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Miri
Ten Years Ago
“Miri.”
The vague sound of someone calling my name pricks holes through my dream. I’m standing alone on a cliff’s edge, looking out at the swirling abyss of storm churned waters. I turn my head, surprised to see my mom is here with me. She’s staring out at the ocean that’s crashing and foaming against craggy rocks and boulders below.
“Miri.”
“Mom?” I try to step toward her, but this dream is always the same. I’m never able to move from this spot, and tonight is no exception. Before me is a perfect view of swirling seas with dark storm clouds roiling overhead. I’m frozen in place as fear flashes in my mom’s eyes. They’re a dark chocolate brown that are usually filled with warmth and love. Right now, they’re full of dread.
This time when I hear my name, the entire world shakes and I lose my footing. Loose dirt and rocks slide beneath my bare feet, and I watch in terror as the debris tumbles over the edge of the cliff in a deadly plummet.
“Miriam.”
I jolt awake, working out that the earthquake of my dream is really my mom shaking me awake.
“Mom! What?” I gasp, my heart thundering in my chest as I try to cross out of sleep and into waking. My room is dark, not a hint of morning peeking in through the windows. I don’t understand why my mom is waking me up in the middle of the night.
“Shh. Quiet Miri. I need you to get up. Get dressed.” She’s forcing her voice to stay calm, but I hear the tremor she isn’t able to hide.
“What’s going on?” I rasp out. My voice is still caught in the in-between, not quite awake, just like the rest of me.
“Get dressed and come out to the living room. I’ll explain.”
She flips on the lights as she shuts the door to my room behind her, and I wince at the sudden assault to my eyeballs. It’s on the tip of my tongue to yell at her for being a jerk, and normally I would, but this doesn’t feel like our normal. In fact, now that I’m starting to wake up, there’s a heavy weight in the air. It presses down on me and invades every inch of my small room.
We’ve only been in this apartment, this city, for a few months. For as long as I can remember, my mom moved us from town to town. We hardly ever stayed in one place longer than a year. I think the longest was eighteen months in a small town in northern Washington. The people were friendly to the new kid in school, but it never stopped raining. This time we’re smack in the middle of the country in Madison, Wisconsin. We haven’t been in the city long enough to see much of anything yet.
I toss on the pair of jeans I kicked off and left on the floor before bed and throw on a bra underneath the t-shirt I was sleeping in. I yank a sweatshirt over the top of that and head out of my room. I rub my eyes to get rid of the gritty and puffy feeling from the abrupt wake-up. My hair is already in a ponytail, but the dark brown strands are tumbling out and clinging to my face and neck with static.
“Mom. What’s going on?” I call out as I move into the living room, barely suppressing a scream when it’s not my mom I see standing in the middle of the room.
I smack my hand over my heart as it stutters to a stop and then blasts off in an erratic rhythm as my eyes meet those of the unfamiliar stranger casually standing between the plaid couch and banged up coffee table. A buzz of familiarity, something like déjà vu sweeps over me and I lose my breath again as we stare at each other. A noise in the hallway jerks me out of my head and I frown when I see my hand reaching out toward the guy. I snap my fingers into a fist and drop my arms back to my side. What the hell am I doing?
His eyes are sharp as they land on me, scanning me from my bare feet to my rumpled hair. One look has me feeling utterly seen and oddly naked before him. I get the sense he could easily discover all my secrets with little effort. I’d guess his age to be a few years older than my 15, so maybe 18 or 19. From what I can see of his hair, it’s brown and long enough that the edges curl up as they peek out from beneath the stocking cap he’s wearing.
His jaw is angled, chiseled and sculpted as though a master artisan crafted him. His lips are the perfect combination of full, but not overly so. They’ve mostly been pressed together in a scowl since I walked out here, making him seem angry and unyielding. His nose has a slight bump over the bridge, like it’s been broken a few times. It doesn’t take away from his good looks, though. In fact, it makes him exponentially hotter, like he often gets into fights. The image of him shirtless and sweaty pops in my head.
Good lord. What is wrong with me? My thoughts are a runaway train, and I can’t stop. There’s a thin white scar that travels from the tip of his ear down his neck. It looks like it required a lot of stitches. How did he get a scar like that?
The direction of my thoughts makes me shiver and my stomach curls in on itself. My fingers itch to trace the line, but thankfully I’ve got way more sense than that. I doubt he’d appreciate it. He’s darkly beautiful and there’s something about the expression in his eyes that makes me want to cry, and I know that’s weird as hell.
“You’re not my mom.” I shake my head, pursing my lips as I search the small room like my mom is going to pop up from behind the couch.
My eyes keep drifting back to him, and when he doesn’t respond to my question, I frown. Where the hell is my mom and why is there a random hot dude who’s turning my insides to mush in our apartment? No one ever visits us. There must be something wrong with my flight or fight instinct because all I feel is an intrinsic sense of rightness in his presence. Plus, my mom just came into my room and woke me up a few minutes ago so she must be around here somewhere. Still, shouldn’t my instincts tell me to be more wary of a complete stranger looking all stormy and broody as he watches me.
His attention has me spiraling into that super awkward place. God, I can’t remember what I’m supposed to do with my hands? They’re suddenly these gangly appendages, and I don’t know how I normally hold them. Giving up, I shove the worthless things into the front pocket of my hoodie to hide this fun new awkwardness.
A regular person would probably call the police if some dude just showed up in the middle of the night and didn’t say a word. Okay, fine, maybe they wouldn’t call the cops, but they’d think it was weirder than I do. Instead, I can’t help but feel like something just clicked into place inside my chest. Maybe it’s because I’m not exactly normal. The low hum of magic that’s always present deep in my chest is a testament to that. It hasn’t escaped my notice that the thrum has been a little bit stronger since my eyes first met the silent dude in front of me.
Regardless of all the crazy little things happening to my magic and senses, I still want to know where my mom is. There aren’t that many places she can be. I give the guy as wide of a berth as possible in the tight space of the living room because I’m afraid I might do something super inappropriate and try to touch him or smell him or something. I pop my head into the kitchen, finding it empty. Heading back toward the hallway, I dare a look at our visitor and see dark eyes still watching me, almost making me trip and stumble on the carpet. The intense on his face has me all flushed. I’m sweating a little under his gaze. Who the hell is this guy?
I make my way to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bathroom when he finally speaks.
“Your mom went down to grab something from storage.” His deep, warm voice surprises me, locking my feet in place. The low rumble sends a drop of heat sliding all the way down into my belly, like a bead of lava warming me from the inside out. No one should have a voice that potent and smoky.
It takes a moment for his words to register. Storage? I frown as I try to make sense of the one thing he’s said since I stumbled upon him in my home. Our apartment has an extra storage unit where other tenants keep their bikes and grills, stuff like that. Our space only has some extra boxes that haven’t been unpacked yet. What would my mom want from there?
