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She still had her keys to her mother’s house, and when Lyra walked in, the house was silent and dark.
It seemed her mother wasn’t home. She was probably out shopping or with one of her friends.
Great, your mother’s got a better social life than you do. Now get it together.
Her thoughts had changed.
Instead of feeling sorry for herself, she would be strong. She would put herself back together and be happy doing it.
Back in her room, Lyra unpacked her duffel bag and pulled out her laptop.
Then she headed to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee while she updated her resumé.
Lyra also considered starting a writing blog where she could post fictional stories about men that turned into bears and wolves. But then she remembered the man who had followed her in Costco.
She understood what Timber had meant when he said she was in danger.
Right then, she had been in real danger.
Looking back, she remembered those watery eyes.
Those eyes had seemed so mild at the time. But right then, sitting in her mother’s kitchen, she recalled the threatening glint in the man’s eyes.
Lyra didn’t think he’d take too kindly to Timber Mahogany’s nanny posting stories about shapeshifters for the whole world to see.
“Don’t sign your own death sentence, girl,” Lyra whispered to herself.
Maybe she could write about something else.
Lyra scrolled through LinkedIn and every other job board she could find online.
There were still no jobs available for English majors.
No jobs except teaching positions. And some of them, Lyra saw with newfound horror, required teaching certificates.
She shut her laptop with a sigh. She decided to forgo the coffee and rifled through her mother’s wine bar instead.
She found a bag of chips and took a bottle of rosé, and settled on the couch.
* * *
Lyra wasthree-quarters of the way through the second Bridget Jones movie when her mother arrived home.
“Lyra? Honey?” Her mother must have seen the debris that Lyra had left in her wake.
She’d finished the bottle of rosé, the bag of chips, and a box of cookies.
And when her mother walked into the living room, all Lyra had the energy to do was burst into tears.
“Oh, dear God, Lyra.” Her mother’s voice was filled with pure kindness, and she wrapped her arms around Lyra.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” she murmured, stroking Lyra’s head as she continued bawling her eyes out. “What happened, baby?”
Lyra shook her head, hiccupping slightly.
It had started raining, and the cold was creeping into the living room from where Lyra’s mother had left the front door slightly open.
Lyra wiped her eyes and pulled away from her mother.
