It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

“Let me call my mother and let her know you’re coming.” I go get my
phone from my room, hoping Ryle isn’t about to question me. He’s ruining
the good mood Atlas left me in last night.
When I walk back into the living room, I pause while searching for my
mother’s contact on my phone. Ryle is holding a wineglass in his hand,
inspecting it. It’s the one Atlas drank from. Mine is on the counter next to it
—a clear indication that someone was here with me drinking wine last night.
Before my underwear got removed and left on the couch.
I can see Ryle’s jealousy bubbling over when he sets down the wineglass
and looks straight at me. “Did someone stay the night?”
I don’t bother denying it. I’m an adult. A single adult. Well, possibly not
single anymore, but that’s another matter. “We’re divorced, Ryle. You can’t
ask me questions like that.”
Maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because Ryle immediately
responds by taking two quick steps toward me. “I can’t ask you if someone
spent the night in the home my daughter lives in?”
I take a step back. “That’s not what I meant. And I wouldn’t bring anyone
around her without your approval; that’s why she’s at my mother’s.”
Ryle’s eyes are narrowed, accusing. He looks disgusted by me. “You
won’t leave her with me overnight, but you’ll drop her off somewhere else
when you want to get fucked?” He laughs. “Great parenting, Lily.”
Now I’m getting angry. “This is only the second time I’ve ever left her
overnight since she was born almost a year ago. Don’t shame me for taking a
night for myself. And when I do take a night for myself, what I do during that
time is not your business.”
Ryle has that look in his eye—the distant void that always took over right
before he’d go too far.
My anger instantly turns to fear, and when Ryle can see that I’m backing
away from him, he releases this sound of rage. A guttural, angry noise of
frustration that reverberates in the room.
He leaves my apartment, slamming the front door shut behind him. I hear
him yell the word fuck in the hallway.
I’m not sure which angle his rage is coming at me from. Is he mad I’m
moving on? Is he mad my mother has Emmy? Or is it that I allow my mother
overnights with her but I’m still not comfortable with Ryle having
overnights? Maybe he’s angry about all three things presenting at once.