It Ends with Us Part 2: Slippery Slopes & Hope
The love bomb explodes
“If in the future…if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again…fall in love with me.” - Atlas, Chapter 28 (page 310)
This article is Part 2 in a two part series about It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover.
Read Part 1 here.
Slippery Slopes
Bryan Cranston often gets asked when he thinks Walter White “officially” turned bad. Was it when he killed Krazy-8 in season one? When he watched Jane die? Cranston writes in his memoir that for him, “the seed is sown in the very first episode.” But even the actor who played Walter White isn’t so sure.
Cranston writes that the key to Walt’s evolution isn’t any one moment. It’s the baby steps. There is a lot of gray in his fade from black to white.
Lily’s mom discusses this incremental evolution in It Ends with Us: “We all have a limit…But slowly…with every incident…my limit was pushed a little more…Eventually, you lose sight of your limit altogether” (Hoover 335).
Ryle’s violent outburst is the starting pistol for the rest of the novel.
Then, suddenly, we wake up in an out-of-control marriage like Lily’s mom. Or we’re murdering a child like Walter White.
I woke up to Ryle in Chapter 14. The chapter opens on the heels of a sex scene, “This time, we make love” (page 179), and slides right into a bad sign that I ignored, “How odd to have a boyfriend for over three months that I’ve never once spoken to on the phone” (180). Yeah that is…odd. Before I can think it over, Ryle and Lily are back to their sexy antics, “I’m wearing an apron…Just an apron” (180).
Sexual tension escalates, but it feels dicey. Ryle is heightened, “I can hear him suck in a rush of air when I reach over…” and buzzed “he finishes off his glass of wine and pours himself another” (181). Repeated mention of a piping-hot casserole in a “glass pan,” Dr. Ryle’s “very special hand,” and tomorrow morning’s “very rare, possibly once-in-a-lifetime” surgery spell disaster (180). It’s not hard to imagine what will happen next.
“When we make it to the nursery, he stops in the doorway. On the opposite wall, I painted a garden. It’s complete with almost every fruit and vegetable I could think of that grows in a garden.” Chapter 34 (page 344)
Like clockwork, the pan shatters and Ryle ruins his hand. He has yet to regulate his internal state the entire novel. With high stakes for his career and low inhibition from alcohol, it shouldn’t be a surprise he takes it out on Lily: “Ryle’s arm came out of nowhere and slammed against me” (185).
This is one of the only present-day moments Hoover narrates in the past tense: “Ryle’s arm came out of nowhere and slammed against me” (185). Lily’s present day is narrated in present tense and her teenage diary entries are in past tense. Writing Ryle’s outburst in past tense highlights how Lily’s past is coming back—repeating. Present tense narration resumes as the gravity of the situation sinks in, “pain shoots through the corner of my eye…and then I feel the weight…so much gravity, pushing down on my emotions” (185).
It’s so tempting to shew away those disturbing fifteen seconds in favor of a fairytale romance.
Hoover directly addresses the high impact of this quick moment: “Fifteen seconds. That’s all it takes to completely change everything…” (186).
The disjoint between a big moment happening in a short time can be hard to comprehend. Afterwards, our brains can glitch. We forget we got injured or we forget a loved one died. How many of us have reached for the phone to call a loved one, to then remember that person passed away? As Lily puts it, “The realization of what has just happened hurts worse than the actual action” (187).
“Everything is almost better in Boston. Except the girls. Boston doesn’t have you.” - Atlas
Ryle’s violent outburst is the starting pistol for the rest of the novel. Lily will spend the next hundred and fifty pages navigating the fallout of an incident that took one paragraph to recount.
Of course, Ryle doesn’t stop at this one incident. This “fifteen second” outburst gives way to another “two days” of carrying on (202), which leads to a tantrum that takes “five minutes” (232), to another that lasts “an instant” (266), and on and on. These tiny moments will escalate to a crecendo.
How can Lily—or anyone—make sense of this new reality?
Hope
After a traumatic event, we may bond with the people we experienced the event with. So far, this makes sense. Trauma is tough and those who experienced it with us know what it was like.
Things get backwards when the person we experience the trauma with also causes the trauma. Even more confusing when we also love that person. Our natural instinct to bond with our loved-one is counterproductive when our loved-one is also the perpetrator. The repair cycle gets hijacked. This is called trauma bonding.
How can we know when an early relationship is true love or too much too fast?
Lily and Ryle begin trauma bonding immediately after his first outburst: “the only thing that eases the hurt just caused by this man is this man” (188). Lily grapples with confusion and diverging feelings for Ryle in the chapters that follow. She loves Ryle. Ryle hurts her. These two statements don’t go together, so she tries to change one of them.
Her first option is to change “Lily loves Ryle.” She could put conditions on her relationship with Ryle and end the relationship if those conditions are broken. This would mean adjusting her feelings in response to reality.
“Marshall, you made six million dollars this year. Do we really need free beer?” - Allysa (163)
Her second option is to change “Ryle hurts Lily.” She could convince herself that Ryle didn’t really hurt her, didn’t mean to hurt her, that it was actually her own fault, or that Ryle is different from her father. This would mean skewing reality to align with her feelings.
In the beginning stages of processing, she tries to change “Ryle hurts Lily.” She blames herself for Ryle’s behavior, “I laughed at him when I should have been concerned…I caused him to cut his hand” (189). She rationalizes his behavior, “All humans make mistakes” (192). She excuses his behavior, “Ryle loves me. He’s never come out and said it before, but I know he does” (192). She convinces herself Ryle’s behavior is different than her father’s, “‘I know you’re nothing like my father…Just…please don’t ever make me doubt you again. Please’” (191).
Up to this point, we as readers have loved Ryle right along with Lily. We also “want to believe that it really was an accident” (188). We also want to wash away the pain with “hot and wet” kisses and “slow, apologetic thrusts” (189). Lily’s love for Ryle is strong. These hurt feelings are agonizing, confusing, and foreign. Who wouldn’t flinch away from pain and fall into hope?
I admire Hoover’s writing because she moves Lily beyond a binary choice.
Lily swaps reality for hope. She wants Ryle to be her Prince Charming. This is where happy love stories can fool us. It’s so tempting to shew away those disturbing fifteen seconds in favor of a fairytale romance. Instead of responding to a reality that is increasingly painful, we get lost in hoping a fantasy will come true. Because it would be amazing if it were true. Even more tricky is how closely Ryle’s love bombing—the uptick in his abuse cycle—mimics this Prince Charming archetype. I’ll continue with the Pride and Prejudice example from Part 1 because…yes Colin MacFadyn is Prince Charming.
Aside from a parental advisory rating, the beginning of Lily and Ryle isn’t that different from Elizabeth and Darcy. The action in lines like, “Mr Darcy drew his chair a little towards her and said, ‘You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment’” (169), is comparable to the action in, “He reaches out and grabs the edge of my lounge chair…he drags my chair closer to him…‘How far would you go, Lily?’” (24). Both men are pulling chairs. Both men are commenting on distance. JUST SAYING.
Lily and Elizabeth both feel overwhelmed by their high status men and this overwhelm presents as difficulty in making eye contact or speaking up.
Instead of tending to Ryle, Lily learns to focus on herself.
Hoover writes, “I find the courage to look over at him” (86), while Austen writes, “Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye…though she could not look, she could listen” (331).
Hoover: “I have no idea how I even possibly find the strength to speak after that” (93), Austen: “Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak…” (331).
While I don’t expect Hoover to write on par with Austen’s language, the sentiments are comparable—heightened sexual tension averts our ladies’ eyes and lowers their voices. We romanticize female passivity. We view men in control as really sexy. But sometimes it can be…controlling. How can we know when an early relationship is true love, like Darcy & Elizabeth, or too much too fast, like Ryle & Lily?
Enter Atlas.
“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break.” - Chapter 35 (page 360)
Through all this, Atlas (Lily’s high school boyfriend who lives in town) is a measuring stick for Ryle.
“Lily Bloom’s was nominated under the ‘Best new businesses in Boston’ category.” - Chapter 22 (page 255)
As we make excuses for Ryle losing control, we see Atlas keep his cool: “He’s still raging on the inside, I can see that. But on the outside, he’s calm--collected” (197).
Ryle doesn’t put his emotions to the side to make space for Lily, “He just shakes his head like he’s not ready to hear my explanation yet” (200), yet Atlas always makes space for Lily’s wishes (even when they contradict his own), “he pauses, struggling to decide whether to listen to me or bust through the door. He eventually turns away from the door” (270).
Ryle scares Lily when talking about painful events from his childhood, “I agonized over what he could possibly need to tell me…He sees how much he’s freaking me out (238), yet Atlas controls himself when recounting adversity, “He took a deep breath like he didn’t want to tell me anymore” (115).
Ryle dumps his dysregulation onto Lily like vomit, “[His pain] breaks me. It rips me apart from the inside out” (241). Atlas manages himself, even when he feels big emotions. He tells Lily, “it hurt like hell, but at the same time I was relieved that you seemed to be in a really good place. I didn’t want you to worry about me” (306).
Talk is cheap. Atlas shows up for Lily. Darcy even saves Elizabeth’s idiot kid sister Lydia.
Ryle is all talk.
Reality
Lily wakes up to Ryle in Chapter 22. Hoover makes the metaphor explicit—Lily literally wakes up after Ryle has knocked her unconscious, in an episode eerily similar to what Lily’s father has done to her mother in the past.
Just before this climactic moment, Lily has heightened emotions, “My fear folds in on itself, and I become diluted with rage” (266). After waking up, she is emotionally aseptic and laser-focused on logistics, “I lie still for several more minutes…I close my eyes and try to think. Where’s my purse? Where are my keys?” (267). This emotional shift could be a trauma response, but it could also mark a shift in Lily. Instead of tending to Ryle, she focuses on herself.
Hoover further symbolizes this shift with flowers. Later, instead of planting a garden on the terrace of her and Ryle’s new apartment, Lily paints a mural of flowers in the nursery of their coming baby. She invests in herself.
Lily’s journey is about appreciating nuance and finding growth in complicated, hurtful situations.
I admire Hoover’s writing because she moves Lily beyond a binary choice between “Lily loves Ryle” or “Ryle hurts Lily.” Hoover doesn’t create a world in which characters are reduced to good or bad. As Ryle says in chapter one, “There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things.”
Lily’s journey is about appreciating nuance and finding growth in complicated, hurtful situations. She transforms. She doesn’t wait for Ryle to turn into Prince Charming or for Prince Charming to save her. She leans on her support network and takes control of her life.
Lily has a knack for turning yucky things into multidimensional beauty. She and Atlas turn cow manure compost into a vegetable garden in Maine. She and Allysa turn a dirty abandoned building into a successful flower shop in Boston. She takes her hurtful relationship with Ryle and turns it into an imperfect family. She gives her daughter a safe childhood. She gives Ryle the gift of a relationship with his daughter.
And, finally, she gives herself the romantic relationship she deserves: Atlas.
“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.” - Atlas, Epilogue (page 367)
This article is Part 2 in a two part series about It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover.
Read Part 1 here.
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