Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in It Ends with Us, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cycles of Abuse
Naked Truths
Good and Evil
Chosen Family
Summary
Analysis
Ryle calls Lily and tells her that he’s taken the next day off. He asks how she feels about him bringing over wine and having a night of drunken fun. Excited at this prospect, Lily tells him she’ll be cooking dinner for him totally naked except for an apron. When he arrives, Lily is putting a casserole in the oven. Ryle shares that he gets to participate in a very rare surgery in a few days: separating conjoined twins at the head. The two of them celebrate with expensive wine and sex.
To celebrate how well everything is going for them in work and in love, Lily and Ryle allow themselves to get lost in alcohol and each other. Ryle’s inability to control or understand himself defined the tumult of the first months they knew each other; in contrast, their successful first months of dating seems to be the product of honesty and restraint. Their decision to loosen self-control with alcohol thus opens the door for new conflicts to arise.
Themes
Later that night, Ryle gets out of the shower to find Lily on the phone with her mom. Lily tells her mother that she needs to help Ryle study. She also explains that they’re taking Marshall and Allysa out for dinner the following night, so she’ll call back after. Lily’s mom wants to know where they are going to dinner. Ryle overhears this and tells Lily’s mom they are going back to Bib’s, the restaurant where Lily ran into Atlas. Lily tries to discourage Ryle from going there, but he is insistent that Allysa wants to try it.
Ryle’s mention of the restaurant at which Lily saw Atlas shatters the ease Lily has felt all evening. She has another opportunity to be straightforward with Ryle about her run-in with Atlas, but instead, she attempts to convince Ryle not to go there through indirect means that conceal her history with Atlas. Despite all the hope Lily feels about Ryle, her unwillingness to be honest with him—something very important to both of them—suggests the existence of some doubt or disfunction that Lily isn’t able to admit to herself or to Ryle.
Themes
The mention of food reminds Lily of the casserole, which has begun to burn in the oven. In a panic, Ryle grabs at the pan with his bare hands, burning them. He drops the dish, and it shatters on the floor. The shock of the moment and many glasses of wine cause Lily to laugh in reaction. Ryle runs his burned hands under the faucet. Lily tries to stop her laughter, but she can’t until she sees Ryle’s face. He is livid, and before she knows it, she’s on the floor.
Lily’s serendipitous encounter with Atlas, the confusing feelings it brought up, and her choice to keep it a secret from Ryle aren’t, it seems, the couple’s only issue. The abandon with which the couple celebrated that night catches up to them in a comedy of errors that turns, ultimately, to tragedy. Neither Ryle nor Lily is in control of their reactions, although Ryle’s loss of restraint proves far more dangerous than Lily’s.
Themes
It takes Lily seconds to realize that Ryle has shoved her, causing her to fall. She hit her temple on the cabinet on the way down. Lily feels everything inside of her break as the reality of Ryle’s violence sinks in. He yells at her, telling her it’s not funny. When he sees what he’s done, he tries to apologize and comfort her. All Lily can think about are the past 15 seconds, which she feels have shifted her whole world. While Ryle tries to explain his outburst, Lily just hears the same excuses her father gave.
Ryle’s flash of abusive behavior is so much in conflict with Lily’s experience of his character that her mind takes a long time to catch up to the physical pain her body is already experiencing. When they finally do align, Lily’s mind returns to her strongest association with violence: her father. Despite Ryle’s immediate attempts to reconcile, he has done the type of damage that can’t be reversed, especially given the trauma of Lily’s childhood.
Themes
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Lily lashes out at Ryle, trying to push him away from her. He falls into the broken glass from the casserole dish. When he lifts his hands, Lily sees they have been cut. She panics, remembering his important surgery, but he tells her he only cares about her and the cut on her forehead. He asks if she is okay. She admits that she’s not. She can’t believe he’d push her. Ryle apologizes again, begging her not to hate him.
Lily applies the way she perceives her father—as a fully bad person—onto Ryle. This comparison is the root of her impulse to push Ryle. She is shocked out of this by the blood that wells on his hands when he catches himself on the glass; her love for and drive to care for him overpowers her hatred for her father,
Themes
Lily considers it significant that Ryle is now prioritizing her over his hands, which she feels is significant. She doesn’t want to believe he is like her father, but she is extremely overwhelmed by everything that has happened. He kisses her as he carries her to the bedroom. Despite the fact that Ryle caused her pain, kissing him seems to be the only thing that makes her feel better. She gives in when he tries to have sex with her in apology, though she feels mad at herself for reacting the way her mother used to. She reminds herself that Ryle’s sincere regret makes him nothing like her father. As they have sex, she feels herself forgiving Ryle more fully.
It is Lily’s affection for Ryle that initially halts her instinct to compare Ryle to her father, but Ryle’s remorse and care, neither of which her father ever exhibited—is what continues to separate them in her mind. The sexual intimacy that bonds the couple proves to be both a blessing and a curse in light of tonight’s abusive episode. Ryle’s touch is both what hurt Lily and what makes Lily feel better. The main problem with this in Lily’s mind is that it makes her feel like her mother, whose enabling behavior she has vowed never to repeat.
Themes
Afterward, Lily tries to make sense of what happened while Ryle continues to comfort her. She feels that neither of them was their true self in the moment when she laughed at him, or when he pushed her. She goes to the bathroom. She is shocked by all the blood in her hair and on her skin from his cut hands. Lily brings out her first aid kit to attend to Ryle’s injuries, and he brings her a bag of ice for hers. He holds the ice to her eye as she cleans up his hands. He tells her that he wishes he could undo what he did. Lily acknowledges that what he did was awful, but she understands he’s truly sorry. She warns him that if he ever does that again, however, she will leave him immediately.
In this situation, Lily feels that there is a reciprocity that she never saw in her parents’ marriage. They have both been hurt; they both try to care for one another in the aftermath. Ryle did hurt her, and she certainly holds him responsible for his actions, but Lily also holds herself responsible for somehow instigating his abuse. Neither of them, she reasons, is fully good or bad in this scenario. While Lily may be giving Ryle the benefit of the doubt because she sees his remorse, there is one truth she is unequivocal about—if he abuses her again, his apology will mean nothing, and she will leave him for good.
Themes
Ryle promises that he is nothing like Lily’s father. Lily responds that she knows, but she doesn’t even want to have to compare them ever again. Ryle tells her she is the most important thing to him. He instructs her to keep icing her eye while he returns to the kitchen to clean up his mess. When he comes back, Lily sees his regret and feels that he deserves a second chance. He tells her that he is in love with her, and she tells him that she loves him too.
Now that the heat of the moment is in the past, Ryle understands how damaging his behavior was in light of Lily’s personal history with abuse. His remorse is motivated by earnest regret and true care for her, as many abusers’ apologies are. Lily, swayed by Ryle’s assertion of her importance and his love for her, forgives him. With that reconciliation, the cycle of abuse comes nearly full circle.
Themes
