It Starts with Us (It Ends with Us, #2)

by Colleen Hoover

Lily doesn’t run to people. She didn’t run after me when I left Maine. She didn’t run to me when she left Ryle. She focused on being a mother. Yet that’s what he expects her to do if things don’t work out between us? Run to him like he’s her home base? Lily’s home base is Emerson, and if he still can’t see that, he’s clueless. If Lily had stayed with him, he would have spent the rest of their lives inventing issues in order to justify his excessive anger. Because I was never an issue in their marriage, and I never would have been. I thought I pitied him before, but he’s fighting for a woman he barely even knows, which means he’s just fighting for the sake of fighting. He’s got a very similar personality to my mother, and sometimes there’s no fixing that. You just have to learn to live your life around it. Maybe that’s what Lily and I are going to have to do. Learn to live our lives the best we can while occasionally having to deal with the ridiculous wrath of Ryle. That’s fine. I’d go through this shit every day if it means I’m the one who gets to fall asleep next to her every night. I walk up the steps and return to the hustle of the kitchen, and I get right back to work like he was never even here. I don’t know if my response tonight made this situation better, but I definitely don’t think I made it worse. Darin hands me a wet rag. “You’re bleeding.” He points to the left side of my mouth, so I hold the rag there. “Was that her ex?” “Yeah.” “Everything okay now?” I shrug...