My Little Runaway

"As I walk along, I wonder..."

I just ran into a runaway girl. Funny pair, the two of us walking side by side, in broad daylight, down the walkway, cars passing by. She was 17 and I am 33. She's already run away, and I am having to consider a similiar trajectory.

I walked out of my house to take my disc to a wifi center or complex outside of the apartments I stay in. I wondered if the problem was with our community wifi and not just my disc, and although I was already somewhat convinced my "evidence" was gone, having seen it was "blank" on 4 different computers, I did the responsible thing...I refused to rely on my own assumptions.

I still had to rule out a faulty computer connection, so I decided to take it to a condo place.

I was walking out the door when a girl approached me saying, "Ma'am"...and she asked me if I could give her a ride to Blaine. I said I didn't have a car, but that I could help her find a ride. I said why don't you walk with me because I have to check something out on my disc, and I'll stop at a bar where I know some people who may be going that direction and I'll ask for you. So we were walking and she told me she'd been hitchhiking. She had hickey's all over her neck, and I asked the obvious question, and she said she wasn't a prostitute. She was a runaway. She was 17 years old and her family didn't know where she was. She started opening up and talking to me when I told her, from the start, that I also had done my share of hitchhiking but that she should be careful because she was so young. She perked up to hear I'd been a hitchhiker. Looking at me she said, "Really?" and then told me how her family has horses and lives in a good part of Olympia and everything, but she didn't want to go to juevie right now.

I asked what her warrant was for and she said it was for violating probation. She asked me not to tell and I said I wouldn't. She meant, turn her in. She said she had punched her mom in the face. She was very pretty, with sort of an artist's dreamface. A beautiful nose, sort of a Streep nose. She said she'd been 18 soon and was planning to turn herself in, but wanted a few more days. I asked where she was staying and said maybe she could stay with me if she needed to (I'd have to ask roommate of course). She said she had friends in Blaine. But then she asked me if I was on my period because she needed some products and didn't have any. If she knew her friends so well, why bum tampons off of me?

As we were walking I said maybe she could come back with me and we could at least talk. "Let me make you some lunch and I'll give you some tampons" I said. What an offer, eh? One any woman cannot resist. Lunch and tampons, on the house. She looked so hungry when I offered food, I wondered what she'd been doing with her boyfriend at the condo place. I told her we should brainstorm a little and think about her options. To sound more effective, I told her I'd worked for some lawyers before, but that I wasn't an attorney, but I could strategize with her. So she wanted to do this. I figured there could be a good way for her to turn herself in. "If you turn 18 will they try you as an adult?" I asked. I don't know anything about probation. She said no. She said she just wanted a few more days. I told her it would make me feel good to help her out because so many people had done the same for me in Birch Bay and Blaine, when I needed it. So, I said, it would be a small way for me to give back and do something good.

So we got to the hotel resort place she'd been at and I went in to the use the computer. A woman ushered her out, knowing she wasn't staying there, and that she was a runaway. Her parents wanted her to turn herself in but not be arrested or something traumatic. She waited outside and I said I'd be just a minute. All of my webcam stuff with my son came up! So I was elated. It was still there, but couldn't be opened on that computer. It really was something with the apartment wifi connection I guess.

So I went back out and she was waiting for me but then I turned when the hotel staff talked to me to ask if I was staying there. They gave me info about the girl, which I already knew, and I said I didn't want her to be turned in, but thought I could convince her to turn herself in. I wanted to give her something to eat and talk a little bit. So everyone was happy about this, and then when I turned, she was gone. She had seen me talking to the hotel people and assumed we were calling the police.

I found out later, while looking for her with someone else with a car, that she had ducked out back and was last seen using a porta-potty and then walking. I'm sure she found her ride. Her name was Allie. Her Dad, who I talked to later, said she was bipolar but she didn't come across this way at all.

Just the other day, my roommate was keeping an eye out for another runaway girl who was around our apartments. I just happened to run into this girl on a walk. I told her she could use my cell phone, even though I have hardly any minutes on it.

I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to talk with her more and that I scared her away. But, that's life. She's doing what she feels is best for her right now, and I know how it feels to be her. I've walked in those shoes before, and sometimes, when my feet get tired and start to hurt, I've taken the shoes off and carried them as I walk barefoot instead.

I gave the condo manager for this other place, my roommates phone number, in case Allie wanted to get ahold of me sometime, and braved asking around to find out where I might be. Or might not be.