It Ends With Us(33)
last night? It doesn’t feel wrong. It felt like the right thing to do. But I sure would get in a lot of trouble if we had been caught. He slept on the floor, so it’s not like it was anything more than me just giving him somewhere warm to sleep.
I did learn a little more about him last night. After I snuck him in the back door and to my room, I locked my door and made a pallet for him on the floor next to my bed. I set the alarm for 6 a.m. and told him he’d have to get up and leave before my parents woke up, since sometimes my mom wakes me up in the mornings.
I crawled in my bed and scooted over to the edge of it so I could look down at him while we talked for a little while. I asked him how long he thought he might stay there and he said he didn’t know. That’s when I asked him how he ended up there. My lamp was still on, and we were whispering, but he got real quiet when I said that. He just stared up at me with his hands behind his head for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t know my real dad. He never had anything to do with me. It’s always just been me and my mom, but she got remarried about five years ago to a guy who never really liked me much. We fought a lot. When I turned eighteen a few months ago, we got in a big fight and he kicked me out of the house.”
He took a deep breath like he didn’t want to tell me any more. But then he started talking again. “I’ve been staying with a friend of mine and his family since then, but his dad got a transfer to Colorado and they moved. They couldn’t take me with them, of course. His parents were just being nice by letting me stay with them and I knew that, so I told them I talked to my mom and that I was moving back home. The day they left, I didn’t have anywhere to go. So I went back home and told my mom I’d like to move back in until I graduated. She wouldn’t let me. Said it would upset my stepfather.”
He turned his head and looked at the wall. “So I just wandered around for a few days until I saw that house. Figured I would just stay there until something better came along or until I graduated. I’m signed up to go to the Marines come May, so I’m just trying to hang on until then.”
May is six months away, Ellen. Six.
I had tears in my eyes when he finished telling me all that. I asked him why he didn’t just ask someone if they could help him. He said he tried, but it’s harder for an adult than a kid, and he’s already eighteen. He said someone gave him a number for some shelters who might help him. There were three shelters in a twenty-mile radius of our town, but two of them were for battered women. The other one was a homeless shelter, but they only had a few beds and it was too far away for him to walk there if he wanted to go to school every day. Plus, you have to wait in a long line to try and get a bed. He said he tried it once, but he feels safer in that old house than he did at the shelter.
Like the na?ve girl I am when it comes to situations like his, I said, “But aren’t there other options? Can’t you just tell the school counselor what your mom did?”
He shook his head and said he’s too old for foster care. He’s eighteen, so his mother can’t get in trouble for not allowing him to go back home. He said he called about getting food stamps last week, but he didn’t have a ride or money to get to his appointment. Not to mention he doesn’t have a car, so he can’t very well find a job. He said he’s been looking, though. After he leaves my house in the afternoons he goes and applies at places, but he doesn’t have an address or a phone number to put down on the applications so that makes it harder for him.
I swear, Ellen, every question I threw at him, he had an answer for. It’s like he’s tried everything not to be stuck in the situation he’s in, but there isn’t enough help out there for people like him. I got so mad at his whole situation, I told him he was crazy for wanting to go into the military. I wasn’t so much whispering when I said, “Why in the heck would you want to serve a country that has allowed you to end up in this kind of situation?”
You know what he said next, Ellen? His eyes grew sad and he said, “It’s not this country’s fault my mother doesn’t give a shit about me.” Then he reached up and turned off my lamp. “Goodnight, Lily,” he said.
I didn’t sleep much after that. I was too mad. I’m not even sure who I’m mad at. I just kept thinking about our country and the whole world and how screwed up it is that people don’t do more for each other. I don’t know when humans started only looking out for themselves. Maybe it’s always been this way. It made me wonder how many people out there were just like Atlas. It made me wonder if there were other kids at our school who might be homeless.
I go to school every day and internally complain about it most of the time, but I’ve never once thought that school might be the only home some kids have. It’s the only place Atlas can go and know he’ll have food.
I’ll never be able to respect rich people now, knowing they willingly choose to spend their money on materialistic things rather than using it to help other people.
No offense, Ellen. I know you’re rich, but I guess I’m not referring to people like you. I’ve seen all the stuff you’ve done for others on your show and all the charities you support. But I know there are a lot of rich people out there who are selfish. Hell, there are even selfish poor people. And selfish middle-class people. Look at my parents. We aren’t rich, but we certainly aren’t too poor to help other people. Yet, I don’t think my dad has ever done anything for a charity.