It might help me understand what was going on. Why the guys could see sins, why I could get mad enough to shake the universe? Why were demons after me, and why did I seem to attract trouble like shit attracted flies?
“God, Wren,” Miriam finally spoke, but her voice was wrecked, and I could hear the tears. A second later, she chuckled and backed up, studying me. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Laxi and Lily both tried to warn me to tone it down, but…I couldn’t. I can’t.” She grabbed me by the neck and planted a kiss on my forehead.
“You’re freaking her out completely, Miri.” Lily sighed.
She was right. I was freaking out.
Miriam stepped back and smoothed her shirt, cleared her throat. “Right. Uh. Sorry. I just…got overwhelmed.”
“You?” I managed.
I could really see into her eyes now, and they were the same eyes of my best friend, once-occasional-bed partner, and at the same time—they were completely different. Deeper, more soulful, more full of knowledge, love and sadness at the same time. Hate and happiness. It was confusing and frightening.
Miriam sat and folded her hands. I sat, and wished the café carried Irish Coffee. Lily took a sip of her espresso.
The whole thing was now awkward.
I didn’t know what to say to her. She looked like she had too much to say.
Lily just sipped her drink.
“How the hell is Laxmi handling this?” I grumbled.
Miriam let out a sigh. “Not well. She’s…avoiding me right now. I don’t like it.”
“Can’t imagine why.”
“I try not to say anything around her, but she’s my wife, and… It’s been incredibly hard not to. Even things like dinner conversations go off the rails now.” She sighed. “I can’t even say that I blame her. I probably would have done the same if she was first.”
She slumped into the chair. “I can’t even turn it off. Everything just keeps running from the day I met you to right now. It’s maddening to have no one to talk to about it.”
I jerked my thumb at Lily. “Chopped liver?”
Lily slammed her cup down. “Fucking thank you, Wren. Jesus Christ.” She leaned forward. “I remember everything too, Miriam. All of it. You can talk to me and I can help you. I’ve been dealing with it for—” Her eyes cut over to me and she smirked. “—A long time. Why does it take Wren to point this out to you?”
“I didn’t even think…I don’t know…”
“There were four of us, Miriyam. You, Wren, Laxmi, and me. We were thick as thieves. We shared things with each other that were highly inappropriate and probably some things that should not have been shared.”
Lily looked truly affronted that Miriam hadn’t come to her to talk. Miriam clearly didn’t know what to say.
“You have everything back. Look at the memories,” Lily said. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that you don’t remember all of it. That we became just as good of friends as you and Wren.”
My best friend looked well and truly chided.
And then she started crying.
My head hit the table. “What the fuck, Miri?”
“How do you deal with it?” she wailed, and I glanced up in time to see that she was addressing Lily.
“Oh, fucking suck it up, Buttercup,” Lily snapped. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better. There are a hundred thousand things I can’t say to Wren or Laxi or the guys. The fact that she knows about Luce it the best thing to happen to me in centuries.”
“But…”
I sat up, and sighed. “Miriam. You’ve never been like this before. You’ve been one of the strongest people I know. Don’t stop now. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that I can’t let it stop me. I have to keep moving forward, trying to figure out the puzzle without the picture. Just the pieces.”
This time, I stood. “Look, you two talk. I’m going to go. It’s clear I can’t be privy to everything you know, or I’ll ruin the surprise.”
Lily grabbed my hand. “Please, sit. Miriam and I will talk alone later. We came here for coffee, and to let Miriam see you with what she knows now.”
Miriam grabbed my hand. “Don’t go. Not yet. Laxi is afraid of me and I don’t want you to be too. I don’t know how to make her understand…”
“Miriam, she’s been through a lot. She was rejected by her parents completely, and she’s as much in the dark as I am. As the guys are. Don’t think that she doesn’t love you, she just doesn’t know what to do with you.” I laughed a bit. “I don’t know what to do with you. But you won’t scare me off.”
She smiled at me, and let my hand go. Leaning back, she smeared her tears away. “This is ridiculous. I’ve gained something that I didn’t even know I’d lost and I’m freaking out.”
“Immortality does that to you.” Lily smirked.
Miriam’s mouth dropped open. “Wait. You’ve been away from your husband for—”
Lily held up her hand to stop her words. “Yes. All that time. And we still can’t live together because of all this shit. We have more to accomplish before we can put everything to rights and I can go home.”
“Holy crap, Lily, I’m sorry. I’m so over reacting to this.”
“A little, maybe.” Lily smirked. “But don’t sweat it.”
We were quiet for a minute, and it was pleasant, comfortable silence.
Miriam cleared her throat. “Have you notice that Paige has been acting weird?”
“Shit,” I mumbled as Lily answered her, “Yeah, I have.”
They both looked at me, and I sighed. “How has she been acting weird?”
“The other day, she was all business and not really interested in chatting with me,” Lily said. “I’ve never not had a chat with her. She’s always been gabby.”
Miriam agreed, “She called me, talked business about a few fosters we were sorting, and that was it. She was all business, and that’s not like her. She’s usually bragging on how well she did or how hard she’s working. Or she’s got other questions beyond just the fosters she’s working with.”
Lily pivoted in her seat to look at me. “Why? What’s going on?”
I cleared my throat. “We caught her being discharged at Penn Medical the night Ben went missing.”
“Discharged?” The two of them chorused the words and stared at me.
“Sprained ankle, fractured ribs, and a serious laceration on her hairline.” I tapped my finger on the cup I was drinking out of.
“Wait, more injuries?” Lily asked. “She was looking pretty rough around the edges when we had to deal with James and Dre.”
“Yeah, more injuries.” The sip of coffee I took tasted terrible on my tongue. “Worse ones. She said that she slipped on a piece of laundry she dropped and fell down the stairs to the basement.”
Miriam twisted her lip. “You don’t buy that at all, do you?”
“Fuck no,” I answered. “Not even one little bit. And the only conclusion we could come to was that…well. The worst conclusion.” They waited, and I finally sighed. “Really? You can’t figure out what the worst would be in this case?”