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

of the phone.
“I’ll text you,” I whisper, too scared to keep speaking. I don’t want
Ryle to wake up. I hang up the phone and somehow find the strength
to still my hands while I text him my address and the access code for
entry. Then I send a second text that says Text me when you get here.
Please don’t knock.
I crawl to the kitchen and find my pants, struggling back into
them. I find my shirt on the counter. When I’m dressed, I go to the
living room. I debate opening the door and meeting Atlas downstairs,
but I’m too scared I won’t be able to make it down to the lobby alone.
My forehead is still bleeding and I feel too weak to even stand up and
wait by the door. I slide to the floor, clenching my phone in my shaky
fist and staring at it, waiting for his text.
It’s an agonizing twenty-four minutes later when my phone lights
up.
Here.
I scramble to my feet and swing open the door. Arms wrap around
me and my face is pressed against something soft. I just start crying
and crying and shaking and crying.
“Lily,” he whispers. I’ve never heard my name spoken so sadly. He
urges me to look up at him. His blue eyes scroll over my face, and I
see it happen. I watch the concern vanish as he darts his head up to
the apartment door. “Is he still in there?”
Rage.
I can feel the rage come off of him and he starts to step toward the
apartment door. I grab his jacket in my fists. “No. Please, Atlas. I just
want to leave.”
I see the pain roll over him as he pauses, struggling to decide
whether to listen to me or bust through the door. He eventually turns
away from the door and wraps his arms around me. He helps me to
the elevator and then through the lobby. By some miracle, we only
run into one person and he’s on his phone and facing the other
direction.
By the time we make it to the parking garage, I start to feel dizzy
again. I tell him to slow down, and then I feel his arm wrap under my
knees as he picks me up. Then we’re in the car. Then the car is
moving.