I’m a statistic now. The things I’ve thought about women like me are now what others would think of me if they knew my current situation.

“How could she love him after what he did to her? How could she contemplate taking him back?”

It’s sad that those are the first thoughts that run through our minds when someone is abused. Shouldn’t there be more distaste in our mouths for the abusers than for those who continue to love the abusers?

I think of all the people who have been in this situation before me. Everyone who will be in this situation after me. Do we all repeat the same words in our heads in the days after experiencing abuse at the hands of those who love us? “From this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”

Maybe those vows weren’t meant to be taken as literally as some spouses take them.

For better, for worse?

Fuck.

That.

Shit.

—Lily

Chapter Twenty-Six

I’m lying on Atlas’s guest bed, staring up at the ceiling. It’s a normal bed. Really comfortable, actually. But it feels like I’m on a water bed. Or maybe a raft, adrift at sea. And I scale over these huge waves, each of them carrying something different. Some are waves of sadness. Some are waves of anger. Some are waves of tears. Some are waves of sleep.

Occasionally, I’ll place my hands on my stomach and a tiny wave of love will come. I have no idea how I can already love something so much, but I do. I think about whether or not it’ll be a boy or a girl and what I’ll name it. I wonder if it will look like me or Ryle. And then another wave of anger will come and crash down on that tiny wave of love.

I feel robbed of the joy a mother should have when she finds out she’s pregnant. I feel like Ryle took that from me last night and it’s just one more thing I have to hate him for.

Hatred is exhausting.

I force myself off the bed and into the shower. I’ve been in my room most of the day. Atlas returned home several hours ago and I heard him open the door at one point to check on me but I pretended to be asleep.

I feel awkward being here. Atlas is the very reason Ryle was angry at me last night, yet he’s the one I ran to when I needed help? Being here fills me with guilt. Maybe even a little bit of shame, as though my calling Atlas lends credibility to Ryle’s anger. But there’s literally nowhere I can go right now. I need a couple of days to process things and if I go to a hotel, Ryle could track the credit card charge and find me.

He’d be able to find me at my mother’s. At Allysa’s. At Lucy’s. He’s even met Devin a couple of times and would more than likely go there, too.