It Ends With Us (40 page)

It is recommended this section be read after reading the book, as it contains spoilers.

• • •

My earliest memory in life was from the age of two and a half years old. My bedroom didn’t have a door and was covered by a sheet nailed to the top of the door frame. I
remember hearing my father yelling, so I peeked out from the other side of the sheet just as my father picked up our television and threw it at my mother, knocking her down.

She divorced him before I turned three. Every memory beyond that of my father was a good one. He never once lost his temper with me or my sisters, despite having done so on numerous occasions
with my mother.

I knew their marriage was an abusive one, but my mother never talked about it. To discuss it would have meant she was talking ill of my father and that’s something she never once did. She
wanted the relationship I had with him to be free of any strain that stood between the two of them. Because of this, I have the utmost respect for parents who don’t involve their children in
the dissolution of their relationships.

I asked my father about the abuse once. He was very candid about their relationship. He was an alcoholic during the years he was married to my mother and he was the first to admit he
didn’t treat her well. In fact, he told me he had two knuckles replaced in his hand because he had hit her so hard, they broke against her skull.

My father regretted the way he treated my mother his entire life. Mistreating her was the worst mistake he had ever made and he said he would grow old and die still madly in love with her.

I feel that was a very light punishment for what she endured.

When I decided I wanted to write this story, I first asked my mother for permission. I told her I wanted to write it for women like her. I also wanted to write it for all the people who
didn’t quite understand women like her.

I was one of those people.

The mother I know is not weak. She was not someone I could envision forgiving a man for mistreating her on multiple occasions. But while writing this book and getting into the mind-set of Lily,
I quickly realized that it’s not as black and white as it seems from the outside.

On more than one occasion while writing this, I wanted to change the plotline. I didn’t want Ryle to be who he was going to be because I had fallen in love with him in those first several
chapters, just as Lily had fallen in love with him. Just as my mother fell in love with my father.

The first incident between Ryle and Lily in the kitchen is what happened the first time my father ever hit my mother. She was cooking a casserole and he had been drinking. He pulled the
casserole out of the oven without using a pot holder. She thought it was funny and she laughed. The next thing she knew, he had hit her so hard she flew across the kitchen floor.

She chose to forgive him for that one incident, because his apology and regret were believable. Or at least believable enough that giving him a second chance hurt less than leaving with a broken
heart would have.

Over time, the incidents that followed were similar to the first. My father would repeatedly show remorse and promise to never do it again. It finally got to a point where she knew his promises
were empty, but she was a mother of two daughters by then and had no money to leave. And unlike Lily, my mother didn’t have a lot of support. There were no local women’s shelters. There
was very little government support back then. To leave meant risking not having a roof over our heads, but to her it was better than the alternative.

My father passed away several years ago, when I was twenty-five years old. He wasn’t the best father. He certainly wasn’t the best husband. But thanks to my mother, I was able to
have a very close relationship with him because she took the necessary steps to break the pattern before it broke us. And it wasn’t easy. She left him right before I turned three and my older
sister turned five. We lived off beans and macaroni and cheese for two solid years. She was a single mother without a college education, raising two daughters on her own with virtually no help. But
her love for us gave her the strength she needed to take that terrifying step.

By no means do I intend for Ryle and Lily’s situation to define domestic abuse. Nor do I intend for Ryle’s character to define the characteristics of most abusers. Every situation is
different. Every outcome is different. I chose to fashion Lily and Ryle’s story after my mother and father’s. I fashioned Ryle after my father in many ways. They are handsome,
compassionate, funny, and smart—but with moments of unforgivable behavior.

I fashioned Lily after my mother in many ways. They are both caring, intelligent, strong women who simply fell in love with men who didn’t deserve to fall in love at all.

Two years after divorcing my father, my mother met my stepfather. He was the epitome of a good husband. The memories I have of them growing up set the bar for the type of marriage I wanted for
myself.

When I finally did reach the point of marriage, the hardest thing I ever had to do was tell my biological father that he wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle—that I was going to ask
my stepfather.

I felt I had to do this for many reasons. My stepfather stepped up as a husband in ways my father never did. My stepfather stepped up financially in ways my father never did. And my stepfather
raised us as if we were his own, while never once denying us a relationship with my biological father.

I remember sitting down in my father’s living room a month before my wedding. I told him I loved him, but that I was going to be asking my stepfather to walk me down the aisle. I was
prepared for his response with every rebuttal I could think of. But the response he gave me was nothing I expected.

He nodded his head and said, “Colleen, he raised you. He deserves to give you away at your wedding. And you shouldn’t feel guilty about it, because it’s the right thing to
do.”

I knew my decision absolutely gutted my father. But he was selfless enough as a father to not only respect my decision, but he wanted
me
to respect it, too.

My father sat in the audience at my wedding and watched another man walk me down the aisle. I knew people were wondering why I didn’t just have both of them walk me down the aisle, but
looking back on it, I realize I made the choice out of respect for my mother.

Who I chose to walk me down the aisle wasn’t really about my father and it wasn’t even really about my stepfather. It was about her. I wanted the man who treated her how she deserved
to be treated to be given the honor of giving away her daughter.

In the past, I’ve always said I write for entertainment purposes only. I don’t write to educate, persuade, or inform.

This book is different. This was not entertainment for me. It was the most grueling thing I have ever written. At times, I wanted to hit the Delete button and take back the way Ryle had treated
Lily. I wanted to rewrite the scenes where she forgave him and I wanted to replace those scenes with a more resilient woman—a character who made all the right decisions at all the right
times. But those weren’t the characters I was writing.

That wasn’t the story I was telling.

I wanted to write something realistic to the situation my mother was in—a situation a lot of women find themselves in. I wanted to explore the love between Lily and Ryle so that I would
feel what my mother felt when she had to make the decision to leave my father—a man she loved with all her heart.

I sometimes wonder how different my life would have been if my mother had not made the choice she did. She left someone she loved so that her daughters would never think that kind of
relationship was okay. She wasn’t rescued by another man—a knight in shining armor. She took the initiative to leave my father on her own, knowing she was about to embark on a
completely different kind of struggle with added stress as a single mother. It was important to me that Lily’s character embody this same empowerment. Lily made the ultimate decision to leave
Ryle for the sake of their daughter. Even though there was a slight possibility that Ryle could have eventually changed for the better, some risks are never worth taking. Especially when those
risks have failed you in the past.

Before I wrote this book, I had a lot of respect for my mother. Now that I’ve finished it and was able to explore a tiny fraction of the pain and struggle she went through to get to where
she is today, I only have one thing to say to her.

I want to be you when I grow up.

If you are a victim of domestic violence or know someone who could use assistance in leaving a dangerous situation, please visit:
www.thehotline.org
.

For a list of resources for homeless individuals, please visit:
www.homelessresourcenetwork.org
.

There may only be one name listed as the author of this book, but I couldn’t have written it without the following people:

My sisters. I would love you both just as much if you weren’t my sisters. Sharing a parent with you is just an added bonus.

My children. You are my biggest accomplishment in life. Please never make me regret saying that.

To Weblich, CoHorts, TL Discussion Group, Book Swap, and all the other groups I can turn to online when I need some positive energy. You guys are a huge part of the reason I can do this for a
living, so thank you.

The entire team at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. Thank you for your continued support and encouragement.

Everyone at Atria Books. Thank you for making my release days memorable and some of the best days of my life.

Johanna Castillo, my editor. Thank you for supporting this book. Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for being the biggest supporter of my dream job.

To Ellen DeGeneres, one of only four people I hope I never meet. You are light where there is darkness. Lily and Atlas are grateful for your shine.

My beta-readers and early supporters of each and every book. Your feedback, support, and constant friendship are more than I deserve. I love you all.

To my niece. I will get to meet you any day now, and I’ve never been so excited. I’m going to be your favorite aunt.

To Lindy. Thank you for the life lessons and the examples of what it is to be a selfless human. And thank you for one of the most profound quotes that will stick with me forever.
“
There is no such thing as bad people. We are all just people who do bad things.
” I’m grateful my baby sister has you for a mother.

To Vance. Thank you for being the husband my mother deserved and the father you didn’t have to be.

My husband, Heath. You are good, all the way to your soul. I couldn’t have chosen a better person to father my children and spend the rest of my life with. We are all so lucky to have
you.

To my mother. You are everything to everyone. That can sometimes be a burden, but you somehow see burdens as blessings. Our entire family thanks you.

And last but not least, to my damned ol’ daddy, Eddie. You aren’t here to see this book come to life, but I know you would have been its biggest supporter. You taught me many things
in life—the greatest being that we don’t have to end up the same person we once were. I promise not to remember you based on your worst days. I will remember you based on the best, and
there were many. I will remember you as a person who was able to overcome what many cannot. Thank you for becoming one of my closest friends. And thank you for supporting me on my wedding day in a
way that many fathers would not have. I love you. I miss you.

Also by Colleen Hoover

Slammed

Point of Retreat

This Girl

Hopeless

Losing Hope

Finding Cinderella

Maybe Someday

Ugly Love

Maybe Not

Confess

November 9

First published in the USA by Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2016
This edition first published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright © Colleen Hoover, 2016

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

The right of Colleen Hoover to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5626-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-5627-4
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-5825-4