Home > urban > It Starts with Us > Chapter Twenty : Lily

It Starts with Us Chapter Twenty : Lily

Author:Lily Category:urban Update time:2022-11-14 17:01:12

Its challenging being the florist for a wedding and a guest. Ive been running all day to make sure the flowers at the venue were set up the way Lucy wanted them. And on top of that, we

e closing early for the wedding, so Serena needed help getting all the deliveries completed and onto the truck.

By the time Atlas makes it to my apartment to pick me up, Im not even close to being ready. I just received a text from him asking if he should come up. Im sure hes cautious because everything is so new with us, and he doesn know who might be here if he were to knock on the door, and if Id want them to know Atlas is my date to the wedding.

I was hesitant to invite him to the wedding for that very reason, but Im confident no one at Lucys wedding would even know Ryle. We run in different circles. And on the off chance they do know Ryle, and it might get back to him that I was with someone, the risk is worth the reward. Ive been looking forward to this night since Atlas agreed to come with me.

Come up, Im still getting ready.

Atlas knocks at my door moments later. When I open the door to let him in, my eyes feel like they might double in size like they do in the cartoons. "Wow." Im staring at him all dressed up in his black designer suit. He stands in the hallway for longer than Id normally make someone wait before inviting them in because I forget basic things like hospitality when Im in his presence.

Hes holding a bouquet, but it isn flowers. Its cookies.

He hands them to me. "Figured you get enough flowers," he says. He leans in and kisses my cheek, and I want to tilt my face just enough so that his lips land on mine, but hopefully I won have to be patient for much longer.

"These are perfect," I say, motioning for him to enter. "Come in. I need, like, fifteen minutes to get dressed."

Ive been so busy today, I haven even had a chance to eat. I open one of the cookies and bite into it. Then, with a mouthful, I say, "Im sorry if this is tacky. Im starving." I point toward my bedroom. "You can wait in my room with me while I get ready; it won take me long."

Atlas is looking around, taking everything in as he follows me to my bedroom.

My dress is laid out on the bed, so I pick it up and walk to my bathroom. I leave the door cracked a bit so that I can talk to him while I change. "Wheres Josh?"

"You remember Brad from that poker night?"

"I do, actually."

"His son, Theo, is at my house with Josh. They go to school together."

"Hows he liking school?"

I can see Atlas, but hes closer to the bathroom when he says, "Fine, I guess." It sounds like hes right next to the door. I slip the dress over my head and open the door farther. I chose a merlot-colored fitted dress with spaghetti straps. It has a matching shawl, but its still hanging in the closet.

Atlas looks me over when I appear in the doorway. His eyes journey up the length of me, but I don give him time to compliment me.

"Can you zip me up?" I give him my back and lift my hair, but I can feel him hesitate. Or maybe hes soaking in the moment.

A couple of seconds later, I feel his fingers press against my back as he raises the zipper. It sends chills rolling over my skin. When hes finished, I drop my hair and turn and face him. "I need to put on makeup." I start to back into the bathroom, but Atlas grips my waist.

"Come here," he says, pulling me until I smush against him. He admires my face for a couple of seconds, smiling appreciatively. Seductively. Like hes about to kiss me. "Thank you for inviting me."

I return the smile. "Thank you for coming. I know youve had a busy week."

Atlass eyes look tired. The usual glimmer has dulled a little, like hes been stressed and could use a night of relaxation. I can help but touch his cheek when I say, "We can Uber there if you want. You seem like you could use a drink."

Atlas touches my hand thats cupping his cheek. He tilts his face so that he can kiss the inside of my palm. Then he pulls my hand away and threads his fingers through it. He opens his mouth to say something else, but I see it the second his eyes get a glimpse of my tattoo.

Atlas has never seen the heart tattoo on my shoulder—the one I got because he always used to kiss me there. He touches it softly with his fingers, tracing the shape of it. His eyes flicker up to mine. "When did you get this?"

My voice catches, and Im forced to clear my throat. "In college." Ive thought about this moment a lot—what he would say if he ever saw it, how it would make him feel.

He quietly regards me and then looks at the tattoo again. Hes so close, I can feel his breath trickling across my collarbone. "Whyd you get it?"

I got it for so many reasons, but I choose to say the most obvious one. "Because. I missed you."

I wait for him to lower his head and press a kiss there like hes done so many times before. I wait for him to kiss me. To press his mouth to mine in a silent thank-you.

Atlas doesn do any of those things. He continues staring at the tattoo for a beat, but then he releases his hold on me and turns away. His voice is detached when he says, "You should probably finish getting ready or well be late." He takes a couple of steps toward my bedroom door, and then, without looking back, he says, "Ill wait in the living room."

I feel like I just got the breath knocked out of me.

His entire demeanor changed. It wasn at all what I expected from him. I stand frozen in place for a few depressing seconds, but then I force myself to finish getting ready. Maybe Im misreading his reaction and it wasn a negative one. Maybe he liked it so much, he needed alone time to process.

Whatever the reason is for his unexpected reaction, I fight back the sting of tears the entire time Im trying to do my makeup. I can help it. I think my feelings might be hurt, and thats not something I expected to happen tonight at all.

I go to my closet and find my shoes and grab my shawl, and I half expect Atlas to be gone when I walk out of my bedroom, but hes still here. Hes standing by the wall in the hallway looking at pictures of Emmy. When he hears me exit the bedroom, he looks in my direction, and then full-on turns to face me.

"Wow." He looks genuinely pleased when Im back in his presence, so the whiplash is a little confusing. "You

e beautiful, Lily."

I appreciate his compliment, but I can move past what just happened. And if theres one thing Ive learned from the relationship I was in before and the relationship I witnessed between my parents, its that I refuse to be someone who brushes everything under a rug. I don even want there to be a rug.

"Why did my tattoo upset you?"

My question catches him off guard. He fidgets with his tie, and seems to be looking for an excuse, but nothing comes to him, and the hallway remains silent, other than a ragged, slow breath he pulls in. "It wasn the tattoo."

"What is it? Why are you mad at me?"

"Im not mad at you, Lily." He says that convincingly, but hes not the same after seeing the tattoo, and I don want us to start out with lies. Apparently, he doesn , either, because I can see him working through what to say to me next. He looks uncomfortable, like he doesn want to have this conversation, or at least he doesn want to have it right now.

He shoves his hands in the pockets of his pants and sighs. "That night I took you to the emergency room… they bandaged up your shoulder while we were there." His voice sounds pained, but when he makes eye contact with me, that pained sound is nothing compared to the turmoil in his expression. "I heard you tell the nurse he bit you, but I wasn close enough to see that…" Atlas pauses midsentence and swallows hard. "I wasn close enough to see that you had the tattoo, and that he bit…" Atlas stops speaking again. Hes so upset, he can even finish his sentence. He just moves on to another one. "Is that why he did it? Because he read your journals and knew you got the tattoo for me?"

My knees feel shaky.

I can see why Atlas didn want to have this conversation. Its too much for a casual chat while we

e on our way out the door. I press a hand flat against my nervous stomach, prepared to answer him, but its hard to talk about. Especially knowing how upset its making Atlas on my behalf.

I don want to hurt him, but I also don want to lie to him, or protect Ryle in any way. Because Atlas is right. Thats exactly why Ryle did what he did, and I hate that Atlas will now forever pair my tattoo with that awful memory.

My lack of response is enough confirmation for him. He winces and turns away from me. I can see the deep breath he forces himself to take in order to remain calm. He looks like he wants to explode, but Ryle isn here for him to explode on.

Atlas is so angry, but this is an anger Im not afraid of.

I realize the significance of this moment. Im alone with an angry man in my apartment, but Im not in fear for my life, because he isn angry at me. Hes angry at the person who hurt me. Its a protective anger, and theres a world of difference between my reactions to Ryles anger versus my reaction to Atlass anger.

When Atlas turns to me again, I can see the hard set of his jaw and the veins in his neck when he says, "How am I supposed to be civil around him, Lily?" Theres guilt in his voice when he whispers, "I should have been there for you. I should have done more."

I can understand the anger, but Atlas has absolutely nothing to feel guilty for. I wasn at a point in my life where Atlas could have said or done anything to change my views of Ryle. I had to get to that point on my own.

I walk closer to Atlas and press my back into the wall across from him. He does the same on the opposite wall until we

e facing each other. Hes working through a lot of emotions right now, and I want to give him the space to do that. But I also have a lot to say about the guilt Atlas is holding on to.

"The first time Ryle hit me, it was because I laughed at him. I was tipsy, and I thought something was funny that wasn funny, and he backhanded me."

Atlas has to break eye contact after hearing me say that. I don know if he wants these details, but Ive been wanting to say all this to him for a long time. He remains still against the wall, but it looks like its taking everything in him not to run straight to wherever Ryle is right now. His eyes are sharp when he looks back at me, waiting for me to finish.

"The second time, he pushed me down the stairs. That argument started because he found your number hidden in my phone case. And when he bit me on my shoulder… You

e right. It was because he read the journals and found out my tattoo was because of you, and that the magnet I kept on my refrigerator was from you." I look down briefly because its hard seeing how much this is affecting him. "I used to think the things I did somehow warranted his reactions. Like maybe if I wouldn have laughed, he wouldn have hit me. Maybe if I didn have your number in my phone, he wouldn have gotten angry enough to push me down a flight of stairs."

Atlas isn even looking at me anymore. His head is leaned back against the wall, and hes staring at the ceiling, taking everything in, frozen in his anger.

"Every time I would start to take on the guilt and justify Ryles actions, I would think about you. I would ask myself what your reaction would have been compared to Ryles. Because I know it would have been different. If I would have laughed at you under the same circumstances that I laughed at Ryle, you would have laughed with me. You never would have backhanded me. And if any man on this planet gave me their phone number as a way to protect me from someone they feared was dangerous, you would appreciate them for that. You wouldn have pushed me down a flight of stairs. And if the journals I let you read were about another boy in high school besides you, you would have teased me. You probably would have highlighted lines you thought were cheesy and laughed about them with me."

I stop speaking until Atlas brings his focus back to mine, and then I finish. "Every time I would doubt myself and think that what Ryle did to me was in any way deserved, all I had to do was think about you, Atlas. I think about how differently each scenario would have been if it were you, and that helped me remember that none of it was my fault. You

e a big part of the reason I got through it, even though you weren there."

Atlas silently soaks up everything Ive said for maybe five seconds, but then he closes the distance between us and kisses me. Finally. Finally.

His right hand curls around my waist as he tugs me against him, his tongue sliding gently and warmly against my lips, coaxing his way past them. His left hand snakes its way through my hair until hes molding his palm to the back of my head. A spool of yearning begins to unravel inside me.

He doesn kiss me with any trepidation. His mouth meets mine with confidence, and mine responds to his with relief. I pull at him, wanting his warmth to sink into me. His mouth and his touch are familiar since weve done this dance before, but completely new at the same time because this kiss is made up of a whole new set of ingredients. Our first kiss was made of fear and youthful inexperience.

This kiss is hope. Its comfort and safety and stability. Its everything Ive been missing in my adult life, and I am so happy Atlas and I have each other again, I could cry.

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