Ryle attacks Lily after reading her journals

Ryle attacks Lily after reading her journals is the novel's most brutal act of domestic violence, a sexual assault that escalates from the earlier kitchen incident and stairwell push into a near-rape, ending with Ryle headbutting Lily unconscious. It is the event that finally breaks Lily's pattern of staying, driving her to call Atlas for help, discover her pregnancy, and ultimately choose divorce for the sake of her daughter.

The Discovery and the Assault

The attack begins not with a blow but with a violation of privacy. Lily returns to the bedroom to find the bed littered with the contents of an empty moving box labeled "Lily's stuff"—letters, journals, empty shoeboxes. She closes her eyes and breathes in slowly, realizing in a series of staccato thoughts that he read the journal. Ryle's arm comes around her waist from behind, and he slides a hand up her stomach, taking a firm hold of one of her breasts. His fingers trace across her skin, up to her shoulder, and he slowly runs his finger over the heart tattoo there—the mark of Atlas—before his lips meet her skin right over the tattoo. Then he sinks his teeth into her so hard that she screams. The pain from his teeth piercing her collarbone rips through her shoulder and down her arm, and she immediately starts crying, sobbing.

Lily tries to pull away, but his grip is so tight he doesn't budge. She pleads with him, her voice begging, "Ryle, let me go. Please. Walk away." His arms cut into hers as he holds her tightly from behind. He moves to the bed, and she begs again, tears streaking down her temples and into her hair, explaining that she can explain, that he's angry, pleading with him not to hurt her, to walk away and she'll explain when he comes back. Instead, his hand grips her ankle and he yanks her until she's beneath him. His voice is disturbingly calm as he says, "I'm not angry, Lily. I just think I haven't proved to you how much I love you." His body comes down against hers, and he takes her wrists with one hand above her head, pressing them against the mattress. She sobs, trying to push him off with any part of her body, begging him to get off her.

The Escalation and the Headbutt

As Ryle continues, Lily's fear folds in on itself and becomes diluted with rage. All she can see when she squeezes her eyes shut is her mother crying on their old living room couch, her father forcing himself on top of her. Hatred rips through her and she starts screaming. Ryle tries to muffle her screams with his mouth, and she bites down on his tongue. In response, his forehead comes crashing down against hers. In an instant, all the pain fades as a blanket of darkness rolls over her eyes and consumes her. She is knocked unconscious by the headbutt, which leaves a gash on her forehead.

The Aftermath and the Call to Atlas

When Lily regains consciousness, it takes her a full five minutes to slide out from under him, moving an inch at a time because she's too scared to move too much at once. When she can no longer feel his hands on her, an unexpected sob breaks from her chest. She slaps her hand over her mouth as she pulls herself to her feet and runs out of the bedroom. She finds her purse and her phone, but has no idea where he put her keys. She frantically searches the living room and kitchen, but can barely see anything—there's too much blood in her eyes from the gash, and everything is blurry. She slides to the floor near the door, growing dizzy, her fingers shaking so hard it takes three tries to get the password right on her phone.

When she has the screen up to dial a number, she pauses. Her first thought is to call Allysa and Marshall, but she can't—Allysa just gave birth to a baby a matter of hours ago, and Lily can't do that to them right now. Instead, she calls Atlas. When he answers, his voice is much louder, asking where she is. She hates herself because he knows the tears are hers. "Atlas," she whispers. "I need help." She can hear panic in his voice, hears him walking, moving stuff around, and a door slam on his end of the phone.

The Pattern of Abuse and the Cycle of Violence

The assault is the culmination of a pattern of escalating violence that began with the kitchen incident, when Ryle's arm came out of nowhere and slammed against her, knocking her backward with enough force to knock her off balance, so that she hit her face on a cabinet door handle as she came down, pain shooting through the corner of her eye near her temple. It continued with the stairwell push, when he claimed "You fell down the stairs," but she didn't fall—he pushed her again. Each incident was followed by apologies and promises, a cycle that mirrors the one Lily's mother, Jenny Bloom, described: the first time her father hit her, he was immediately sorry and swore it would never happen again; the second time he was even more sorry; the third time it was more than a hit, it was a beating; and the fourth time it was only a slap, and she felt relieved, thinking at least he didn't beat her this time. "Every incident chips away at your limit," Jenny explained. "Every time you choose to stay, it makes the next time that much harder to leave."

The Aftermath and Lily's Decision

After the assault, Lily hides at Atlas's apartment, feeling awkward and guilty—Atlas is the very reason Ryle was angry at her, yet he's the one she ran to for help. Being there fills her with guilt and shame, as though calling Atlas lends credibility to Ryle's anger. But there's literally nowhere else she can go: a hotel would let Ryle track the credit card charge, and he could find her at her mother's, at Allysa's, at Lucy's, or at Devin's. She feels safer at Atlas's than anywhere else, and he has an alarm system. She writes to Ellen that she is in a really bad place, more so than the last time she wrote, when she was sixteen and worried about Atlas. The assault leads to the discovery that she is pregnant, and Ryle later comes to her, lying down next to her and placing a gentle hand on the back of her head, attempting to soothe away the pain he's caused. He tells her he has absolutely nothing to say, that he'll never be able to take back what he did, and that she'll never believe him if he promises it won't happen again. He came to tell her he was taking the job offer in Minnesota and to say goodbye, but he can't do that now because she has a part of him inside her, and he already loves the baby more than he's ever loved anything in his whole life. "Please don't take this away from me, Lily. Please." But Lily's decision is ultimately shaped by the knowledge that her own mother left someone she loved so that her daughters would never think that kind of relationship was okay. Lily makes the ultimate decision to leave Ryle for the sake of their daughter, understanding that even though there was a slight possibility Ryle could have eventually changed for the better, some risks are never worth taking—especially when those risks have failed her in the past.