The carved wooden heart that Atlas makes for Lily when they are teenagers symbolizes the significant role that Lily and Atlas have played in each other’s lives. As a teenager, Lily is terrorized by Lily’s father’s abuse of Lily’s mother, and Atlas is left homeless and squatting in the abandoned building behind Lily’s home after his mother kicked him out. Lily and Atlas bond over these traumas, taking refuge in each other’s company to help navigate their hardships, and a passionate romance blooms from this bond. One night, Atlas brings Lily a heart, open at the top, which he carved for her as a present. Atlas’s gift is symbolically significant in two ways. First, the open top and hollow center of the heart reflects the way that Lily and Atlas, two people whose emotional wounds have caused them to feel isolated and shut down, open each other up to love through their serendipitous friendship and eventual romance. Second, the heart is carved from wood Atlas takes from the oak tree behind Lily’s house. One afternoon, while sitting with Lily by her garden, Atlas grows reflective as they discuss how plants that are not cared for shrivel, just like neglected children. Lily, understanding that Atlas is talking about himself, uses the oak tree to explain how some plants thrive without any care at all, doggedly surviving where they sprout. By carving Lily a heart from the wood of that same tree, Atlas’s gift symbolizes the way Lily’s words have encouraged him. It also shows how their relationship is particularly meaningful because they both understand what it means to grow despite coming from trying environments.
After Lily and Atlas part ways when Atlas moves to Boston to live with his uncle, Lily gets a tattoo of an open heart in the place on her collarbone that Atlas always used to kiss her. The tattoo is a testament to the experiences and relationship that the carved wooden heart symbolizes, with the permanency of that mark adding another layer of meaning. The tattoo’s permanence reflects how Lily’s childhood and her relationship with Atlas are memories she will always carry; it a visual symbol of the things that made Lily who she is as an adult—a person that Ryle, Lily’s eventual husband, loves. However, when Ryle goes through Lily’s things and discovers the wooden heart’s significance, he becomes unhinged. Finding out that elements of Lily he loved are tied her intimate relationship with another man incites Ryle’s jealousy and violence. Lily’s tattoo is effectively a symbol of her past, so when Ryle bites into it during his most abusive episode to disfigure or even remove it—his exact intention is unclear—he demonstrates that he doesn’t want to learn about or respect the whole truth of who Lily is; he only wants to see the parts of her that include him, showing exactly how selfish and unhealthy his love for his is.
Open Heart Quotes in It Ends with Us
I open the shoebox on my lap and pull out the contents. On the very top is a small wooden, hollow heart. I run my fingers over it and remember the night I was given this heart. As soon as the memory begins to sink in, I set it aside. Nostalgia is a funny thing.
I move a few old letters and newspaper clippings aside. Beneath all of it, I find what I was hoping was inside these boxes. And also sort of hoping wasn’t.
My Ellen Diaries.
“We’re just alike,” he said, […] “Plants and humans. Plants need to be loved the right way in order to survive. So do humans. We rely on our parents from birth to love us enough to keep us alive. And if our parents show us the right kind of love, we turn out as better humans overall. But if we’re neglected…”
[…] I pointed at the row of trees that lined the fence to left of the yard. “You see that tree over there? [...] It grew on its own,” I said. “Most plants do need a lot of care to survive. But some things, like trees, are strong enough to do it by just relying on themselves and no one else.”
“I wanted to apologize for saying that you sounded like your mother. That was hurtful. And I’m sorry.”
I don’t know why I always feel like crying when I’m around him. When I think about him. When I read about him. It’s like my emotions are still tethered to him somehow and I can’t figure out how to cut the strings […]
He writes something down on the sticky note and then proceeds to pull my phone apart. He slips the case off and puts the sticky note between the care and the phone, then slides the cover back over it […]
“It’s my cell phone number. Keep it hidden there in case you ever need it.”
I wince at the gesture. The unnecessary gesture. “I won’t need it.”
“I hope not.”
He said the first night he went to that old house, he wasn’t there because he needed a place to stay.
He went there to kill himself […]
“I hope you never know what it’s like to feel that lonely, Lily,” he said […]
“You saved my life, Lily,” he said to me. “And you weren’t even trying.”
He leaned forward and kissed that spot between my shoulder and my neck that he always kisses. I liked that he did it again. I don’t like much about my body, but that spot on my collarbone has become my favorite part of me.
He took my hands in his and told me he was leaving sooner that he planned for the military, but that he couldn’t leave without telling me thank you.
His arm comes around my waist from behind. He slides a hand up my stomach and takes a firm hold of one of my breasts. His other hand feathers my shoulder as he moves the hair away from my neck.
I squeeze my eyes shut, just as fingers begin to trace across my skin, up to my shoulder. He slowly runs his finger over the heart and a shudder runs through my whole body. His lip meets my skin, right over the tattoo, and then he sinks his teeth into me so hard, I scream […]
He’s really angry now. “He’s in everything. The magnet on the fridge. The journal in the box I found in our closet. The fucking tattoo on your body that used to be my favorite goddamn part of you!”
I wipe the tears from my eyes and then begin dialing Atlas’s number.
I hate myself more in this moment that I ever have in my entire life.
I hate myself, because the day Ryle found Atlas’s number in my phone, I lied and said I had forgotten it was there.
I hate myself, because the day Atlas placed his number in my phone, I opened it and looked at it.
I hate myself, because deep down inside, I knew there was a chance that I might one day need it. So I memorized.
“Hello?...Lily?”
[…] I hate myself, because he knows the tears are mine.
His hand wraps in my hair and in an instant, I’m transferred back to that night.
I’m in the kitchen, and his hand is tugging my hair so hard it hurts.
He brushes the hair from my face and in an instant, I’m transferred back to that night.
I’m standing in the doorway, and his hand is trailing across my shoulder, right before he bites into me with all the strength in his jaw.
His forehead rests gently against mine and in an instant, I’m transferred back to that night.
I’m on this same bed beneath him when he slams his head against mine so hard I have to get six stitches.
My body becomes unresponsive to his […]
When he pulls back and looks down on me, I don’t even have to say anything. Our eyes, locked together, speak more naked truths than our mouths ever have.
Open Heart Symbol Timeline in It Ends with Us
