What a curious thing to say, I thought to myself.

“Okay,” I said as I shook the plant out of its little disposable pot and showed her how to dig the hole and lay the roots of the plant inside of it.

I watched as she handled the rosemary as if it was a precious living creature. Which—it was, but it was just that most people didn’t treat small herb plants with such care and respect.

“Why does it remind you of yourself?” I asked as she was patting the dirt gently around the plant.

“I kind of relate to it,’ she answered. “I’m not all that pretty either. But when you get close to me and get to know me a little, I think that people can tell that I have value.”

“Of course you have value,” I said, shocked that she would even think she needed to justify that. “And you are very pretty. Why would you think that you aren’t?”

“I dunno,” she said as she shrugged her shoulders and gave the soil around the plant one more firm pat. “I guess I just don’t really know what I am. It’s difficult to have a basis of comparison when I don’t go to school, don’t have any friends, and live either on the streets or in a shelter with mostly adults.”

In that moment, my heart absolutely ached for this girl. I reached over to hug her, and I tried to fight back the wetness that was coming to my eyes.

“Well,” I said while I still had her in my arms. “You are very, very beautiful. And I’ve seen hundreds of girls your age so I can tell you that with the utmost confidence.”

She looked at me and I could tell that she was trying to decide whether to believe if what I was saying was true or not.

“I agree,” a voice called from the doorway as Michael walked outside toward us. “So beautiful, in fact, that if you are still living here with your mom by the time you have your first date, I might have to put a bit of a scare into whatever boy decides to take you out.”

“Why?” she asked as she looked up at him from the ground beside the garden that we were both sitting on.

“Because any boy that takes you out needs to know that you are too beautiful and too special to be treated anything less than perfectly.”

Her smile spread so widely that it nearly took over the surface area of her whole face.

“Thank you,” she said as she got up to go inside and wash up to get ready to do her schoolwork.

Michael sat down in her spot beside me after she left.

“That was really nice of you to do,” I said.

I scooted closer to him and leaned my back against his chest. I loved the way that his arms wrapped around me as soon as I was close enough, and the feeling of how our heartbeats seemed to sync once our bodies touched.

“What was?”

“Telling her how beautiful she is.”

“Well, it’s true,” he said. “Any kid like that who is already doubting herself deserves more than what she has obviously been given in life thus far. She deserves to be told she’s beautiful every single day until she finally believes it for herself.”

“Since when did you become so good with kids?” I teased.

He made a chortling noise and shook his head.

“Nah, I’m still not. She’s older so it’s easier.”

“Most people say that kids get harder to deal with as they get older and reach adolescence,” I said.

“Well, at least I know that I can’t accidentally break them in some way, or make them cry, or any of the other million things that I would worry about with a small child.”

I suddenly found myself thinking about Adam’s question from last night again and needed to change the subject quickly before I started digging myself into a hole of unrealistic expectations again.

“The garden is coming along,” I said as I turned my head to look at the few plants that we had gotten into the ground. By the summertime it should be really flourishing I would imagine.”

“It already is,” he said.

“As much as I appreciate the vote of confidence, we just started planting it, so it’s still in a very ‘rough sketch’ sort of phase,” I laughed.

“So is that girl,” Michael said. “Lisette—”

“Yes?”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe you really are living out your mother’s dying wish? Except you’re doing it on your own terms and helping people in your own way right alongside of helping yourself. Seems to me that might have been what Paula wanted all along.”

Now it was my turn to let a wide smile take over my face.

17

Apartment hunting with these guys was way more fun than I had expected it to be.

Between the bantering back and forth about how far away our apartments should be—Adam thought right next door was best, while Michael suggested down the hall a way or maybe even a few floors above or below— and the seductive whispers that Michael whispered in my ear each time we were looking at a bedroom, it was an eventful and entertaining few days of searching for just the right place. And it just so happened that we found it.

There as a cute little apartment building just a few blocks from the shelter, and definitely within walking distance if the weather was good. It was small, with only five apartment units inside. And it just so happened to have two of those units up for rent. There was nothing fancy at all about it, but both the building and the apartment itself were simple and peaceful, and already sort of felt like home.

“I love it,” I beamed, hoping that the guys would feel the same way.

They both seemed to like it, although neither one quite as much as I did. “Can we get this one?”

Michael and Adam were agreeable to it, so we went to speak to the landlord downstairs about the requirements for getting approval and moving in. By the time we left, we had the keys in our hands. Our apartment was three only three doors down from Adam’s, and there was even a little rooftop space to make a rooftop garden on the building. The landlord was super nice and since we didn’t have a lot of our own stuff due to living in the shelter, he even offered to throw in the furniture that he had used to stage the apartment for us to use for as long as we rented there. The only thing left to do was to go back to the shelter to get our things, maybe spend one last night there amongst some of the friends that we had made, and then move into our new apartments the next morning. Of course, I would still keep my job at the shelter. I loved it too much not to, even if we weren’t going to be living there anymore. And besides, I still had a garden to tend with my teenage friend for as long as she remained here. I was pretty sure that Adam was going to keep his job here as well. He had finished painting murals on almost all of the available wall space in the entire shelter, both inside and out. But I got the feeling he wanted to stick close to Anna still, and she said that she had other creative projects that he could still do around the shelter. Even if it wouldn’t be enough work to pay rent, Adam had the idea to open up a little gallery to sell his own paintings in. There was just enough money left over after getting the apartment for him to rent a small studio space in the downtown area, which would be perfect for both creating and selling his artwork out of. But even though he was going to try his hand at being a freelance artist, he wanted to keep giving back to the streets, so he continued to do mural work throughout the city.

Michael was a bit tougher to figure out as far as what he really wanted to do. He enjoyed helping tutor the clients at the shelter, but he wanted something more. I could see it in his eyes. It was difficult to go from an adrenaline-filled life (even if a lot of it majorly sucked as you were living it), to just being a part-time tutor.

“You should ask Anna about her contact at the university,” I suggested. “Maybe there’s a better and more exciting job there. I’m sure that it would at least pay a higher salary.”

“But then who would tutor the kids at the shelter?” he asked. “Even your friend, that girl that helps you with the garden, sometimes needs tutoring in order to keep up with her classes.”

“I’m sure that we can all pitch in and help,” Adam answered before I had a chance to. “I agree with Lisette. You really should pursue a better opportunity if there’s one available for you.”

“You’re just trying to get rid of me again,” Michael laughed.

His laughter was contagious because Adam started cracking up shortly afterward, and then so did I.

“Nah, I just want to see you make something more of yourself,” Adam said sincerely. His tone changed from one of playing around, to one of a stoic seriousness. “Look, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, and a lot of the times I thought you were a pompous ass, but even back then I knew that you were made for more than the fate that was laid out for us. I didn’t tell you, mostly because I didn’t want it to go to your head, but I have always admired and envied you. And I could see you making a great college professor someday.

Michael stood there for a second and stared at Adam. He looked a bit stunned at the things Adam had said. Then, without warning, he reached out to grab Adam and pull him into a hug.