The Retribution Chronicles

M i r i a m | s i x

If Miriam regretted anything, it wasn't the copious amounts of Ryan's special cocktail she consumed, or the beer she stupidly added on top. It wasn't Wes interrupting her and Ade, or giving away her number—although, she did question whether she should've. Oh no, it was her dress. Or rather, its length. Mid-thigh, with capped sleeves and lace edging, it was her favourite. It was also made for the summer, and although it was an unseasonably warm March, she should've worn a coat. Even the alcohol was doing a bad job of keeping the cold at bay.

"The uber should be here any minute," Wes promised when he and Miriam stepped out of the house once and for all. She wound her arms tightly against herself and steeled herself when a shiver rippled down her spine. Another threatened eruption, but Wes shrugged off his jean jacket and draped it over her shoulders, stopping the shiver in its tracks.

"What would I do without you?" Miriam cooed.

"Freeze to death."

"At least I'd look damn good doing it." She slipped her arms through the sleeves.

"You look good doing everything."

Miriam expected Wes to laugh, loud and brash before delivering a much-needed insult to dilute the sweetness of his words, but he held fast to the compliment, smiling softly in a way she felt should be reserved for someone else. Of course, there was nobody else; there hadn't been for a while, a fact which didn't much bother Miriam until she thought about it. Naturally, she avoided doing so until moments like this, when the reality of their singleness weighed heavy. Then the uber arrived, and it didn't matter.

The driver rolled down his window and stuck his head out. "Wesley?" he asked, voice coloured by a gruff, cockney accent.

"Yeah, thanks mate."

Miriam resisted the urge to roll her eyes at Wes' forced cockney inflections, false and heavy on his tongue, and instead focused on slipping into the car without flashing the driver. While wriggling the hem of her dress down her thighs, he started the ignition and crept away from the curb, picking up speed only once Miriam was safely buckled in.

"What did Ade want?" Wes asked, his tone surprisingly breezy for someone who believed Ade could ruin her.

"Who knows."

"You," Wes laughed, only it sounded gargled and strange. "He must've wanted more than book recommendations," he said.

Miriam shrugged. "It was weird," she said. "But the day a guy admits what he wants, is the day hell freezes—"

Her phone rang. Vibrations intensified the ringtone which became inane and piercing until she answered the call. It promptly cut, switching to a facetime request, and offering Miriam the luxury of checking who was calling.

"Fuck," she hissed once she saw Mum splashed across the screen.

"Isn't it a bit late for her?" Wes asked.

"She's in New York," Miriam said before taking a deep breath, mustering the fakest smile in her arsenal, and answering the call.

Her mother's face filled the screen. A spitting image of Miriam's, only where she was smooth and taut, her mother was lined and wrinkled, bitter too, for she was hard pressed to smile. "Finally," she said, already turning away from the camera to glance at what Miriam was sure to be another device. "I've been trying to call you all week."

It was a lie that, in the past, would've left Miriam perturbed, but instead saw her placate her mother as she said, "Must be the time difference."

"Why is it so dark?" her mother asked, dismissing her first annoyance for another. "Where are you?"