It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

I’m not surprised she’s thinking about that, because I’ve thought about it
as well tonight. This is the first time we’ve been intimate since that night that
ended so terribly, so it’s hard not to compare them.
That was what her very last journal entry was about. It was painful to read,
seeing how much she was hurting. I wish more than anything it could have
ended better than it did.
“I don’t remember a lot from that night,” I admit. “I woke up in the
hospital the next day, confused. I knew your father was the one who had hurt
me, I remembered that much, but I had no idea if he did to you what he had
done to me. I hit the call button several times, and when no one came to my
room, I somehow hobbled into the hallway with a broken ankle. I was frantic,
asking if you were okay, but the poor nurse had no idea what I was talking
about.”
Lily tightens her grip around me as I talk.
“She finally calmed me down enough to get your information from me,
and then she came back to let me know that I was the only one brought in
with injuries. She asked me if your father was Andrew Bloom. I told her yes,
and I told her I wanted to press charges. When I asked her if she could have
an officer come to the room, she looked at me sympathetically. I remember
her exact words. She said, ‘The law is on his side, honey. No one turns him
in. Not even his wife.’ ”
Lily exhales against my chest, so I pause and press a kiss against the top of
her head. “Then what?” she whispers.
“I did it anyway,” I say. “I knew if I didn’t report him, your mother would
never get out of that situation. I made the nurse contact an officer, and when
one finally arrived that afternoon, he wasn’t there to listen to my statement.
He was there to make it clear that if anyone was going to be arrested, it
wouldn’t be your father. He said your father could have me arrested for
breaking into houses and forcing myself on his daughter. Those were the
officer’s exact words, like the relationship you and I had was something
criminal. I felt guilty about that for years.”
Lily looks up at me and places a hand on my cheek. “What? Atlas, we’re
only two and a half years apart. You did absolutely nothing wrong.”
I appreciate that she says that, but it doesn’t change the fact that I felt
guilty for bringing stress into her life. But I also felt guilty for leaving her
once I did bring stress into her life. “I don’t know that any choice I made
back then would have felt right. I didn’t want to stay and put you in more