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stuff and followed him off the bus. He
didn’t try to hide where he was heading today like he usually does. Normally, he walks down the street and goes around the block so I don’t see him cut through my backyard. But today he
started to walk toward my yard with me.
    When we got to where I would normally turn to go inside and he would keep walking, we both stopped. He kicked at the dirt with his foot and looked behind me at my
house.
    “What time do your parents get home?”
    “Around five,” I said. It was 3:45.
    He nodded and looked like he was about to say something else, but he didn’t. He just nodded again and started walking toward that house with no food or electricity or
water.
    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