It Ends with Us

before and have nothing to compare my feelings to. In fact, I’ve never really wanted
a boyfriend or a relationship until Atlas. I’m not growing up in a household with a
great example of how a man should treat someone he loves, so I’ve always held on to
an unhealthy amount of distrust when it comes to relationships and other people.
There have been times I’ve wondered if I could ever allow myself to trust a guy.
For the most part, I hate men because the only example I have is my father. But
spending all this time with Atlas is changing me. Not in a huge way, I don’t think.
I still distrust most people. But Atlas is changing me enough to believe that maybe
he’s an exception to the norm.
He stopped kissing me and picked up the bowl again. He walked it over to the
opposite counter and started spooning dough onto two cookie sheets.
“You want to know a trick to cooking with a gas oven?” he asked.
I’m not sure I really ever cared about cooking before, but he somehow made me
want to know everything he knew. It might have been how happy he looked when he
talked about it.
“Gas ovens have hot spots,” he said as he opened the oven door and put the
cookie sheets inside. “You have to be sure and rotate the pans so they’ll cook evenly.”
He closed the door and pulled the oven mitt off his hand. He tossed it on the
counter. “A pizza stone helps, too. If you just keep it in the oven, even when you
aren’t baking pizza, it helps eliminate the hot spots.”
He walked over to me and placed his hands on either side of me. The electricity
kicked on right as he was pulling down the collar of my shirt. He kissed the spot on
my shoulder he always loves kissing and slowly slid his hands up my back. I swear,
sometimes when he’s not even here I can still feel his lips on my collarbone.

---

He was about to kiss me on the mouth when we heard a car pull into the
driveway and the garage door start to open. I jumped off the island, looking around
the kitchen frantically. His hands went up to my cheeks and he made me look at
him.
“Keep an eye on the cookies. They’ll be finished in about twenty minutes.” He
pressed his lips to mine and then released me, rushing to the living room to grab his
backpack. He made it out the back door right when I heard the engine to my father’s
car shut off.
I started gathering all the ingredients together when my father walked into the
kitchen from the garage. He looked around and then saw the light on in the oven.
“Are you cooking?” he asked.
I nodded because my heart was beating so fast, I was scared he’d hear the
trembling in my voice if I responded out loud. I scrubbed for a moment at a spot on
the counter that was perfectly clean. I cleared my throat and said, “Cookies. I’m
baking cookies.”
He set his briefcase down on the kitchen table and then walked to the refrigerator
and pulled out a beer.
“The electricity has been out,” I said. “I was bored so I decided to bake while I
waited for it to come back on.”
My father sat down at the table and spent the next ten minutes asking me
questions about school and if I’d thought about going to college. Occasionally when
it was just the two of us, I saw glimpses of a how a normal relationship with a
father could be. Sitting at the kitchen table with him discussing colleges and career
choices and high school. As much as I hated him most of the time, I still longed for