THE RUNAWAY GIRL: BASED ON A TRUE STORY

By NIJAH COLES

The Runaway Girl is based on a true story about a young teenage girl that becomes lost at an early age. She meets different types of people and puts herself in some of the most dangerous life and death situations. She ends up in some of the roughest neighborhoods in Washington, DC.

Being in the world alone, learning to survive and make it out are the challenges that she faces. From being in a Juvenile Detention center, to a group home and other strange places this girl has seen it all. Does she get herself together, or does she fall through the cracks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312643505

Book preview

The Runaway Girl

Based on a True Story

The Runaway Girl:

    Based on a True Story

N. S. Coles

Nijah Coles  2017

Copyright © 2017 by Nijah Coles

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the  use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2017

ISBN 978-1-312-64443-4

Nijah Coles

U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers: Please contact Nijah Coles

Tel: [phone]; or email [e-mail]

Dedication

To all the men, women, boys, and girls around the world young and old. This is for you!

Thank you! Without your support and patience, I would have never achieved my dream.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone who believed in me, my family, my friends, and all the people who motivated me to do better. Thank you for your patience and guidance.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance. – bell hooks.

Introduction

I remember the day I went home from school after holding my report card for a week. My grandfather had been asking for it for the previous two weeks, before the report cards had even came out. I prepared myself for the longest punishment, knowing that I was skipping school and failing at least two classes. I went home and handed my grandparents the report card, they lost it! My grandparents were strict on education. I knew that since I was about three years old, when I was not even in school yet. My grandfather saw that big fat F on my report card, and my grandmother called my mom immediately. I almost dropped dead. She told her that she had to get me that night because they could no longer deal with me in their home. I was told to go pack my stuff and be ready by the time my mom got there. I cried my eyes out. I knew that going to my mom’s house meant that I had to deal with my stepfather. Everybody knew I did not like him with passion. Guess who arrived to pick me up from my grandma’s. That man!

ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK….

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.   

                                                                                                  – Lena Horne

Chapter 1: Welcome to Hell

The only thing I remember was having a trash bag full of clothes. In fact, I had two trash bags full of my stuff. When I walked out of my grandparents’ house and saw that green Pathfinder sitting in our empty parking spot with my stepfather in it, I could have died. I dragged my things to the car and put them in the backseat. I remember hearing nothing but the car being shifted into gear to leave. In my head, I wondered, Who the hell sent him? If anybody should have come, it should have been my mother. For one, this man was not my dad, so whatever discipline he thought he was about to do was not going down. Last time I checked, my father was dead to me. My grandfather was my father figure.

I sat in the passenger seat, preparing to go to this hell hole. I knew that it was going to be some bull as soon as I touched down in Woodbridge, Virginia. We were about fifteen minutes away from my mom’s house when my stepdad decided to speak to me.

The first thing that came out of his mouth was, What the fuck is wrong with you?

I decided to stay silent and not speak to him because with everything that was going on in my mind, I was ready to curse him out. He thought he put fear in my heart. That was dead because he damn sure did not, not one bit.

He blurted out again, You don’t hear me talking to you? What the fuck is wrong with you? All you got to do is go to school and bring your ass home and you cannot do that.

I began to cry because I was ready to knock his damn head off his shoulders. "Man,, I thought to myself, This douchebag must not have known who my father is nor who I am." Then I also thought about how the woman that was supposed to be my best friend, and my mom, allowed this man to talk to me this way and let him try to run shit he had nothing to do with. I was a one-man band. If I told her what had gone on, she would not care, because it was her lazy ass that sent him to pick me up.

We finally made it to the driveway, the whole time I kept my composure and did not say anything. We got there and he hopped out of the car, knowing I had two bags, and proceeded to walk in the house. I grabbed my bags and muttered under my breath, calling him a bitch. I finally got the bags up all the stairs and into the house.

See, my mom’s house was quite different from my grandmother’s. At my grandma’s, it was a nice town house, big enough for three people. I had my own floor, a full bathroom, and a laundry room. My mom lived in a house with a big backyard, four rooms, two living areas, a big basement, and a garage. She had a little Yorkie named Ben. My little sister, Jamie, lived with her as well. They always lived the high-class life and looked down on people, as if their shit did not stink.

As soon as I walked in, I took my stuff and sat it at the door. I was told to take my stuff upstairs to the extra room. It was about 10:00pm. That’s when all hell broke loose. At this point I was called all types of dumb ass and failures. I did not bother to speak, because talking back and arguing with this lady never worked out. I really got it when she said, Now that my dumb ass wanted to be a failure, she has to take off to sign me up for school out there. This was not my cup of tea. I never ever chilled out in Woodbridge one day in my life to know too much of what was going on. It was sad enough that I had to leave the people I had gotten used to in Lorton.

She told me to get myself situated and to go to bed. I went from sleeping on a Queen-sized bed to a futon. My life was over, man. I tossed and turned all damn night. I could not look at the television nor talk on the phone. I was only sixteen at the time and life was miserable. Times like this were when I thought about my dad and how I wished he had not left out of my life a while back, and how I missed my brother, because if he were around, it would not have gone down that way. It was like I was trapped in foster care with a family I did not even know anything about, and sad, I really did not. I finally dozed off.

The next morning, I was awoken by doors opening and closing, water running, and the little ass Yorkie jumping in the bed. My sister was ready for school, and my mom was ready to take me to register for school. Everyone was up and about. I did not want to get up, but of course I did not have a choice.

I got up and got dressed. The whole ride there was a bunch of bull. I was being talked to the whole way there; after a while it started to sound like, Blah, Blah, Blah. It went in one ear and out the other. Every now and then I would be like, Yeah, I hear you." Last night he told her that I was being disrespectful to him and whatever else a bitch would cry about. I explained to her that he was the disrespectful one. Of course, that did not go well either, because she was disrespectful too.

We were pulling up to a school that was called C.D. Hylton. I had never heard of this place, ever. Never seen it either. It was an excessively big school. We parked and walked in. It was nice, quiet, and seemed clean. All the students were in the class. We went to the primary office and the lady gave us a new student packet. After the papers were finished, we were taken on a tour of the school. There were a lot of people in the halls. You could tell who the geeks, the basketball players, and the football players were. They even had the girls separated. The ghetto girls, hot ass girls, the quiet girls, and the prissy, popular girls. The inside of the school was huge and difficult to understand for a new student. After orientation, I met the principal and his last words were, See you tomorrow at 8:00am sharp.

Once I left the school, we went back to the house. I made a sandwich while she sat there eating some fancy shit and lecturing me about going to class, keeping my grades up, and coming straight home from school. I sat there looking at her thinking, Where the hell am, I going to go? The school was thirty minutes from home on some old back road.

At around three, everyone was coming home. My stepfather brought my sister home from school on his way home from work. I messed up their schedule because my mom normally does that. When he came home, he had this look on his face as if he were upset for some reason. Why? I do not know. Next thing I knew I was getting cursed out for not saying, Hi when he came in. He told me that I was in his house and things were different there than they were at my grandparents.

Being me, I said, Well, I don’t want to be here anyway.

All hell broke loose in that kitchen. He was going off and yelling. I just looked at him and ignored him. Next thing I knew there came my mom.

What is going on? she demanded.

I told her that she needed to control her husband and went upstairs to what I called my jail cell.

I was in my room unpacking the clothes that I brought from my grandparents’ house, trying to figure out what I was going to wear. My mom came in and gave me a key to the house. In the background I could hear him talking about washing dishes and cleaning when I got home from school. He started to get annoying with the whole cleaning thing. I just said, Okay and finished unpacking. My sister came in and talked to me about school and her friends. She was a cheerleader for her elementary school. She went to a school in our hometown of Alexandria, Virginia. The school was like forty minutes away from home, but everyone worked in Alexandria. I was the only person all the way in Woodbridge during the day. No one even thought about the fact that something could happen to me, but that was neither here nor there. After coming in, talking to me, and giving me the key, went on about her business. I was on punishment, and she did not want to get into trouble, as dumb as that sounded.

It was about 6:00am when I was waking up to get ready for school. I took a shower and got myself dressed and ready for the bus to come. I told myself, "Here goes nothing. The bus came at about 6:40am every morning. Of course, everyone that was at the bus stop was looking at me like, Who is she? Is she new?" 

I stood at the bus stop with my CD player on full blast, tuning out any and everybody. You would have thought there were speakers added to it, it was so loud. I did not want to hear anything that was being said.

I got to sit in the back of the bus, surprisingly. We had about three more bus stops after mine. Of course, there was a bus stop that picked up the loud, rowdy, ratchet kids. At this point, the bus got crowded and loud instantly. I turned down my CD player to hear the hustle and see what this crew was talking about. The whole ride to school they were laughing and carrying on, nothing to be concerned with.

We finally pulled up to the school and the bus parked. I had to remember my bus number so I could get back home after school. Being that I was the only person in my family that was in Woodbridge, I better not had missed that damn bus. I walked up to the school and there seemed to be a million students all over the place. It seemed like there was a parade going on. I made it to the head office to get my schedule. The lady there was nice and explained to me how to get to my first class. The school was so big and crowded, there was no way I was going to be able to find my way around and be on time.

It was like students knew when there was a new student in the building. Everyone was looking at me like I was foreign. See, the way my confidence was set up, I knew I looked good, but they were looking extra hard. I thought that my Jordans and Lucaya’s were not cool enough for this setting. I figured that was not it, though, because I saw all the popular girls had the same coordination going on. At that point I knew that was not it. I decided to go ahead and try to find the class that I was supposed to be going to.

I walked around for ten minutes before I decided to ask someone for help. I saw a lady passing who appeared to be a teacher or someone of authority. She looked at the schedule and pointed me in the right direction. I made it to the classroom, which was empty except for three students, who were always on time. They were quiet and had their materials out and ready. The teacher greeted me with open arms and told me her name. She found me a seat and gave me a syllabus for the class and the textbook. I sat there and looked over the book and thought to myself again, "Here goes nothing."

As the day went on, I began to talk to more people. Of course, everyone wanted to know where I was from and where I lived the normal new girl questions. There were a lot of Black students, more than I had expected. The guys were the type who looked and did not speak, but then talked about you to his boys. They would look at my ass when I walked past and then chatter amongst themselves. I already knew what that meant. Once I went to middle school, I became the thick girl, so I was used to that.

When lunch time came around one of the girls that I had met, came up to me and said, Girl, what are we eating for lunch? She had a super unique style.

I was shocked that she came up to me and asked but I was happy to have someone to talk to. We got in line and got tacos. She told me that she was new there as well, she had been at the school for only a week, and had moved from Washington, DC. Right after the conversation, we instantly clicked. She told me the people there were nice and that her name was Bianca and how happy she was to meet me. Surprisingly, we had our next class together and that made the day a lot smoother.

By the end of the day, everybody was ready to go. When class was over the hall was flooded again. Bianca and I exchanged numbers and kept it moving. I made my way outside so that I would not miss my bus. For one, I had to find it, and for two, I felt like there were elephants stampeding around the parking lot. I finally found the bus and got right on with no hesitation. Lord knows I could not afford to miss that bus. Once I got on the bus it seemed much rowdier than in the morning. When I say, it was loud, I mean it was loud. Everyone was awake. I found myself a seat, and put my headphones on, and continued to crank my mixed CD. Every day that I stepped foot on that street, I was back to the hell hole. If you did not know what hell felt like, you should have walked in my shoes. 

Chapter 2: Was it Me?

I made it to the house, which was two blocks from the bus stop. I got into the house, took my belongings upstairs, and came back down to wash the sink full of dishes. I am sure they were purposely left for me to wash from the night before. I got home around 3:15pm, I was