It Starts with Us (It Ends with Us #2)(26)

Despite realizing what an uncaring human she truly was, I made one last attempt to pull humanity out of her. “Can I at least get some of my stuff before I leave?”

“You don’t have anything,” she said. “We needed the space.”

I couldn’t look at her after that. It was as if she wanted nothing more than to erase me from her life, so I vowed in that moment to help her do just that.

The blood was dripping into my eye when I was walking away from the house.

I can’t tell you what the rest of that day was like. To feel so incredibly unwanted, unloved, alone. I had no one. Nothing. No money, no belongings, no family.

Just a wound.

We’re impressionable when we’re younger, and when you’re told you are nothing for years on end by everyone you should mean something to, you start to believe it. And you slowly start to become nothing.

But then I met you, Lily. And even though I was nothing, when you looked at me, you somehow saw something. Something I couldn’t see. You were the first person in my life to show an interest in who I was as a human. No one had ever asked me questions about myself the way you did. After those few months I spent getting to know you, I stopped feeling like I was nothing. You made me feel interesting and unique. Your friendship gave me worth.

Thank you for that. Even if this date leads nowhere and we never speak again, I will always be grateful to you for somehow seeing something in me that my own mother was blind to.

You’re my favorite person, Lily. And now you know why.

Atlas



My throat is so thick with burgeoning tears, I can’t even verbally respond to what I just read. I set the phone on my leg and wipe at my eyes. I hate that he’s driving right now, because if we were parked, I’d throw my arms around him and hug him tighter than he’s ever been hugged. I’d probably kiss him, too, and pull him into the backseat, because no one has ever said such heartbreakingly sad things in such a sweet way to me before.

Atlas reaches across the seat and grabs his phone. He drops it back into the cupholder, but then he reaches for my hand. He threads his fingers through mine and squeezes my hand while staring straight ahead. That move causes a commotion in my chest. I wrap my other hand over the top of his, and holding hands like this reminds me of all the bus rides when we’d just sit in silence, sad and cold, holding on to each other.

I stare out the window, and he stares straight ahead, and neither of us says a word on our drive back to the city.



* * *



We stop and grab to-go burgers just two miles from my flower shop. Atlas knows I don’t want Emerson to be up too far past her bedtime, so we eat in the parking lot of Lily Bloom’s. Our conversation since getting back into the city and ordering burgers has been much lighter. It isn’t lost on me that I’m not mortified anymore. Him being vulnerable with me seemed to be the reset button I needed for our date to get back on track.

We’ve been discussing all the places we’ve traveled. He has me beat by a long shot, considering the time he spent in the Marines. He’s been to five different countries, and the only place I’ve been outside of the country is Canada.

“You’ve never even been to Mexico?” Atlas asks.

I wipe my mouth with a napkin. “Never.”

“Did you and Ryle not have a honeymoon?”

Ugh. I hate the sound of his name in the middle of this date. “No, we eloped in Vegas. Didn’t have time for a honeymoon.”

Atlas takes a sip of his drink. When he looks at me, his eyes are piercing, like he’s hoping to unpack the thoughts I’m not saying. “Did you want a wedding?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I knew Ryle never wanted to get married, so when he said we should go to Vegas and get married, I saw it as a window of opportunity that might close. I guess I felt like eloping was better than not marrying him at all.”

“What if you get married again? You think you’ll do it differently?”

I laugh at that question, and nod immediately. “Absolutely. I want it all. Flowers and bridesmaids and shit.” I pop a fry into my mouth. “And romantic vows, and an even more romantic honeymoon.”

“Where would you go?”

“Paris. Rome. London. I have no desire to sit on a hot beach somewhere. I want to see all the romantic places in Europe and make love in every city and take pictures kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower. I want to eat croissants and hold hands on trains.” I drop my empty container of fries into the sack. “What about you?”

Atlas reaches for my free hand, and he holds it. He doesn’t answer me. He just smiles at me and squeezes my hand, like what he wants is a secret that’s too soon to spill.

Holding his hand feels like such a natural thing. Maybe because we used to do this so much as teenagers, but sitting in this car with him and not holding his hand feels more out of place than holding hands does.

Even with the hitch I put into our date by falling asleep, the entire night has felt easy and comfortable. Being near him is second nature. I trace a finger over the top of his wrist. “I need to go.”

“I know,” he says, rubbing his thumb over mine. Atlas’s phone pings, so he reaches for it with his free hand and reads the incoming text. He sighs quietly, and the way he drops his phone back into the cupholder makes me think he’s irritated with whoever just texted him.