It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

“I did. It’s coconut shrimp.”
“What’s the occasion?” she asks, opening her napkin. “Is this an apology
for assuming you could actually parent a kid like him?” She laughs like she
told a joke, but the lack of noise in the restaurant makes her laugh fall flat.
She shakes her head and picks up her glass of wine, sipping from it.
I know she has twelve years on me with Josh, but I’m willing to bet I
already know him better than she does. Josh probably knows me better than
she knows me, and I lived with her for seventeen years. “What was my
favorite food growing up?” I ask her.
She stares back at me blankly.
Maybe that was a tough one. “Okay. What about my favorite movie?”
Nothing. “Color? Music?” I give her a few more, hoping she can answer at
least one of them.
She can’t. She shrugs, setting down her wineglass.
“What kind of books does Josh like to read?”
“Is that a trick question?” she asks.
I settle back against the booth, attempting to hide my agitation, but it’s
living and breathing in every part of me. “You don’t know anything about the
people you brought into this world.”
“I was a single mother to both of you, Atlas. I didn’t have time to worry
about what you liked to read when I was busy trying to survive.” She drops
the fork she was about to use. “Jesus Christ.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here so I could make you feel bad,” I say. I take
a sip of my water, and then run my finger around the rim of my glass. “I
don’t even need an apology. Neither does he.” I look at her pointedly,
shocked that I’m about to say what I’m about to say. It’s not what I came
here to say to her at all, but the things I selfishly came here for aren’t what’s
nagging at me. “I want to give you an opportunity to be a better mother to
him.”
“Maybe the issue is that he should be a better son.”
“He’s twelve. He’s as good as he needs to be. Besides, the relationship
you have with him isn’t his responsibility.”
She scratches her cheek and then flicks a hand in the air. “What is this?
Why am I here? Do you want me to take him back because he’s too much for
you to handle?”
“Not even close,” I say. “I want you to sign your rights over to me. If you
don’t, I’ll take you to court, and it’ll cost us both a ridiculous amount of