Chapter 9
1248 Words
Lyra’s POV
I stepped out of the Eldergate building, the blank card from the Oracle tucked into my palm like a secret weapon. The sun was too bright, the city too loud.
“Well?” Lisa was on me in a second, her face a mask of worry. “Did she tell you you’re going to live to be a hundred? Did she give you winning lottery numbers?”
I just looked at her.
My mouth tilted downward into something that wasn’t quite a frown and definitely wasn’t a smile.
Lisa blinked. “What?” she asked, immediately suspicious. “Tell me.”
I closed my fingers around the card until its sharp edges pressed into my skin. I couldn’t tell her. Not yet. How do you tell your best friend that you’re not special in a dramatic way—but a pattern? That your life has been unfolding along a path worn smooth by centuries of failure?
“She told me to make different mistakes,” I whispered.
Lisa frowned. “That’s it?”
I shrugged, already turning away, already trying to outrun the weight pressing on my chest. “That’s… basically it.”
“That’s not an answer, Lyra.”
I took three steps before it hit me.
My hand moved instinctively toward my side, fingers brushing uselessly over silk instead of fabric pockets.
Nothing.
I went still, the world narrowing to the sudden, terrifying absence where my phone should have been.
My pulse spiked as I checked my bag—once, twice—fumbling past the folded gloves, the useless compact, the receipt I hadn’t thrown away. The panic rose fast and sharp, slicing clean through everything else.
“No way,” I muttered.
“What?” Lisa asked.
“My phone.” I spun in place, heart hammering. “I don’t have my phone.”
She squinted at me. “Didn’t you have it earlier?”
“I did.” My stomach dropped. The memory snapped into place with cruel clarity—the registry, the chair, the way I’d bolted when everything became too real. “I left it… I left it at the registry.”
I started moving without thinking, already scanning the street for a cab.
“Lyra, wait...where are you going?”
I broke into a jog. “I misplaced my phone.”
“Misplaced?” Lisa grabbed my wrist, yanking me back to the curb. “You don’t misplace your phone. Where did you leave it?”
“The registry,” I said, breathless.
“What? The regis… Okay, get in.” She pointed toward her car. “I’ll drive you.”
“No.” The word came out too fast, too sharp.
She stopped short.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean... I’ll just grab a cab. It’s fine.”
Lisa stared at me. Really stared. The joking edge fell away, replaced by something sharper, more careful.
“Lyra,” she said slowly, “is there something you’re not telling me?”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
I bit down on my lower lip, searching frantically for a denial that didn’t sound like a lie. My chest tightened instead, breath catching painfully halfway in.
Lisa’s voice softened. “Hey. What is going on?”
The question cracked me open.
My vision blurred. I tried to blink it away, tried to swallow it down, but the pressure behind my eyes only grew until tears spilled over, hot and unstoppable.
“Oh,” Lisa breathed. “Oh, no.”
I shook my head, even as my body betrayed me. “I’m fine,” I lied weakly. “I just…”
But the words tangled and collapsed under their own weight.
The strength drained out of my legs all at once, my knees giving way before I could brace myself.
Lisa caught me before I hit the pavement, pulling me down with her into a crouch beside the car. She angled her body instinctively, shielding me from the curious glances of people passing by.
I broke.
Everything I’d been holding back—every carefully stacked lie, every rationalization—came crashing down at once.
“Lisa…” My voice fractured completely. “I… I don’t want to die.”
The words slipped out between broken breaths—small, terrified, and humiliatingly honest.
Lisa crouched lower, her forehead resting briefly against mine. Her own voice trembled as she spoke.
“Who says you’re going to die?”
I laughed weakly through tears. “Everyone,” I whispered. “Every version of me before this one.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t demand logic or details. She just pulled me into her arms and held me while I cried until my throat burned and my chest ached and the world slowly stopped spinning.
When the tears finally eased, I felt wrung out—hollowed, but lighter.
“I need to get my phone,” I said quietly.
Lisa nodded, brushing my hair back like she used to when we were younger. “Okay.”
We didn’t talk much after that.
___
The registry building looked deceptively ordinary when I walked back inside, like it hadn’t altered the trajectory of my entire life just hours earlier.
The woman behind the desk smiled politely when she saw me. “Lyra Blackwood?”
“Yes.”
She slid my phone across the counter.
Relief flooded through me so hard my hands shook.
“Your… husband,” she added, clearly enjoying herself, “left this. Said you ran off in a hurry.”
Heat crept up my neck, settling stubbornly in my cheeks—a mix of embarrassment, disbelief, and something dangerously close to fondness.
I stepped aside and turned the screen on.
One unread message.
> Max St. Clair
“You forgot your phone when you scrambled off. I left it with the receptionist. Let me know when you get it back, wife.”
I stared at the word.
Wife.
It felt unreal. Heavy and soft in a way I hadn’t expected.
A smile crept up on me before I could stop it—small, disbelieving, and entirely real.
“Got it. Thanks for saving me from myself.” I typed back
The screen stayed blank as seconds stretched.
I stared at the phone, absurdly aware of my own breathing.
Then his response came. “Anytime.”
I slipped the phone into my bag and walked back out.
Lisa was waiting by the car. I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat, the leather cool against my skin.
She didn’t ask why I’d been at the registry. She didn’t ask anything at all. She just glanced at me once, searching.
“You good?” she asked.
I nodded, leaning my head back against the seat as the door closed.
Lisa didn’t press. She just nodded once, as if filing the moment away for later, and pulled back into traffic.
As the car pulled away from the curb and the city blurred past the window, I leaned back and let my thoughts drift—dangerous, unguarded.
The Oracle had said my future fractured the moment I chose differently.
I’d thought the marriage was a desperate attempt to fix things.
But what if it wasn’t a solution or a mistake?
What if Max wasn’t just my husband?
What if he was the disruption?
The questions lingered, sharp and electric.
I didn’t know whether that thought scared me… or gave me hope.
- Writer
