It Ends with Us

hadn’t thought about how—if he doesn’t have access to a shower—he probably
doesn’t have food, either.
I went inside my house and made a couple of sandwiches. I grabbed two sodas
out of the fridge and a bag of chips. I put them in a lunch bag and I ran it over to
the abandoned house and set it on the back porch by the door. I wasn’t sure if he saw
me, so I knocked real hard and then ran back to my house and went straight to my
room. By the time I got to the window to see if he was going to come outside, the bag
was already gone.
That’s when I knew he’d been watching me. I’m kind of nervous now that he
knows I know he’s staying there. I don’t know what I’ll say to him if he tries to talk
to me tomorrow.
—Lily
Dear Ellen,

---

I saw your interview with the presidential candidate Barack Obama today. Does
that make you nervous? Interviewing people who could potentially run the country?
I don’t know a lot about politics, but I don’t think I could be funny under that kind
of pressure.
Man. So much has happened to both of us. You just interviewed someone who
might be our next president and I’m feeding a homeless boy.
This morning when I got to the bus stop, Atlas was already there. It was just the
two of us at first, and I’m not gonna lie, it was awkward. I could see the bus coming
around the corner and I was wishing it would drive a little faster. Right when it
pulled up, he took a step closer to me and, without looking up, he said, “Thank
you.”
The doors opened on the bus and he let me walk on first. I didn’t say
You’re
welcome 
because I was kind of shocked by my reaction. His voice gave me chills,
Ellen.
Has a boy’s voice ever done that to you?
Oh, wait. Sorry. Has a
girl’s 
voice ever done that to you?
He didn’t sit by me or anything on the way there, but on the way back from
school, he was the last one getting on. There weren’t any empty seats, but I could tell
by the way he scanned all the people on the bus that he wasn’t looking for an empty
seat. He was looking for me.
When his eyes met mine, I looked down at my lap real quick. I hate that I’m not
very confident around guys. Maybe that’s something I’ll grow into when I finally
turn sixteen.
He sat down next to me and dropped his backpack between his legs. That’s when
I noticed what Katie was talking about. He did kind of smell, but I didn’t judge
him for that.
He didn’t say anything at first, but he was fidgeting with a hole in his jeans. It
wasn’t the kind of hole that was there to make jeans look stylish. I could tell it was
there because it was a genuine hole, due to his pants being old. They actually looked
a little too small for him, because his ankles were showing. But he was skinny
enough that they fit him just fine everywhere else.
“Did you tell anyone?” he asked me.
I looked at him when he spoke, and he was looking right back at me like he was
worried. It was the first time I had actually gotten a good look at him. His hair was
dark brown, but I thought maybe if he washed it, it wouldn’t be as dark as it looked
right then. His eyes were bright, unlike the rest of him. Real blue eyes, like the kind

---

you see on a Siberian husky. I shouldn’t compare his eyes to a dog, but that’s the
first thing I thought when I saw them.