Some memories aren't meant to be revived.
Especially when they're lurking in the deceitful creases and folds of the treacherous night.
*extended summary inside*
Nick and Miriam liked to go to parties. They were typical teenagers and Orange County, California provided a plethora of them.
Usually, Nick would swing by Miriam's care home in his ratty, old jeep and wait for Miriam to slide in to the seat beside him. She would immerse him in her warmth and care and her delicate hands with chipped nail polish and chapped lips.
She didn't wear makeup and sometimes it looked like she hadn't gone within a five mile radius of a hairbrush.
Yet, despite what sounded like a dishevelled appearance, Miriam couldn't look more iridescent.
On this particular night, Nick and Miriam had undergone their aforementioned routine and nick was contentedly driving them to the party.
Nick was in a good mood, he had won a Football match the previous day and this party was serving as a congratulations. As the school teams quarterback, he had a lot of expectations and just as many aspirations.
Miriam was proud of him, she'd sat there in his jersey, a mug of hot chocolate in her blue palms.
She knew though that if she hadn't of shown up, her blue palms would be splotched with black. She tried to eradicate this thought from her mind, and focus on her good looking, intelligent, perfect boyfriend.
She still couldn't comprehend why she was his girlfriend, she wasn't super popular, she wasn't a busty cheerleader and she wasn't a rich girl with a rich family.
She didn't even know who her family was, although she cherished everyone at the care home and referred to them as her family.
She had, once, asked him why he loved her.
He had pointed at the stars and said that the stars didn't choose there own path- they just let themselves wander. He said that he had let him self wander, right in to the arms of her.
He also added that it helped that her hair smelt of almonds and her eyes burnt the universe to dust.
She had laughed and rolled her eyes, indulging the feeling off his hand in hers. She remembered their heads turning towards each others like a gravitational pull and their eyes interlocking.
His lips were soft and riveting and they made her skin prickle with tension. She didn't know where he began and where she ended and no amount of despicable cliches could lure her away from his touch.
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The party was loud, a murder of teenagers clustering around each other and grinding carelessly to the frigid beat. A cacophony of crescendos and mirages of alcohol and translucent clothing created a haze beyond Nicks eyelids.
He clutched Miriam to him and passed her a beer.
She smirked and screwed off the lid, gulping down the beer like an asthmatic child. He watched her calmly, weaving his hand around her waist.
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The party passed through Nicks mind like a static tv on repeat. The technicolor blurred and Nick clutched his side, emitting a groan from his chapped lips. He rolled to the other side of the bed, throwing his arm over where a sleeping Miriam should of been. His hands clutched at the tendrils of thin air and the white noise buzzed incessantly in his head.
He sat up. Wide awake and alert because Miriam's hair was not tickling his nose and Miriam's hands were not interwoven with his.
Not a trace of almonds ascended his nostrils.
Miriam was missing.
Nick wished he hadn't woken up.
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