Now, Ellen, I know what I did next was stupid, so you don’t have to tell me. I called out his name, and when he stopped and turned around I said, “If you hurry, you can take a shower before they get home.”
My heart was beating so fast, because I knew how much trouble I could get into if my parents came home and found a homeless guy in our shower. I’d probably very well die. But I just couldn’t watch him walk back to his house without offering him something.
He looked down at the ground again, and I felt his embarrassment in my own stomach. He didn’t even nod. He just followed me inside my house and never said a word.
The whole time he was in the shower, I was panicking. I kept looking out the window and checking for either of my parents’ cars, even though I knew it would be a good hour before they got home. I was nervous one of the neighbors might have seen him come inside, but they didn’t really know me well enough to think having a visitor would be abnormal.
I had given Atlas a change of clothes, and knew he not only needed to be out of the house when my parents got home, but he needed to be far away from our house. I’m sure my father would recognize his own clothes on some random teenager in the neighborhood.
In between looking out the window and checking the clock, I was filling up one of my old backpacks with stuff. Food that didn’t need refrigerating, a couple of my father’s T-shirts, a pair of jeans that were probably going to be two sizes too big for him, and a change of socks.
I was zipping up the backpack when he emerged from the hallway.
I was right. Even wet, I could tell his hair was lighter than it looked earlier. It made his eyes look even bluer.
He must have shaved while he was in there because he looked younger than he did before he got in the shower. I swallowed and looked back down at the backpack, because I was shocked at how different he looked. I was scared he might see my thoughts written across my face.
I looked out the window one more time and handed him the backpack. “You might want to go out the back door so no one sees you.”
He took the backpack from me and stared at my face for a minute. “What’s your name?” he said as he slung the pack over his shoulder.
“Lily.”
He smiled. It was the first time he’d smiled at me and I had an awful, shallow thought in that moment. I wondered how someone with such a great smile could have such shitty parents. I immediately hated myself for thinking it, because of course parents should love their kids no matter how cute or ugly or skinny or fat or smart or stupid they are. But sometimes you can’t control where your mind goes. You just have to train it not to go there anymore.
He held out his hand and said, “I’m Atlas.”
“I know,” I said, without shaking his hand. I don’t know why I didn’t shake his hand. It wasn’t because I was scared to touch him. I mean, I was scared to touch him. But not because I thought I was better than him. He just made me so nervous.
He put his hand down and nodded once, then said, “I guess I better go.”
I stepped aside so he could walk around me. He pointed past the kitchen, silently asking if that was the way to the back door. I nodded and walked behind him as he made his way down the hall. When he reached the back door, I saw him pause for a second when he saw my bedroom.
I was suddenly embarrassed that he was seeing my bedroom. No one ever sees my bedroom, so I’ve never felt the need to give it a more mature look. I still have the same pink bedspread and curtains I’ve had since I was twelve. For the first time ever I felt like ripping down my poster of Adam Brody.
Atlas didn’t seem to care how my room was decorated. He looked straight at my window—the one that looks out over the backyard—then he glanced back at me. Right before he walked out the back door he said, “Thank you for not being disparaging, Lily.”
And then he was gone.
Of course I’ve heard the term disparaging before, but it was weird hearing a teenage guy use it. What’s even weirder is how everything about Atlas seems so contradictory. How does a guy who is obviously humble, well-mannered, and uses words like disparaging end up homeless? How does any teenager end up homeless?
I need to find out, Ellen.
I’m going to find out what happened to him. You just wait and see.
—Lily
• • •
I’m about to open another entry when my phone rings. I crawl across the couch for it and I’m not the least bit surprised to see it’s my mother again. Now that my father has passed and she’s alone, she’ll probably call me twice as much as she did before.
“Hello?”
“What do you think about my moving to Boston?” she blurts out.
I grab the throw pillow next to me and shove my face into it, muffling a scream. “Um. Wow,” I say. “Really?”
She’s quiet, and then, “It was just a thought. We can discuss it tomorrow. I’m almost to my meeting.”
“Okay. Bye.”
And just like that, I want to move out of Massachusetts. She can’t move here. She doesn’t know anyone here. She’d expect me to entertain her every day. I love my mother, don’t get me wrong, but I moved to Boston to be on my own, and having her in the same city would make me feel less independent.
My father was diagnosed with cancer three years ago while I was still in college. If Ryle Kincaid were here right now, I’d tell him the naked truth that I was a little bit relieved when my father became too ill to physically hurt my mother. It completely changed the dynamic of their relationship and I no longer felt obligated to stay in Plethora to make sure she was okay.
Now that my father is gone and I never have to worry about my mother again, I was looking forward to spreading my wings, so to speak.
But now she’s moving to Boston?
It feels like my wings were just clipped.
Where is a marine-grade polymer chair when I need one?!
I’m seriously stressing out and I have no idea what I’d do if my mother moves to Boston. I don’t have a garden, or a yard, or a patio, or weeds.
I have to find another outlet.
I decide to clean. I place all of my old shoeboxes full of journals and notes in my bedroom closet. Then I organize my entire closet. My jewelry, my shoes, my clothes . . .
