It Ends With Us (17 page)

I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and then rested my head on his shoulder.

“You know what?” I said to him.

He slid his fingers through mine and squeezed my hand. “What?”

“You’re my favorite person.”

I felt him laugh a little and it made me smile.

“Out of how many people?” he asked.

“All of them.”

He kissed the top of my head and said, “You’re my favorite person, too, Lily. By a long shot.”

When the bus came to a stop on my street, he didn’t let go of my hand when we started to walk off. He was in front of me in the aisle and I was walking behind him, so he didn’t
see it when I turned around and flipped off Katie.

I probably shouldn’t have done it, but the look on her face made it worth it.

When we got to my house, he took the house key out of my hand and unlocked my front door. It was weird, seeing how comfortable he is at my house now. He walked in and locked the door behind
us. That’s when we noticed the electricity in the house wasn’t working. I looked out the window and saw a utility truck down the street working on the power lines, so that meant we
couldn’t watch your show. I wasn’t too upset because it meant we would probably just make out for an hour and a half.

“Does your oven run off gas or electricity?” he asked.

“Gas,” I said, a little confused that he was asking about our oven.

He kicked off his shoes (which were really just a pair of my father’s old shoes) and he started walking toward the kitchen. “I’m going to make you something,” he
said.

“You know how to cook?”

He opened the refrigerator and started moving things around. “Yep. I probably love to cook as much as you love to grow things.” He took a few things out of the refrigerator and
preheated the oven. I leaned against the counter and watched him. He wasn’t even looking at a recipe. He was just pouring things into bowls and mixing them without even using a measuring
cup.

I had never seen my father lift a finger in the kitchen. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t even know how to preheat our oven. I kind of thought most men were like that, but watching
Atlas work his way around my kitchen proved me wrong.

“What are you making?” I asked him. I pushed my hands on the island and hoisted myself onto it.

“Cookies,” he said. He walked the bowl over to me and stuck a spoon in the mixture. He brought the spoon up to my mouth and I tasted it. One of my weaknesses is cookie dough, and
this was the best I’d ever tasted.

“Oh, wow,” I said, licking my lips.

He set the bowl down beside me and then leaned in and kissed me. Cookie dough and Atlas’s mouth mixed together is like heaven, in case you’re wondering. I made a noise deep in my
throat that let him know how much I liked the combination, and it made him laugh. But he didn’t stop kissing me. He just laughed through the kiss and it completely melted my heart. A happy
Atlas was near mind-blowing. It made me want to uncover every single thing about this world that he likes and give it all to him.

When he was kissing me, I wondered if I loved him. I’ve never had a boyfriend 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 more of these moments with him. If he could just always be the guy he was capable of being in these moments, things would be so much different. For all of us.

I rotated the cookies like Atlas had said to do and when they were finished, I pulled them out of the oven. I took one off the cookie sheet and handed it to my father. I hated that I was
being nice to him. It almost felt like I was wasting one of Atlas’s cookies.

“Wow,” my father said. “These are great, Lily.”

I forced a thank-you, even though I didn’t make them. I couldn’t very well tell him that, though.

“They’re for school so you can only have one,” I lied. I waited until the rest of them cooled and then I put them in a Tupperware container and took them to my room. I
didn’t even want to try one without Atlas, so I waited until later last night when he came over.

“You should have tried one when they were hot,” he said. “That’s when they’re the best.”

“I didn’t want to eat them without you,” I said. We sat on the bed with our backs against the wall and proceeded to eat half the bowl of cookies. I told him they were
delicious, but failed to tell him they were by far the greatest cookies I’d ever eaten. I didn’t want to inflate his ego. I kind of liked how humble he was.

I tried to grab at another one, but he pulled the bowl away and put the lid back on it. “If you eat too many you’ll make yourself sick and you won’t like my cookies
anymore.”

I laughed. “Impossible.”

He took a drink of water and then stood up, facing the bed. “I made you something,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

“More cookies?” I asked.

He smiled and shook his head, then held out a fist. I lifted my hand and he dropped something hard in the palm of my hand. It was a small, flat outline of a heart, about two inches long,
carved out of wood.

I rubbed my thumb over it, trying not to smile too big. It wasn’t an anatomically correct heart, but it also didn’t look like the hand-drawn hearts. It was uneven and hollow in
the middle.

“You made this?” I asked, looking up at him.

He nodded. “I carved it with an old whittling knife I found at the house.”

The ends of the heart weren’t connected. They just curved in a little, leaving a little space at the top of the heart. I didn’t even know what to say. I felt him sit back down on
the bed but I couldn’t stop looking at it long enough to even thank him.

“I carved it out of a branch,” he said, whispering. “From the oak tree in your backyard.”

I swear, Ellen. I never thought I could love something so much. Or maybe what I was feeling wasn’t for the gift, but for him. I closed my fist around the heart and then leaned over and
kissed him so hard, he fell back onto the bed. I threw my leg over him and straddled him and he grabbed my waist and grinned against my mouth.

“I’m gonna carve you a damn house out of that oak tree if this is the reward I get,” he whispered.

I laughed. “You have to stop being so perfect,” I told him. “You’re already my favorite person but now you’re making it really unfair to all the other humans
because no one will ever be able to catch up to you.”

He brought his hand to the back of my head and rolled me until I was on my back and he was the one on top. “Then my plan is working,” he said, right before kissing me
again.

I held on to the heart while we kissed, wanting to believe it was a gift for no reason at all. But part of me was scared it was a gift to remember him by when he leaves for Boston.

I didn’t want to remember him. If I had to remember him, it would mean he wasn’t a part of my life anymore.

I don’t want him to move to Boston, Ellen. I know that’s selfish of me because he can’t keep living in that house. I don’t know what I’m more afraid might
happen. Watching him leave or selfishly begging him not to go.

I know we need to talk about it. I’ll ask him about Boston tonight when he comes over. I just didn’t want to ask him last night because it was a really perfect day.

—Lily

Dear Ellen,

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

He’s moving to Boston.

I don’t really feel like talking about it.

—Lily

Dear Ellen,

This is going to be a big one for my mother to hide.

My father is usually pretty cognizant of hitting her where it won’t leave a visible bruise. The last thing he probably wants is for people in the town to know what he does to her.
I’ve seen him kick her a few times, choke her, hit her on the back and the stomach, pull her hair. The few times he’s hit her on the face, it’s always just been a slap, so the
marks wouldn’t stay for long.

But never have I seen him do what he did last night.

It was really late when they got home. It was a weekend, so he and my mom went to some community function. My father has a real estate company and he’s also the town mayor, so they have
to do things in the public a lot like go to charity dinners. Which is ironic, since my father hates charities. But I guess he has to save face.

Atlas was already in my room when they got home. I could hear them fighting as soon as they walked through the front door. A lot of the conversation was muffled, but for the most part, it
sounded like my father was accusing her of flirting with some man.

Now I know my mother, Ellen. She would never do something like that. If anything, a guy probably looked at her and it made my father jealous. My mother is really beautiful.

I heard him call her a whore and then I heard the first blow. I started to climb out of my bed but Atlas pulled me back and told me not to go in there, that I might get hurt. I told him it
actually helps sometimes. That when I go in there, my father backs off.

Atlas tried to talk me out of it, but finally I got up and went out into the living room.

Ellen.

I just . . .

He was on top of her.

They were on the couch and he had his hand around her throat, but his other hand was pulling up her dress. She was trying to fight him off and I just stood there, frozen. She kept begging him
to get off her and then he hit her right across the face and told her to shut up. I’ll never forget his words when he said, “You want attention? I’ll give you some fucking
attention.” And that’s when she got real still and stopped fighting him. I heard her crying, and then she said, “Please be quiet. Lily is here.”

She said, “Please be quiet.”

Please be quiet while you rape me, dear.

Ellen, I didn’t know one human was capable of feeling so much hate inside one heart. And I’m not even talking about my father. I’m talking about me.

I walked straight to the kitchen and I opened a drawer. I grabbed the biggest knife I could find and . . . I don’t know how to explain it. It was like I wasn’t even
in my own body. I could see myself walking across the kitchen with the knife in my hand, and I knew I wasn’t going to use it. I just wanted something bigger than myself that could scare him
away from her. But right before I made it out of the kitchen, two arms went around my waist and picked me up from behind. I dropped the knife, and my father didn’t hear it but my mother did.
We locked eyes as Atlas carried me back to my bedroom. When we were back inside my room, I just started hitting him in the chest, trying to get back out there to her. I was crying and doing
everything I could to get him out of my way, but he wouldn’t move.