Someone is at my door.
I reach for my phone on my nightstand and try to focus on the screen. I have several missed calls from Ryle, which makes me concerned something is wrong. But the only thing I have from my mother is a picture of Emmy eating breakfast from half an hour ago.
Phew.Emmy is okay. I immediately relax, but knowing Ryle is probably the one knocking on my door doesn’t allow for much relaxation.
“Hold on!” I yell.
I throw on something quick—a T-shirt and jeans—and then I open the door to let him in. He moves past me, into theapartment, without being invited in. “Is everything okay?” He looks panicked, but also relieved to see that I’m alive.
“I was asleep. Everything is fine.” He can tell I’m annoyed. He glances around the room for Emmy. “She spent the night at my mother’s.”
“Oh.” He’s disappointed. “I tried calling because I wanted to pick her up for a few hours. You weren’t answering your phone, and you’re always awake by now…” Ryle’s voice trails off when he sees the couch. I don’t have to look at the couch to know what he’s staring at. My T-shirt and panties are still tossed haphazardly over the back of it, I’m sure.
“Let me call my mother and let her know you’re coming.” I go get my phone from my room, hoping Ryle isn’t about to question me. He’s ruining the good mood Atlas left me in last night.
When I walk back into the living room, I pause while searching for my mother’s contact on my phone. Ryle is holding a wineglass in his hand, inspecting it. It’s the one Atlas drank from. Mine is on the counter next to it—a clear indication that someone was herewithme drinking wine last night.
Before my underwear got removed and left on the couch.
I can see Ryle’s jealousy bubbling over when he sets down the wineglass and looks straight at me. “Did someone stay the night?”
I don’t bother denying it. I’m an adult. A single adult.Well, possibly not single anymore, but that’s another matter.“We’re divorced, Ryle. You can’t ask me questions like that.”
Maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because Ryle immediately responds by taking two quick steps toward me.“I can’t ask you if someone spent the night in the home my daughterlivesin?”
I take a step back. “That’s not what I meant. And I wouldn’t bring anyone around her without your approval; that’s why she’s at my mother’s.”
Ryle’s eyes are narrowed, accusing. He looks disgusted by me. “You won’t leave her with me overnight, but you’ll drop her off somewhere else when you want to get fucked?” He laughs. “Great parenting, Lily.”
Now I’m getting angry. “This is only the second time I’ve ever left her overnight since she was born almost a year ago. Don’t shame me for taking a night for myself. And when I do take a night for myself, what I do during that time is not your business.”
Ryle has that look in his eye—the distant void that always took over right before he’d go too far.
My anger instantly turns to fear, and when Ryle can see that I’m backing away from him, he releases this sound of rage. A guttural, angry noise of frustration that reverberates in the room.
He leaves my apartment, slamming the front door shut behind him. I hear him yell the wordfuckin the hallway.
I’m not sure which angle his rage is coming at me from. Is he mad I’m moving on? Is he mad my mother has Emmy? Or is it that I allow my mother overnights with her but I’m still not comfortable with Ryle having overnights? Maybe he’s angry about all three things presenting at once.
I blow out a calming breath, relieved he’s gone, but before I can think about what to do next, Ryle is opening mydoor again. He’s looking at me from the hallway with a very flat affect when he says, “Is it him?”
I can feel my heart catch in my throat when he asks that. He doesn’t say Atlas’s name, but who else could he be referring to? I don’t immediately deny it, which is enough of a confirmation for him.
Ryle looks up at the ceiling briefly, and then shakes his head. “So I had a right to be concerned about him the whole time?”
The entire past few minutes have been a roller coaster of emotions, but nothing has been as tumultuous as the question that just left his mouth. I take a few steps until I’m standing in my doorway, prepared to close the door on him as soon as I say my piece.
“If you truly believe that I would have been unfaithful to you, then go ahead and believe that. I don’t have the energy to keep convincing you otherwise. I’ve explained this to you before, so I’m not saying it again. I never would have left you for Atlas. I didn’tleaveyou for Atlas. I left you because I deserve to be treated better than the way I was treated by you.”
I go to close the door, but before I can take a step back, Ryle moves forward and pushes me until my back is flat against the open living room door. His eyes are filled with fury when he slides his left hand to the base of my throat, applying pressure as if he wants to hold me in place. He slaps his right palm flat against the door by my head, and it scares me so much, I immediately squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to see what’s about to come next.
A huge wave of anxiety and fear rolls over me so intensely, I’m scared I might pass out. I can feel Ryle’s breathcrashing against my cheek as it moves through his clenched teeth because his face is so close to mine. My heart is pounding so hard, there’s no way he can’t feel that fear beating against his palm with the way his hand is pressed against me. I want to scream, but I’m terrified if I make a noise, it’ll make him even angrier.
Several seconds pass between the moment Ryle pins me against the door and the moment he starts to realize what he’s done. What more he was likelyaboutto do.
My eyes are still shut, but I can feel the remorse in the way he leans forward and presses his forehead against the door, right next to my head. He still has me caged in, but he’s released the pressure in the hand that was gripping my neck, and there’s a struggling sound coming from him, as if he’s trying not to cry.
It takes me back to the last night he hurt me. The apologies he was whispering as I drifted in and out of consciousness.I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.