It Ends With Us(32)

I might have thought it was sweet if it wasn’t so sad. On the ride home from school is when he finally noticed my head.

Honestly, I had forgotten about it. No one at school even asked me about it and when he sat down next to me on the bus, I wasn’t even trying to hide it with my hair. He looked right at me and said, “What happened to your head?”

I didn’t know what to say to him. I just touched it with my fingers and then looked out the window. I’ve been trying to get him to trust me more in hopes he would tell me why he doesn’t have a place to live, so I didn’t want to lie to him. I just didn’t want to tell him the truth, either.

When the bus started moving, he said, “Yesterday after I left your house, I heard something going on over there. I heard yelling. I heard you scream, and then I saw your father leave. I was going to come check on you to make sure everything was okay, but as I was walking over I saw you leaving in the car with your mother.”

He must have heard the fight in the garage and saw her leaving to take me to get the stitches. I couldn’t believe he came over to our house. Do you know what my dad would do to him if he saw him wearing his clothes? I got so worried for him because I don’t think he knows what my father is capable of.

I looked at him and said, “Atlas, you can’t do that! You can’t come to my house when my parents are home!”

Atlas got real quiet and then said, “I heard you scream, Lily.” He said it like me being in danger trumped anything else.

I felt bad because I know he was just trying to help, but that would have made things so much worse.

“I fell,” I said to him. As soon as I said it, I felt bad for lying. And to be honest, he looked a little disappointed in me, because I think we both knew in that moment that it wasn’t as simple as a fall.

Then he pulled up the sleeve of his shirt and held out his arm.

Ellen, my stomach dropped. It was so bad. All over his arm he had these small scars. Some of the scars looked just like someone had stuck a cigarette to his arm and held it there.

He twisted his arm around so I could see that it was on the other side, too. “I used to fall a lot, too, Lily.” Then he pulled his shirtsleeve down and didn’t say anything else.

For a second I wanted to tell him it wasn’t like that—that my dad never hurts me and that he was just trying to get me off of him. But then I realized I’d be using the same excuses my mom uses.

I felt a little embarrassed that he knows what goes on at my house. I spent the whole rest of the bus ride looking out the window because I didn’t know what to say to him.

When we got home, my mom’s car was there. In the driveway, of course. Not the garage.

That meant Atlas couldn’t come over and watch your show with me. I was gonna tell him I would bring him blankets later, but when he got off the bus he didn’t even tell me bye. He just started walking down the street like he was mad.

It’s dark now and I’m waiting on my parents to go to sleep. But in a little while I’m gonna take him some blankets.

—Lily

Dear Ellen,

I’m in way over my head.

Do you ever do things you know are wrong, but are somehow also right? I don’t know how to put it in simpler terms than that.

I mean, I’m only fifteen and I certainly shouldn’t have boys spending the night in my bedroom. But if a person knows someone needs a place to stay, isn’t it that person’s responsibility as a human to help them?

Last night after my parents went to sleep, I snuck out the back door to take Atlas those blankets. I took a flashlight with me because it was dark. It was still snowing really hard, so by the time I made it to that house, I was freezing. I beat on the back door and as soon as he opened it, I pushed past him to get out of the cold.

Only . . . I didn’t get out of the cold. Somehow, it felt even colder inside that old house. I still had my flashlight on and I shined it around the living room and kitchen. There wasn’t anything in there, Ellen!

No couch, no chair, no mattress. I handed the blankets off to him and kept looking around me. There was a big hole in the roof over the kitchen and wind and snow were just pouring in. When I shined my light around the living room, I saw his stuff in one of the corners. His backpack, plus the backpack I’d given him. There was a little pile of other stuff I’d given him, like some of my dad’s clothes. And then there were two towels on the floor. One I guess he laid on and one he covered up with.

I put my hand over my mouth because I was so horrified. He’d been there living like that for weeks!

Atlas put his hand on my back and tried to walk me back out the door. “You shouldn’t be over here, Lily,” he said. “You could get in trouble.”

That’s when I grabbed his hand and said, “You shouldn’t be here, either.” I started to pull him out the front door with me, but he yanked his hand back. That’s when I said, “You can sleep on my floor tonight. I’ll keep my bedroom door locked. You can’t sleep here, Atlas. It’s too cold and you’ll get pneumonia and die.”

He looked like he didn’t know what to do. I’m sure the thought of being caught in my bedroom was just as scary as getting pneumonia and dying. He looked back at his spot in the living room and then he just nodded his head once and said, “Okay.”

So you tell me, Ellen. Was I wrong letting him sleep in my room