It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

That was what Atlas was telling me when he said “I love you.” He
was letting me know that I was the biggest wave he’d ever come across.
And I brought so much with me that my impressions would always be
there, even when the tide rolled out.
After he said he loved me, he told me he had a birthday present for
me. He pulled out a small brown bag. “It isn’t much, but it’s all I could
afford.”
I opened the bag and pulled out the best present I’d ever received. It
was a magnet that said “Boston” on the top. At the bottom in tiny
letters, it said, “Where everything is better.” I told him I would keep it
forever, and every time I look at it I’ll think of him.
When I started out this letter, I said my sixteenth birthday was one of
the best days of my life. Because up until that second, it was.
It was the next few minutes that weren’t.
Before Atlas had shown up that night, I wasn’t expecting him, so I
didn’t think to lock my bedroom door. My father heard me in there
talking to someone, and when he threw open my door and saw Atlas in
bed with me, he was angrier than I’d ever seen him. And Atlas was at a
disadvantage by not being prepared for what came next.
I’ll never forget that moment for as long as I live. Being completely
helpless as my father came down on him with a baseball bat. The sound
of bones snapping was the only thing piercing through my screams.
I still don’t know who called the police. I’m sure it was my mother,
but it’s been six months and we still haven’t talked about that night. By
the time the police got to my bedroom and pulled my father off of him, I
didn’t even recognize Atlas, he was covered in so much blood.
I was hysterical.
Hysterical.
Not only did they have to take Atlas away in an ambulance, they also
had to call an ambulance for me because I couldn’t breathe. It was the
first and only panic attack I’ve ever had.
No one would tell me where he was or if he was even okay. My
father wasn’t even arrested for what he’d done. Word got out that Atlas
had been staying in that old house and that he had been homeless. My
father became revered for his heroic act—saving his little girl from the
homeless boy who manipulated her into having sex with him.