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and looking over at my face uneasily. “I know what abuse looks like, and I know how alone it makes you feel,” he said “I just wanted to be sure that if nobody else knew, at least you had someone looking out for you,” he finished, looking away again.
    “How often did you do that?” I asked, not sure if I should even expect an honest answer. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I wanted one.
    “Not that often, once a week tops,” he said, his face unreadable.
    That gave me chills.
    The problem was that I wasn’t sure if it was the thought of him watching my house—or what would have happened if he wasn’t watching. Sure, it’s not great that my home wasn’t as private as I thought, but if it was I might have been dead.
    My dad might have gotten to his gun.
    It could have been me lying in my own stink instead of him.
    “Well, thank you,” I offered softly. He raised his eyebrows and looked over at me. I smiled softly in return, and let the corners of my lips tilt up slightly. There was something other than guilt weighing heavy on my chest, but I set it aside to think about later.
    This strange boy had saved my life, and I owed him more than he knew.
    My flight wasn’t until the next morning, but the airport was three hours from my home—the bus roared on as the only constant in my life in the moment. I would be in New York in the morning, starting a new life for myself out of what I could scramble together from my current one.
    My mom was selfishly becoming the martyr. It might have been the headache, but this thought kept finding ways to seep into my mind. She got to keep her house, probably the cop boyfriend, be rid of dad, and she would get to say that she somehow saved me from a life of stigma. She got to have the good feeling of knowing that even though she was going to ditch me with him, in the end she got to make sure I was free. Too bad she didn’t know she was protecting the wrong person.
    I looked over at Adam and couldn’t help but wonder if she would have done the same if she knew it was Adam that had done it. Would she have just called the cops then?
    She had only packed for herself; she was going to take off without me. As I sat on the bus, anger mixing in with my anxiety, I began to wonder if sending me off to my aunt was just another way to get rid of me like she already obviously wanted to. She wasn’t going to take me with her if she left, why would she want me there if she stayed.
    I couldn’t stand the idea of it.
    Eventually the bus was nearing my stop, about ten minutes out, and I nudged Adam. He’d dozed off a couple hours into our trip. I couldn’t imagine how he could sleep after seeing what I did. Granted, he didn’t know my father was dead, but he’d just broken into a house and knocked a man out, and here he was snoozing away.
    “Hey,” I said softly. He slowly woke up, his eyes dreamily blinking as he took in his surroundings. What a hell to wake up into.
    “Hm?” he said, stretching a bit, his back cracking audibly.
    “Here,” I said, pulling out the rest of the money my mother had given me. I still had my debit card to my parent’s account, my aunt was well off enough, and I had no doubt that my dad’s will had something to line my pockets at least a little.
    “I can’t take this—” he started, waking the rest of the way up.
    “No, here,” I said, unzipping his bag and sliding it in. “You saved my life,” I said softly, looking him directly in the face as I zipped his bag back closed. “Thank you,” I meant it. He looked like he understood.
    When the bus got to my stop I only said a short goodbye before lugging my things away. How did I deserve for someone like him to find me and save me. I felt beyond lucky, like I shouldn’t have gotten off the bus, but I had a plane to catch in the morning.
    The motel I got off at looked more than shady. The sign out front flickered like it was luring in more insects than people. I asked about a phone and the clerk