Chapter Five

"Alyssa!" Miriam ambushed me the second I materialized in our shared room. "How was your weekend home?"

"It was alright," I said, dropping my stuff onto the floor near my bed. After that first awkward afternoon, things had more or less returned to normal – or rather, what was starting to become 'normal' now. Mom and I spent a lot of time lounging around the house, watching movies, eating junk food, and just talking. Our relationship still felt more like big sister-little sister than mother-daughter, but maybe that was a good thing; all those books and movies make it out like teenage girls can't have stable relationships with their moms. And after years of living with just Dad, it was nice having someone female and older that I could talk to.

Things with Mom and me were fine. Mom and Dad, on the other hand… Though he never brought it up, I knew Dad was still upset about Mom wanting to see Sky. Their relationship, which before had always been cavity-inducing and cringe-worthy (since they were my parents, after all) was now strangely tense, like a rubber band pulled taut and waiting to snap. Every time all three of us were in the same room, I felt like I was tiptoeing on eggshells.

"Did you do anything fun?" she asked, flopping down on my bed without asking. She was wearing one of her usual vaguely gypsy-ish getups – a cranberry-red off-the-shoulder peasant blouse with long genie sleeves that had been slashed down the sides, paired with a faded denim miniskirt with a frayed hem and her flat gold gladiator sandals. Her pale blond hair fell in ringlets down her back and was tied back with a strip of cranberry-colored cloth like a headband.

"We went shopping." I pulled out a handful of clothes and tossed them on my bed.

Miriam immediately zeroed in on them. "Wow, girl, these are gorgeous," she cooed, holding up a blue halter top, then a pair of black leggings with brass studs down the sides. "Your mom has good taste."

"Yeah, she does." I dumped out the rest of my clothes and slid the suitcase under my bed.

"Is something wrong?" Miriam asked, watching me move around my half of the room silently putting away my clothes.

I sighed. "Not exactly…"

She placed her hand over mine as I reached for another handful of clothes. "Come on. Let's get out of here; go to Magix or something. I'll buy you a latte and a muffin, and then you're going to tell me what's wrong."

I rolled my eyes, but grabbed my purse off my nightstand. "Whatever you say."

"But first put on something cute." I started to protest, but she cut me off. "Seriously, new clothes solve almost everything, and you've got a whole bunch of cute ones right here. Why not take one for a spin?"

Half an hour later, I was sitting at a corner alcove booth with Miriam at a little café in Magix, wearing my new white eyelet racer-back mini-dress (Miriam was right; just walking around in cute new clothes did lift my spirits) and white flats. We were onto our second drinks – mine hot chocolate, hers a vanilla latte – and there were a few crumbs left from the chocolate muffin we'd demolished.

"So what's on your mind?" she said, inhaling the aroma of her steaming drink before taking a sip.

I picked up a crumb of muffin, just sort of rolling it around in my fingers for lack of anything to do. "I don't know… a lot of stuff, really…"
"Alyssa, I can't help you if you won't tell me anything."

I sighed. "I thought this year was going to be perfect, you know? Taylor's gone, I've got a boyfriend, my parents are back together… But instead, everything sort of seems to be falling apart."

"How so?"

"Ryan's ex-girlfriend is here, my parents are fighting, and all the other girls are wrapped up in their own lives. I know we've only been back for a few weeks, but I thought things would be different. Instead, I feel like the odd girl out."

"Oh, sweetie." She placed her hand over mine. "You shouldn't be worrying about any of that stuff. Alexa is a jealous old hag who's delusional if she thinks she's getting Ryan back. Your parents fighting isn't your problem – they're adults, they can work it out themselves. And as for the other girls… I'm sure it's nothing personal. They all just have their very separate interests. Maybe…" She hesitated, as if unsure whether to continue. "Maybe you should try and find some other friends, you know? It seems like the six of you are this little exclusive circle, and maybe that's the problem here – you don't really have anyone else at Alfea to talk to, and when they're all busy…" She trailed off. "Forget I said anything. I'm new here, you all were friends for a year before I got here, I don't know what I'm talking about, I–"

I laughed. "Miriam, slow down. It's okay. I appreciate your opinion." I took a sip of my drink, the steaming chocolaty liquid warming me up from the inside, just like Miriam's words. "And you know, you kind of have a point. Maybe I am too dependent on the others. I mean, it couldn't hurt to try and meet some more people."

"That's the spirit." Miriam smiled. "You're an amazing person, Alyssa; any of the Alfea girls would have to be crazy to not want to be your friend."

"Some people can't see past the whole she's-Baltor's-daughter thing," I sighed. I'd lost quite a few friends growing up after they met my dad and never knew why (although to be fair, that might've also had to do with the fact that until Mom came back, he had a rulebook for me the size of an encyclopedia). Now, of course, it all made sense.

"Well then that's their loss." Miriam grabbed my hand again. "You are beautiful and talented and amazing, and you shouldn't be stressing over such unimportant little things."

"And you are too sweet." I reached down to pick up my mug, only to discover that all the hot chocolate was gone. "Thank you for this, Miriam. Really, I don't know what I would've done without you."

She beamed. "That's what friends are for."

"Alyssa! You're back! How was your weekend at home?"

"Oh hey." I breezed past her, lying on the couch with one of her Teen Fairy magazines. "It was good."

"Did you just get back? Love that dress, by the way." She leaned against the doorway of my and Miriam's room, a few pieces of her long blond hair falling in her face.

"No, I got back a couple hours ago. Miriam and I went to Magix."

She arched one eyebrow. "Since when are you and Miriam so buddy-buddy?"

"Why are you acting like that's such a bad thing? She is my roommate." Eager to change the subject, I rifled through one of my bags and pulled out a tiny glass perfume bottle shaped like a rose. "Hey, smell this. It's amazing."

"Did you buy that with Miriam?" Lola practically spat the last word, like it was a bad taste on her tongue.

"Why are you getting so worked up about this? Am I not allowed to have any other friends?" I laughed, but inside I was starting to get a little worried.

"I didn't say that," she protested, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well then what are you saying? Because it sounds to me a whole lot like you're trying to say I can't have any other friends besides the five of you."

"What I'm saying is that how do you know you can trust Miriam? There are a whole lot of things that are suspicious about her, you know – she's from Isis, she looks a hell of a lot like Taylor… you even said she wears Taylor's perfume!"

"I can't believe you, Lola. You're jumping to enormous conclusions from dubious facts. I'm sure there are a lot of blond girls from Isis who wear that perfume." I balled my hands into fists, my newly-manicured nails biting into my palms. "You know what? I think you're just jealous that I'm spending time with someone other than you."

"Well, can you blame me? You're supposed to be my best friend and after we see your boyfriend with another girl, you go to Miriam, a girl you barely know, for advice instead of talking to me?"

"I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that, because if you did, I really don't know you at all." I crossed the room to stand in front of her. "There's a bitch-slut trying to steal my boyfriend and my parents are fighting, and all you care about is that I didn't come to you for advice? Oh boohoo. Go cry to someone else, because I am so not interested." Despite my best efforts to keep my voice down, I was pretty sure most of the dorm could hear us now. "If you were really my best friend like you claim to be, you'd be trying to make me feel better, like Miriam did, instead of yelling at me like this."

"Miriam, Miriam, Miriam. Was it Miriam who was there for you last spring when that psycho-bitch Taylor tried to kill you? I think not. Yet how easily you forget who your true friends are, the ones who stuck by you in a life-or-death situation, when some plastic blond tart comes prancing into Alfea and buys you perfume."

I took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on my temper. "Get out." Lola blinked. "You heard me – get out of my room!"

Her jaw dropped. For a moment, it looked like she was going to answer back with another zinger, but instead, she just scoffed, rolled her eyes, and flounced out, ever the dramatic one.

Face flushed and heart pounding from the adrenaline, I collapsed onto my bed, still not sure I wasn't dreaming. Lola and I had had a couple little spats before, but it was nothing like this. How had our simple discussion about Miriam escalated into a no-holds-bared screaming fight?

And worse, I wondered – was the damage to our friendship irreparable?

Author's Note: It's short, I know, and the fight maybe kind of comes from nowhere, but Alyssa does acknowledge that, if you look closely - that it started off benign and escalated into something greater as it became less about Miriam and more about their relationship.

The real reason it's there, of course, is because I wanted to get the plot rolling already! Enough filler-y exposition. And before anyone asks, this is so not the end of Alyssa and Lola's friendship. This is just an ice-breaker, a warm-up to the craziness that's in store.

So... thoughts? How do you all like Miriam so far? (Please, if anyone has guesses about her character, keep them to yourselves...) Did the fight really come from nowhere and make no sense? Am I just boring you all throwing in the Bloom-Baltor-Sky triangle subplot? I need feedback!

Ciao!

- Authoress