Chapters (59)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Praise
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- January
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- February
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- March
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- April
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- May
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- June
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- July
- Forty-One
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Ladies of the House - Reader’s Guide
- Questions For Discussion
- Excerpt
Atlas waited a moment, chewing his bottom lip, as Wallis and Cricket backed out of the room. Then: “A few weeks ago, I was staring at my lease renewal, and Ari demanded my answer about living together. I’d postponed it long enough, she said. She was right, of course. So, I opened my mouth, thinking I was going to say yes because it was so clearly the next step for us, but what came out was very different. It was borderline incoherent, but as I was giving her the longest possible answer about why we couldn’t move in with each other, I stumbled into the truth I’d been trying to resist for ages. The thing I’d been doing, I just couldn’t do anymore.”
I knew exactly how he felt, and I couldn’t hold back, not for another second. “I’m in love with you,” I said, because that’s all there was. “I’m glad you stumbled into your truth, but there’s mine. I love you. So, I hope you’ll understand when I say, unless all of this is about how you love me, too, I’ll have to go. And you’ll have to talk about your breakup with your buddies, or someone else. Because I just can’t nod and pretend. I can’t. I love you, but I can’t.” I pressed my fingers into my wet eyes, then released them, snuck a peek at the man beside me.
“Thank God,” he said. He lifted his face to my old ceiling, the one that looked down upon all of my teenage imaginings, the dark dreams of my early adulthood, and shivered as though he’d been caught in the rain. “Here’s the truth, and it doesn’t make me look good, and I blame myself over and over again for not seeing it sooner. But for so many years, I believed that if I couldn’t have you, I guess I should have someone. I was able to spend many months thinking I could trick myself into loving Ari like I love you.”
I’d waited so long to hear those words that I had trouble staying upright. I leaned sideways, let my flushed face slip onto his shoulder. “Atlas,” I said. “That’s awful.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve.
“I was stupid,” he said, his fingers, tentative, on the nape of my neck. “I treated her incredibly unfairly. When I told her I was in love with you, she was furious, as she had every right to be. I’m just hoping—like I’ve never hoped before—that you’ll forgive me for taking so long to get this right.”
“I kissed you.” I tugged his hair to draw his head down toward mine, searched his eyes. “And you didn’t think you could have me?”