. He's wearing the sweater she made and he's warm and soft and she wishes it could be like this all the time. She has a dream that night, a dream that she and Feenie graduate college together, him with an art degree and her with a B.A. in English, and they get comfortably married at twenty-five and she makes him bacon and eggs every morning while they watch the morning news together.

And in her dream he calls her Iris, not Dollie, and paints her likeness with black hair and dark eyes next to a pot of purple wildflowers.

She wakes up first. Feenie snores and drools in his sleep, but he's smiling. Perhaps he had a dream like hers, she thinks. The necklace glints in the semi-darkness of his dorm room, and just as her hands close around it he jerks awake, so she turns the action into wrapping her arms around his shoulders and kissing him good morning.

Sister Bikini calls to ask how things are going with Dahlia, and if she's homesick. "Oh, Sister Bikini!" she gushes. "I've met the most wonderful boy. I can't be homesick with him around." Her voice cracks when she says the words, because Sister Bikini has no idea of the double life she's living.

Iris wonders to herself when she will stop lying to people she loves.