24: Make Yourself Useful

Lyra

I used to think confusion had a limit.

That there was a point where things would either make sense… or break.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

Because nothing was breaking and nothing was making sense either.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the phone like they might explain something to me if I looked long enough. My life was no longer mine, it was a sequence of events that felt like a fever dream I couldn’t wake up from. Everything felt like it was slipping out of my control.

Just then, my phone rang. The sudden vibration nearly made me jump out of my skin. The caller ID flashed a name I hadn’t seen on my screen in months.

Mom.

My stomach tightened and I stared at it for a second too long before answering on the second ring. “Mom?”

My voice was small and hopeful.

“Lyra? Why didn’t you tell me?” she snapped. There was no ‘how are you’, no ‘are you safe’.

“Tell you what?” I knew she was talking about the divorce but with my mother, it was sometimes better to feign ignorance.

“You got divorced.”

A tiny, delusional spark of warmth flickered in my chest. Maybe she had been worried. Maybe the news of the divorce had actually frightened her for my sake. “I’m sorry, Mom. It all happened so fast. Aaron…he did something terrible, and this man, Raguel—”

“I don’t care about the details of your divorce, Lyra,” she interrupted, her tone cold. “What on earth were you even thinking, not telling me?”

“I…”

My chest tightened as I fumbled around my words.

“I was going to…”

“When?” she cut in. “After everything was settled? After you’ve already made all your decisions without me?”

I flinched.

“I didn’t think…”

“Exactly,” she snapped. “You didn’t think.”

The words hit me the way they always did.

I forced myself to breathe.

“I just… needed time,” I said quietly.

“Time for what?”

“To process things.”

“Process what exactly?” she scoffed. “You lost your marriage. That’s not something you ‘process,’ Lyra. That’s something you fix.”

Fix? Like it had been something broken I just didn’t try hard enough to repair.

“I couldn’t fix it,” I said.

“Of course you could have,” she replied immediately. “Women fix these things all the time. You just didn’t try hard enough.”

My grip on the phone tightened.

“Well,” she added, her tone shifting slightly, “I suppose I can’t be too angry. At least you’ve proven more useful than I expected.”

I stilled. “What does that mean?”

“Aaron sent a transfer this morning, a substantial amount. He said it was part of the ‘settlement’ from your new benefactor.”

“You… knew?” I finally managed after a few seconds of speechlessness.

“Of course I knew,” she replied. “Do you think he’d send money without saying why?”

My chest tightened painfully. “And you didn’t think to call me?” I asked. “To ask if I was okay?”

There was a pause.

“Are you not okay?”

The question felt like it had been added out of obligation.

“He gave you money? Aaron sold me, Mom. He traded me to a stranger for an investment, and then he signed divorce papers because he was paid to do it.”

“Stop being so emotional, Lyra,” she sighed, and I could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “You always were too sensitive for your own good.”

“I just…” I stopped. Swallowed then tried again. “That’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?” she asked, already sounding impatient.

“The point is…” my voice wavered slightly before I steadied it, “I just went through a divorce and the next thing you’re talking about is money.”

“Because that’s what matters right now.”

Wow…

“Does it?” I asked quietly.

“Yes.”

The answer came too quickly.

“Listen,” she continued, “if this new man sees something in you that makes him want to part with that much money, then you should be smart enough to take advantage of it.”

My heart sank further.

“Mom…”

“No, listen to me,” she cut in. “This is your chance to do better. You need to make sure you don’t waste it,” she added. “Men like that don’t come around often.”

I closed my eyes.

“I’m not with him for money.”

“Then you’re already making a mistake.”

Silence.

“Make sure you milk him for everything he’s worth,” she said bluntly. “Get everything you can. At least then you can repay me for everything I spent raising you.”

“I didn’t ask you to…” I started, then stopped.

Because what was the point?

“That’s not how it works,” she replied. “I sacrificed for you. The least you can do is make it worth it.”

My throat tightened.

“I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

“I can’t believe you’re acting like this,” she shot back. “Emotional. Dramatic. As usual.”

I pressed my lips together.

Because she wasn’t wrong about one thing.

This was usual. This was how it had always been.

“Do you even hear yourself?” I asked.

I closed my eyes, the familiar weight of her expectations pressing down on my shoulders. The only reason she had ever approved of Aaron was his bank account. She had drummed it into my ears since I was a little girl.

A woman’s beauty is her only currency, Lyra. Don’t spend it on someone who can’t pay the interest.

It was why I had become a doormat, why I didn’t know how to say no, why I let Aaron treat me like a commodity. I knew it was wrong, but the habit of being ‘useful’ was a bone-deep reflex I didn’t know how to stop.

A thought suddenly occurred to me, a desperate hope for an explanation that didn’t involve me going insane. “Mom, have you ever... have you ever heard of werewolves?”

There was a long, dead silence on the other end of the line.

“Are you high, Lyra?” she finally asked, her voice dripping with venom. “Or is this new man testing some sort of drugs on you? Werewolves? Don’t be ridiculous. You’re twenty-six years old, not six.”

"I just thought maybe there was something in our family history…” I tried, my voice trailing off.

“Don’t go about making your new benefactor question his decision to buy you from Aaron,” she snapped. “Listen to me, Lyra. I don’t care about your fairy tales. Just make sure you send me some money by the end of the week. I have bills to pay, and your ‘settlement’ doesn’t cover nearly enough of the trouble you’ve put me through.”

“Mom—”

The line went dead.

I pulled the phone away from my ear, staring at the black screen. I was all alone in a world of wolves, sold by a husband who never loved me, and managed by a mother who saw me as a debt to be collected. I didn’t know how to fight them. I didn’t even know how to have a mind of my own when I had been trained since birth to be exactly what everyone else needed me to be.