It Ends with Us

I hate myself, because he knows the tears are mine.
“Atlas,” I whisper. “I need help.”
“Where are you?” he says again. I can hear panic in his voice. I can hear
him walking, moving stuff around. I hear a door slam on his end of the
phone.
“I’ll text you,” I whisper, too scared to keep speaking. I don’t want Ryle
to wake up. I hang up the phone and somehow find the strength to still
my hands while I text him my address and the access code for entry. Then
I send a second text that says Text me when you get here. Please don’t knock.
I crawl to the kitchen and find my pants, struggling back into them. I
find my shirt on the counter. When I’m dressed, I go to the living room. I
debate opening the door and meeting Atlas downstairs, but I’m too scared
I won’t be able to make it down to the lobby alone. My forehead is still
bleeding and I feel too weak to even stand up and wait by the door. I slide

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to the floor, clenching my phone in my shaky fist and staring at it, waiting
for his text.
It’s an agonizing twenty-four minutes later when my phone lights up.
Here.
I scramble to my feet and swing open the door. Arms wrap around me
and my face is pressed against something soft. I just start crying and crying
and shaking and crying.
“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?”
Rage.
I can feel the rage come off of him and he starts to step toward the
apartment door. I grab his jacket in my fists. “No. Please, Atlas. I just want
to leave.”
I see the pain roll over him as he pauses, struggling to decide whether
to listen to me or bust through the door. He eventually turns away from
the door and wraps his arms around me. He helps me to the elevator and
then through the lobby. By some miracle, we only run into one person
and he’s on his phone and facing the other direction.
By the time we make it to the parking garage, I start to feel dizzy again.
I tell him to slow down, and then I feel his arm wrap under my knees as he
picks me up. Then we’re in the car. Then the car is moving.
I know I need stitches.
I know he’s taking me to the hospital.
But I have no idea why the next words out of my mouth are, “Don’t take
me to Mass General. Take me somewhere else.”
For whatever reason, I don’t want to risk the chance of running into
any of Ryle’s colleagues. I hate him. I hate him in this moment more than
I’ve ever hated my father. But concern for his career still somehow breaks
through the hatred.
When I realize this, I hate myself just as much as I hate him.

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