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The ends of the heart weren’t connected. They just curved in a little, leaving a little space at the top of the heart.
Her tattoo!!
Please be quiet while you rape me, dear.
He told me about how his uncle lives in an apartment building with the coolest rooftop deck.
Hmmm. Searching for him the whole time.
“Boston doesn’t have me yet. Someday I’ll move there and I’ll find you.”
“But Ryle? If anything like that ever happens again… I’ll know that this time wasn’t just an accident. And I’ll leave you without a second thought.”
All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.
In what becomes one of the most dreadful moments I can imagine, he spins around and strides toward Ryle, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. Almost as soon as it happens, Ryle forces Atlas back and slams him against the opposite wall. Atlas lunges for Ryle again, this time shoving his forearm against Ryle’s throat, pinning him against the wall. “You touch her again and I’ll cut your fucking hand off and shove it down your throat, you worthless piece of shit!”
Go Atlas!
“Believe me, Lily. I know that wasn’t a pity fuck. I was there.”
I think about how sometimes, no matter how convinced you
are that your life will turn out a certain way, all that certainty can be washed away with a simple change in tide.
“You saved my life, Lily,” he said to me. “And you weren’t even trying.”
“Lily. Life is a funny thing. We only get so many years to live it, so we have to do everything we can to make sure those years are as full as they can be. We shouldn’t waste time on things that might happen someday, or maybe even never.”
“When my life is good enough for you to be a part of it, I’ll come find you. But I don’t want you to wait around for me, because that might never happen.”
He kissed me and looked straight in my eyes. “I love you, Lily. Everything you are. I love you.”
Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them
things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes.
It was a magnet that said “Boston” on the top. At the bottom in tiny letters, it said “Where everything is better.”
Maybe love isn’t something that comes full circle. It just ebbs and flows, in and out, just like the people in our lives.
I love him. I still do and I always will.
You never really stop loving your first love...
“You fell down the stairs,”
I grabbed his shirt. He pushed me away. “You fell down the stairs.” But I didn’t fall. He pushed me. Again. That’s twice. You pushed me, Ryle.
“You pushed me,” I say through tears. It’s all I can think or say or see. “You fell,” he says calmly. “About five minutes ago. Right after I found out what a fucking liar I married.”
“I swear, Ryle. You overreacted before giving me the chance to explain,” I say to him. “Now get the fuck out of my apartment.”
Good girl
“Lily,” he whispers. “You fell down the stairs.”
I calmly repeat myself. “Get out of my apartment.”
The same bed he lays me on when it’s time for him to clean up his messes.
He follows me the entire way to my car, begging me to talk to him. I don’t. I leave.
“You are my wife. I’m supposed to be the one who protects you from the monsters. I’m not supposed to be one.”
You're paat trauma is not an excuse to be a shitty person!
And still, I’m trying to justify what happened.
“Where’d you get this?”
“Where did you get that magnet, Lily?”
“I’d like you to take off your shirt first. Then read it out loud.”
Fuck no. This has to do with Atlas and he's getting her naked so she can't escape his beating. The loVe bombing is ending and the beating is voming. I'm physically shaking.
and then he sinks his teeth into me so hard, I scream.
He knows what he’s done. He’s Ryle again, and he knows what he’s just done to me. To us. To our future.
Thank fucking God
“Lily,” he whispers. I’ve never heard my name spoken so sadly. He urges me to look up at him. His blue eyes scroll over my face, and I see it happen. I watch the concern vanish as he darts his head up to the apartment door. “Is he still in there?”
Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is actually a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them.
For better, for worse? Fuck. That. Shit.
“Why did you never come back for me?”
“I did, Lily.”
“In the future… if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again… fall in love with me.”
Real hard ugly tears
“You’re still my favorite person, Lily. Always will be.”
As his sister, I wish more than anything that you could find a way to forgive him. But as your best friend, I have to tell you that if you take him back, I will never speak to you again.”
“I wish this baby wasn’t yours, Ryle. With everything that I am, I wish this baby was not a part of you.”
“The day you gave your father’s eulogy? I know you didn’t freeze up, Lily. You stood at that podium and refused to say a single good thing about that man. It was the proudest I have ever been of you. You were the only one in my life who ever stood up for me. You were strong when I was scared.” A tear falls from her eye when she says, “Be that girl, Lily. Brave and bold.”
And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.
Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.
“Lily,” he says quietly. “I feel like my life is good enough for you now. So whenever you’re ready…”
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.”
