I remembered.
We had been sitting in a restaurant.
I’d asked where he lived after high school.
He told me, casually, that he stayed with family.
“I liked you,” he continued. “Way more than I wanted to admit. And I was embarrassed.”
“Of being homeless?”
“Of everything.”
His father had thrown him out after an argument.
Reed didn’t tell the whole story at the altar. That came later.
But he told enough.
His mother had died.
His father remarried.
Their relationship became worse year by year until, six days after Reed graduated, his father told him to leave.
Reed had eighty-three dollars.
No car.
No college plan.
Nobody willing to take him in for more than a few nights.
He slept on a friend’s couch until the friend’s landlord threatened eviction.
Then he slept in the laundry room of an apartment building for four nights.
Someone found him there.
