It Ends with Us

I can’t believe I’m not better prepared for this moment.
What in the heck do I
introduce him as? My trial run? I can’t say 
boyfriend
, but I can’t very well say
friend
. 
Prospect
seems a little dated.
Ryle notices my pause, so he puts his hand on my knee and squeezes
reassuringly. “My sister works for Lily,” he says. “Have you met her? Allysa?”
My mother leans forward in her booth and says, “Oh! Yes! Of course.
You two look so much alike now that you mention it,” she says. “It’s the
eyes, I think. And the mouth.”
He nods. “We both favor our mother.”
My mother smiles at me. “People always say they think Lily favors me.”
“Yes,” he says. “Identical mouths. Uncanny.” Ryle squeezes my knee
under the table again while I try and suppress my laughter. “Ladies, if
you’ll excuse me, I need to head to the gentlemen’s room.” He leans in
and kisses me on the side of the head before standing. “If the waiter
comes, I’ll just take water.”
My mother’s eyes follow Ryle as he walks away, and then she slowly turns
back to me. She points at me and then to his empty seat. “How come I
haven’t heard about this guy?”
I smile a little. “Things are kind of . . . it’s not really . . .” I have no idea
how to explain our situation to my mother. “He works a lot, so we haven’t
really spent that much time together. At all. This is actually the first time
we’ve been to dinner together.”
My mother raises an eyebrow. “Really?” she says, leaning back in her
seat. “He sure doesn’t treat it like that. I mean—he seems comfortably
affectionate with you. Not normal behavior with someone you’ve just met.”

---

“We didn’t just meet,” I say. “It’s been almost a year since the first time I
met him. And we’ve spent time together, just not on a date. He works a
lot.”
“Where does he work?”
“Massachusetts General Hospital.”
My mother leans forward and her eyes practically bulge from her head.
“Lily!” she hisses. “He’s a 
doctor
?”
I nod, suppressing my grin. “A neurosurgeon.”
“Can I get you ladies something to drink?” a waiter asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “We’ll take three . . .”
And then I clamp my mouth shut.
I stare at the waiter and the waiter stares back at me. My heart is in my
throat. I can’t remember how to speak.
“Lily?” my mother says. She flicks her hand toward the waiter. “He’s
waiting for your drink order.”
I shake my head and begin to stutter. “I’ll . . . um . . .”
“Three waters,” my mother says, interrupting my fumbled words. The
waiter snaps out of his trance long enough to tap his pencil on his pad of
paper.
“Three waters,” he says. “Got it.” He turns and walks away, but I watch as
he glances back at me before pushing through the doors to the kitchen.
My mother leans forward and says, “What in the world is wrong with
you?”
I point over my shoulder. “The waiter,” I say, shaking my head. “He
looked exactly like . . .”
I’m about to say, “
Atlas Corrigan
,” when Ryle walks up and slides back
into the seat.
He glances back and forth between us. “What’d I miss?”
I swallow hard, shaking my head. 
Surely that wasn’t really Atlas.
But those
eyes—his mouth. I know it’s been years since I saw him, but I’ll never
forget what he looked like. It 
had
to be him. I know it was and I know he
recognized me, too, because the second our eyes met . . . it looked like
he’d seen a ghost.
“Lily?” Ryle says, squeezing my hand. “You okay?”
I nod and force a smile, then clear my throat. “Yep. We were just talking
about you,” I say, glancing back at my mother. “Ryle assisted in an
eighteen-hour surgery this week.”

---

My mother leans forward with interest. Ryle begins to tell her all about
the surgery. Our water arrives, but it’s a different waiter this time. He asks
if we’ve had a chance to go over the menu and then tells us the chef’s
specials. The three of us order our food and I’m doing everything I can to
focus, but my attention is all over the restaurant looking for Atlas.