15-05-2021-052358It-Ends-with-Us

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 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