It Ends with Us

loves you, he wouldn’t allow you to take him back.”
That reminder is the only thing that prevents me from running down
the hallway.
• • •
I keep myself busy in the kitchen for the next hour as he remains in the
nursery. I eventually have to walk past it to grab my phone charger from
my room. On my way back down the hallway, I pause at the door of the
nursery.
The crib is assembled. He even put the bedding on. He’s standing over
it, gripping the railing, staring inside the empty crib. He’s so quiet and
still, he looks like a statue. He’s lost in thought and doesn’t even notice me
standing outside the doorway. It makes me wonder where his mind has
wandered.
Is he thinking about the baby? The child he won’t even be living with
when it sleeps in that very crib?
Until this moment, I wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be a part of the
baby’s life. But the look on his face proves to me that he does. I’ve never
seen so much sadness in one expression, and I’m not even facing him
straight on. I feel like the sadness he’s feeling in this moment has
absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with thoughts of his
child.
He glances up and sees me standing in the doorway. He pushes off the
crib and shakes himself out of his trance. “Finished,” he says, waving a
hand toward the crib. He begins putting his tools back inside the tool case.
“Is there anything else you need while I’m here?”
I shake my head as I walk over to the crib and admire it. Since I don’t
know if it’s a boy or a girl, I decided to go with a nature theme. The
bedding set is tan and green with pictures of plants and trees all over it. It
matches the curtains and will eventually match a mural I plan to paint on
the wall at some point. I also plan to fill the nursery with a few live plants
from the shop. I can’t help but smile, finally seeing it all start to come
together. He even put up the mobile. I reach up and turn it on and

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Brahms’s Lullaby begins to play. I stare at it as it makes a full spin and then
I glance back at Ryle. He’s standing a few feet away, just watching me.
As I stare back at him, I think about how easy it is for humans to make
judgments when we’re standing on the outside of a situation. I spent years
judging my mother’s situation.
It’s easy when we’re on the outside to believe that we would walk away
without a second thought if a person mistreated us. It’s easy to say we
couldn’t continue to love someone who mistreats us when we aren’t the
ones feeling the love of that person.
When you experience it firsthand, it isn’t so easy to hate the person who
mistreats you when most of the time they’re your godsend.
Ryle’s eyes gain a little bit of hope, and I hate that he can see that my
walls are temporarily lowered. He begins to take a slow step toward me. I
know he’s about to pull me to him and hug me, so I take a quick step away
from him.
And just like that, the wall is back up between us.
Allowing him back inside this apartment was a huge step for me in
itself. He needs to realize that.
He hides whatever rejection he’s feeling with a stoic expression. He
tucks the toolbox under his arm and then grabs the box the crib came in.
It’s filled with all the trash from everything he opened and put together.
“I’ll take this to the Dumpster,” he says, walking toward the door. “If you
need help with anything else, just let me know, okay?”
I nod and somehow mutter, “Thank you.”
When I hear the front door close, I turn back and face the crib. My eyes
fill with tears, and not for myself this time. Not for the baby.
I cry for Ryle. Because even though he’s responsible for the situation
he’s in, I know how sad he is about it. And when you love someone, seeing
them sad also makes you sad.
Neither of us brought up our separation or even a chance at
reconciliation. We didn’t even talk about what’s going to happen when
this baby is born in ten weeks.
I’m just not ready for that conversation yet and the least he can do for
me right now is show me patience.
The patience he still owes me from all the times he had none.

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