Why she ran away

A. Freeman

So, I walk in to this unit one day and I see this young teenaged girl, dressed in coveralls a size too large, brown messy hair draping down both sides of her hair, looking about as sad as a child could get.

So, I walk over and ask her what she's doing there. She says 'My social worker brought me here. They're deciding if I can stay. But I don't care what they decide, I ain't staying!'

So, I ask her, why did they bring you here?

And she says, Well, my mom and dad split up and I had to live with my mom. Her and me we don't get along so I ran away, and then they put me in a foster home, so I ran away from there, too. And after I ran away a few more times, they put me in another foster home. So I ran away from there a few times too. So, now they brought me here.

So, I ask, Why are you running away all the time?'

And she says, 'I thought that if I ran away enough they'd just give up and let me live with my dad.'