It Ends with Us

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

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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 naïve 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.

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I remember one time we were walking into a grocery store and an old man was
ringing a bell for the Salvation Army. I asked my dad if we could give him some
money and he told me no, that he works hard for his money and he wasn’t about to
let me give it away. He said it isn’t his fault that other people don’t want to work.
He spent the whole time we were in the grocery store telling me about how people take
advantage of the government and until the government stops helping those people by
giving them handouts, the problem won’t ever go away.
Ellen, I believed him. That was three years ago and all this time I thought
homeless people were homeless because they were lazy or drug addicts or just didn’t
want to work like other people. But now I know that’s not true. Sure, some of what
he said was true to an extent, but he was using the worst-case scenarios. Not
everyone is homeless because they choose to be. They’re homeless because there isn’t
enough help to go around.
And people like my father are the problem. Instead of helping others, people use
the worst-case scenarios to excuse their own selfishness and greed.
I’ll never be like that. I swear to you, when I grow up, I’m going to do everything
I can to help other people. I’ll be like you, Ellen. Just probably not as rich.
—Lily

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