Lily tightens her grip around me as I talk.

“She finally calmed me down enough to get your information from me, and then she came back to let me know that I was the only one brought in with injuries. She asked me if your father was Andrew Bloom. I told her yes, and I told her I wanted to press charges. When I asked her if she could have an officer come to the room, she looked at me sympathetically. I remember her exact words. She said, ‘The law is on his side, honey. No one turns him in. Not even his wife.’ ”

Lily exhales against my chest, so I pause and press a kiss against the top of her head. “Then what?” she whispers.

“I did it anyway,” I say. “I knew if I didn’t report him, your mother would never get out of that situation. I made the nurse contact an officer, and when one finally arrived that afternoon, he wasn’t there to listen to my statement. He was there to make it clear that if anyone was going to be arrested, it wouldn’t be your father. He said your father could have me arrested for breaking into houses and forcing myself on his daughter. Those were the officer’s exact words, like the relationship you and I had was something criminal. I felt guilty about that for years.”

Lily looks up at me and places a hand on my cheek. “What? Atlas, we’re only two and a half years apart. You did absolutely nothing wrong.”

I appreciate that she says that, but it doesn’t change the fact that I felt guilty for bringing stress into her life. But I also felt guilty for leaving her once I did bring stress into her life. “I don’t know that any choice I made back then would have felt right. I didn’t want to stay and put you in more danger by showing up at your house again. And I didn’t want to be arrested because then I wouldn’t have been able to go to the military. I thought the best thing would be to put space between us, and then someday I would contact you down the line and see if you ever still thought of me like I thought of you.”

“Every day,” she whispers. “I thought of you every single day.”

I run my hand over her back for a while, and then I stroke my fingers through her hair, wondering how in the world she can make me feel so whole when I had no idea I was only half of myself without her.

Of course I’ve missed her all these years, and if I could have snapped my fingers and brought her back into my life, I would have in a heartbeat. But we had built lives without each other, her with Ryle and me with my career, and I assumed that was our fate. I had grown used to not living life with her. But now that she’s back, I don’t know that I could ever feel whole again without her. Especially after tonight.