He reached over and tucked my hair behind my ear. I liked it when he did that and I suddenly wasn’t nearly as mad anymore. Then he put his arm around me and pulled me to him so that my head was resting on his shoulder. I don’t know how he calmed me down without even talking, but he did. Some people just have a calming presence about them and he’s one of those people. Completely opposite of my father.
We sat like that for a while, until I saw my bedroom light turn on.
“You should go,” he whispered. We could both see my mom standing in my bedroom looking for me. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized what a perfect view he has of my bedroom.
As I walked back home, I tried to think about the entiretime Atlas has been in that house. I tried to recall if I’d walked around after dark with the light on at night, because all I normally wear in my room at night is a T-shirt.
Here’s what’s crazy about that, Ellen: I was kind of hoping I had.
—Lily
Atlas isn’t smiling when I finish reading. He’s staring at me with a lot of feeling, and the heaviness in his eyes is making my chest tight.
“We were so young,” he says. His voice carries a little bit of ache in it.
“I know. Too young to deal with the stuff we dealt with. Especially you.”
Atlas isn’t looking at his phone anymore, but he’s moving his head in agreement. The mood has shifted, and I can tell he’s thinking about something else entirely. It brings me back to what he tried to brush off earlier when he said it’s been one of those weeks.
“What’s bothering you?”
His eyes return to his phone. He seems like he might brush it off again, but then he just sighs and readjusts himself so that he’s sitting higher up against his headboard. “Someone vandalized the restaurants.”
“Both of them?”
He nods. “Yeah, it started a few days ago.”
“You think it’s someone you know?”
“It’s not anyone I recognize, but the security footage wasn’t very clear. I haven’t reported it to the police yet.”
“Why haven’t you?”
His eyebrows furrow. “Whoever it is seems younger—maybe in their teens. I guess I’m worried they might be in a similar situation to the one I was in back then. Destitute.” The tension in his eyes eases a bit. “And what if they don’t have a Lily to save them?”
It takes a few seconds for what he says to register. When it does, I don’t smile. I swallow the lump in my throat, hoping he can’t see my internal reaction to that. It’s not the first time he’s mentioned I saved him back then, but every time he says it, I want to argue with him. I didn’t save him. All I did was fall in love with him.
I can see why I fell in love with him. What owner is more concerned about the situation of the person vandalizing their business than they are with the actual damage being done? “Considerate Atlas,” I whisper.
“What was that?” he says.
I didn’t mean to say that out loud. I slide a hand over the heat moving across my neck. “Nothing.”
Atlas clears his throat, leaning forward. A subtle smile materializes. “Back to your journal,” he says. “I wondered if you knew I could see into your bedroom window back then, because after that night, you left that light on a hell of a lot.”
I laugh, glad he’s lightening the mood. “You didn’t have a television. I wanted to give you something to watch.”
He groans. “Lily, you have to let me read the rest.”
“No.”
“You locked me in a closet today. Letting me read your journals would be a good way to apologize for that.”
“I thought you weren’t offended.”
“Maybe it’s a delayed offense.” He begins to nod slowly. “Yeah… starting to feel it now. I’m really offended.”
I’m laughing when Emmy begins to work up a cry across the hall. I sigh because I don’t want to hang up, but I’m also not the mom who can let her child cry it out. “Emmy’s waking up. I have to go. But you owe me a date.”
“Name the time,” he says.
“I’m off on Sundays, so a Saturday night might be good.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” he says. “But we’re going slow.”
“I mean… that’s pretty slow if we’re counting from the first day we met. That puts a lot of years between meeting you and going on a first date with you.”
“Six o’clock?”
I smile. “Six is perfect.”
As soon as I say that, Atlas squeezes his eyes shut for two seconds. “Wait. I can’t tomorrow. Shit. We’re hosting an event; they need me at the restaurant. Sunday?”
“I have Emmy Sunday. I’d rather wait before bringing her around you.”
“I get that,” Atlas says. “Next Saturday?”
“That’ll give me time to line up someone to watch her.”
