Page 165 - It Ends with Us

Chapter Seventeen

It’s after sev en bef ore I get ho me. R yle called an ho ur ago and said he
wouldn’t be coming over toni ght . The conf usherc ackle (wha tev er tha t
big word he used was) sep aration was a succes s, but he’s staying at the
ho spital overni ght to make sure there aren’ t complications .

I walk in the door to my quiet apartment . I cha ng e int o my quiet
pajamas. I ea t a quiet sand wich. And then I lie down in my quiet
bed room and open my quiet new book, ho ping it can quiet my
em otions .
Sure eno ugh, three ho urs and the majority of a book later, all the

em otions from the last sev era l days beg in to seep out of me. I place a
bookmark on the page where I stopped rea ding and I close it.
I stare at the book for a long time. I thi nk about R yle. I thi nk about
Atlas. I thi nk about ho w somet imes , no matter ho w conv inc ed you are
tha t your life will turn out a cert ain way, all tha t cert aint y can be
washed away with a simple cha ng e in tide.
I take the book Atlas bought me and put it in the closet with all my

journa ls. Then I pick up the one tha t’s fil led with mem ories of hi m.
And I kno w it’s fina lly time to rea d the last ent ry I wrote. Then I can
close the book for good.

Dear Ellen,

Most of the time I’m than kful you do n’t know I exist an d that I’ve never
real ly mai led you an y of the se thi ngs I write to you.
Bu t sometimes, especial ly tonight , I wish you di d. I just need someone to tal k
to ab out ever ythi ng I’m feeling. It’s been six months since I’ve seen Atlas an d I
ho nestly do n’t know whe re he is or ho w he ’s do ing. So much ha s hap pened
since the las t letter I wrote to you, whe n Atlas moved to Bo ston. I tho ught it
was the las t time I’d see hi m for a whi le, but it was n’t.
I saw hi m ag ai n af ter he left, several weeks lat er. It was my sixteenth

bir thday an d whe n he sho wed up, it becam e the ab solute best day of my life.