It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

grow up with the best version of Lily, then please work with her. This is
possible for all of us.”
Ryle rolls his neck. “What are we, some kind of team now?”
I hate that he’s trying to make any of this sound beyond the realm of
possibility. “A team is the only thing people should be when kids are
involved.”
That hits him. I can see it in the way he flinches, and then subtly swallows.
He turns around and faces away from me, taking a few steps while he
contemplates everything I’ve said. When he turns back around and looks at
me, there’s a little less vitriol there.
“When things don’t work out between the two of you and Lily needs
somewhere to run, I’m not picking up the pieces this time.” With that, Ryle
walks away. He doesn’t go through the restaurant this time. He heads down
the alley, toward the street.
I can do nothing but stare at him with pity as he walks away. He truly
doesn’t know Lily at all.
At all.
Lily doesn’t run to people. She didn’t run after me when I left Maine. She
didn’t run to me when she left Ryle. She focused on being a mother. Yet
that’s what he expects her to do if things don’t work out between us? Run to
him like he’s her home base?
Lily’s home base is Emerson, and if he still can’t see that, he’s clueless.
If Lily had stayed with him, he would have spent the rest of their lives
inventing issues in order to justify his excessive anger. Because I was never
an issue in their marriage, and I never would have been.
I thought I pitied him before, but he’s fighting for a woman he barely even
knows, which means he’s just fighting for the sake of fighting. He’s got a
very similar personality to my mother, and sometimes there’s no fixing that.
You just have to learn to live your life around it.
Maybe that’s what Lily and I are going to have to do. Learn to live our
lives the best we can while occasionally having to deal with the ridiculous
wrath of Ryle.
That’s fine. I’d go through this shit every day if it means I’m the one who
gets to fall asleep next to her every night.
I walk up the steps and return to the hustle of the kitchen, and I get right
back to work like he was never even here. I don’t know if my response
tonight made this situation better, but I definitely don’t think I made it worse.