It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover (z-lib.org).epub

I know those words get thrown around a lot, especially by teenagers. A lot of times
prematurely and without much merit. But when he said them to me, I knew he
wasn’t saying it like he was in love with me. It wasn’t that kind of “I love you.”
Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like
waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make
more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from
deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore.
Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long
after the tide recedes.
That was what Atlas was telling me when he said “I love you.” He was letting
me know that I was the biggest wave he’d ever come across. And I brought so much
with me that my impressions would always be there, even when the tide rolled out.
After he said he loved me, he told me he had a birthday present for me. He pulled
out a small brown bag. “It isn’t much, but it’s all I could afford.”
I opened the bag and pulled out the best present I’d ever received. It was a magnet
that said “Boston” on the top. At the bottom in tiny letters, it said “Where everything
is better.” I told him I would keep it forever, and every time I look at it I’ll think of
him.
When I started out this letter, I said my sixteenth birthday was one of the best
days of my life. Because up until that second, it was.
It was the next few minutes that weren’t.
Before Atlas had shown up that night, I wasn’t expecting him, so I didn’t think
to lock my bedroom door. My father heard me in there talking to someone, and when
he threw open my door and saw Atlas in bed with me, he was angrier than I’d ever
seen him. And Atlas was at a disadvantage by not being prepared for what came
next.
I’ll never forget that moment for as long as I live. Being completely helpless as my
father came down on him with a baseball bat. The sound of bones snapping was the
only thing piercing through my screams.
I still don’t know who called the police. I’m sure it was my mother, but it’s been
six months and we still haven’t talked about that night. By the time the police got to
my bedroom and pulled my father off of him, I didn’t even recognize Atlas, he was
covered in so much blood.
I was hysterical.
Hysterical.
Not only did they have to take Atlas away in an ambulance, they also had to call
an ambulance for me because I couldn’t breathe. It was the first and only panic