15-05-2021-052358It-Ends-with-Us

dinner with Allysa and Marshall.
Allysa is due in a few weeks, so she’s forcing as much couple time
on us as she can. She’s worried we’ll stop coming to visit after the
baby is born, which I know is ridiculous. The visits will just grow more
frequent. I already love my niece more than any of them, anyway.
Okay, maybe not. But it’s close.
I try to avoid getting my hair wet as I rinse off, because we’re
already running late. I grab my razor and press it under my arm when
I hear a crash. I pause.
“Ryle?”
Nothing.
I finish shaving and then wash the soap off. Another crash.
What in the world is he doing?
I turn off the water and grab a towel, running it over myself. “Ryle!”
He still doesn’t respond. I pull my jeans on in a hurry and open the
door as I’m pulling my shirt over my head. “Ryle?”
The nightstand by our bed is tipped over. I move to the living room
and see him sitting on the edge of the couch, his head in one of his
hands. He’s looking down at something in his other hand.
“What are you doing?”
He looks up at me and I don’t recognize his expression. I’m
confused by what’s happening. I don’t know if he just got bad news
or... Oh, God. Allysa.
“Ryle, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?”
He holds up my phone and just looks at me like I should know
what’s happening. When I shake my head in confusion, he holds up a
piece of paper. “Funny thing,” he says, setting my phone on the coffee
table in front of him. “I dropped your phone by accident. Cover pops
off. I find this number hidden in the back of it.”
Oh, God.
No, no, no.
He crumbles the number in his fist. “I thought, ‘Huh. That’s weird.
Lily doesn’t hide things from me.’ ” He stands up and picks up my phone.
“So I called it.” He tightens his fist around the phone. “He’s lucky I
got his fucking voice mail.” He chunks my phone clear across the
room and it crashes against the wall, shattering to the floor.