It Ends with Us

Chapter Twenty-One
“I’m heading out. You need me to do anything else?”
I look up from the paperwork and shake my head. “Thank you, Serena.
See you tomorrow.”
She nods and walks away, leaving the door to my office open.
Allysa’s last day was two weeks ago. She’s due any day now. I have two
other full-time employees, Serena and Lucy.
Yes. That Lucy.
She’s been married for a couple of months now and came in looking
for a job two weeks ago. It’s actually worked out pretty well. She keeps
herself busy, and if I’m here when she is, I just keep my office door shut so
I don’t have to listen to her sing.
It’s been almost a month since the incident on the stairs. Even with
everything Ryle told me about his childhood, the forgiveness was still hard
to come by.
I know Ryle has a temper. I saw it the first night we met, before we ever
even spoke a word to each other. I saw it that awful night in my kitchen. I
saw it when he found the phone number in my phone case.
But I also see the difference between Ryle and my father.
Ryle is compassionate. He does things my father never would have
done. He donates to charity, he cares about other people, he puts me
before everything. Ryle would never in a million years make me park in
the driveway while he took the garage.
I have to remind myself of those things. Sometimes the girl inside of me
—the daughter of my father—is really opinionated. She tells me I
shouldn’t have forgiven him. She tells me I should have left the first time.
And sometimes I believe that voice. But then the side of me that knows
Ryle understands that marriages aren’t perfect. Sometimes there are
moments that both parties regret. And I wonder how I’d feel about myself
had I just left him after that first incident. He never should have pushed
me, but I also did things I wasn’t proud of. And if I’d have just left, would

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that not be going against our marriage vows? For better or for worse. I refuse
to give up on my marriage that easily.
I am a strong woman. I’ve been around abusive situations my whole life.
I will never become my mother. I believe that a hundred percent. And
Ryle will never become my father. I think we needed what happened on
the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to
work on it together.
Last week we got into another fight.
I was scared. The other two fights we’d gotten into did not end well,
and I knew this would be a testament to whether or not our agreement for
me to help him through his anger would work.
We were discussing his career. He’s finished with his residency now and
there’s a three-month specialized course in Cambridge, England, he
applied for. He’ll find out soon if he was approved, but that’s not why I
was upset. It’s a great opportunity and I’d never ask him not to go. Three
months is nothing with how busy we are, so that wasn’t even what got me
so upset. I became upset when he discussed what he wanted to do after the
Cambridge trip was over.
He was offered a job in Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic and he wants us to
move there. He said Mass General is rated the second best neurological
hospital in the world. Mayo Clinic is number one.
He said he never intended to stay in Boston forever. I told him that
would have been a good subject to bring up when we discussed our futures
on the flight to get married in Vegas. I can’t leave Boston. My mother lives
here. Allysa lives here. He told me it was only a five-hour flight and that we
could visit as often as we wanted. I told him it was pretty hard to run a
floral business when you live several states away.
The fight continued to escalate and both of us were getting angrier by
the second. At one point, he knocked a vase full of flowers off the table
and onto the floor. We both just stared at them for a moment. I was
scared, wondering if I had made the right decision to stay. To trust that we
could work on his anger issues together. He took a deep breath and he
said, “I’m going to leave for an hour or two. I think I need to walk away.
When I get back, we’ll continue this discussion.”
He walked out the door and, true to his word, he came back an hour
later when he was much calmer. He dropped his keys on the table and
then walked straight to where I was standing. He took my face in his hands

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and he said, “I told you I wanted to be the best in my field, Lily. I told you
this the first night we ever met. It was one of my naked truths. But if I have
to choose between working at the best hospital in the world and making
my wife happy . . . I choose you. You are my success. As long as you’re
happy, I don’t care where I work. We’ll stay in Boston.”
That’s when I knew that I had made the right choice. Everyone deserves
another chance. Especially the people who mean the most to you.
It’s been a week since that fight and he hasn’t mentioned moving again.
I feel bad, like I thwarted his plans in some way, but marriage is about
compromise. It’s about doing what’s best for the couple as a whole, not
individually. And staying in Boston is better for everyone in both of our
families.
Speaking of families, I look over at my phone right as a text from Allysa
comes through.
Allysa: Are you finished up at work yet? I need your opinion on furniture.
Me: Be there in fifteen minutes.
I don’t know if it’s the impending delivery or the fact that she’s not
currently working, but I’m pretty sure I’ve spent more time at her house
this week than I have at my own. I close up the shop and head toward her
apartment.
• • •
When I step off the elevator, there’s a note taped to her apartment door. I
see my name written across it, so I pull it off the door.