It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

“Because of the fight at my restaurant?”
“Because of a lot of things,” I admit. I roll onto my back and move my
phone with me. “He blames most of our fights on you.” Atlas is clearly
confused, so I elaborate without making things too uncomfortable.
“Remember when we were teenagers and I used to write in my journal?”
“I do. Even though you never let me read anything.”
“Well, Ryle found the journals. And he read them. And he didn’t like what
he read.”
Atlas sighs. “Lily, we were kids.”
“Jealousy doesn’t have an expiration date, apparently.”
Atlas presses his lips into a thin line for a moment, like he’s attempting to
push down his frustration. “I really hate that you’re stressing over his
potential reaction to things that haven’t even happened yet. But I get it. It’s
the unfortunate position you’re in.” He looks at me reassuringly. “We’ll take
it one step at a time, okay?”
“One very slow step at a time,” I suggest.
“Deal. Slow steps.” Atlas adjusts the pillow beneath his head. “I used to
see you writing in those journals. I always wondered what you wrote about
me. If you wrote about me.”
“Almost everything was about you.”
“Do you still have them?”
“Yeah, they’re in a box in my closet.”
Atlas sits up. “Read me something.”
“No. God, no.”
“Lily.”
He looks so hopeful and excited at the possibility, but I can’t read my
teenage thoughts out loud to him over FaceTime. I’m growing red just
thinking about it.
“Please?”
I cover my face with a hand. “No, don’t beg.” I’ll give in to those blue
puppy-dog eyes if he doesn’t stop looking at me like he is.
He can see he’s wearing me down. “Lily, I have ached since I was a
teenager to know what you thought of me. One paragraph. Just give me that
much.”
How can I say no to that? I groan and toss the phone on the bed in defeat.
“Give me two minutes.” I walk to my closet and pull down the box. I carry it
over to my bed and begin flipping through the journals to find something that