Stolen
Here I am, sitting under a bridge, hiding from the police, trying to get out of the rain, and wondering if my life will ever have any meaning. I ran away from my parole officer again, and now there is a warrant out for my arrest. I guess I brought this on myself, I could have ran away any time I wanted, but I stayed there. The memories come flooding back to me: my mother and her drug-dealing boyfriend, all the times I was beaten, everything.
I remember the first time she made me steal something for her. I think I was seven, or maybe eight. She always refused to get a job, and when she couldn't sell drugs with her boyfriend she made me steal things and sell them to a pawnshop. I've stolen everything from jewelry to CD players for that woman, and I still haven't gotten anything out of it. She always told me that someday our lives would change, and that we wouldn't always have to live like we did, but things didn't change, not for me at least. When she and her boyfriend did have money, they blew it on more drugs. Some life. I finally started stealing things for myself, telling her that I got caught, or making up some excuse and keeping the money to support myself. Stealing was so easy; the store managers didn't have a clue. Of course, I was young then, and they would never suspect a child of stealing, so I never got caught.
For the last eleven years I have stolen to support myself. If it works the first time, it will work again. Though, since I have gotten older, I have perfected the art of stealing, though I have my screw-ups here and there. If I could stop I would, but I cant. I don't know what it is, there's just something about stealing that excites and draws me to it. I hear police sirens getting close, and I start to run, forgetting all of my thoughts and focusing on where I am going. I am running towards the one place I know is safe: Nikki's old apartment. Hopefully it is still deserted. My thoughts grow cold. I haven't thought about Nikki since he was killed, and now I am going back to the site of his death. I guess I should explain: Nikki was my best friend.
Nikki and I met at one of the pawnshops I had become a regular at, and I discovered he and I had something in common: we both stole to stay alive. One day, my mother's boyfriend was more drunk than ever and couldn't find his hitter, and he blamed it on me, and the next thing I knew he had me pinned to the ground, choking me, his hand squeezing tighter and tighter around my throat, asking me where I had put it, but I couldn't answer. Nikki heard the commotion and came running inside. He grabbed a pot from the kitchen and hit my mother's boyfriend over the head with it. He checked to see if he was still breathing, and he grabbed me and we ran. He had rented an apartment from the pawnshop owner (Nikki was his "supplier") and he made room for me. It was small, but perfect for the two of us. I thought life was wonderful, I'd like to think Nikki felt the same way, but one day things went terribly wrong.
Nikki had tried to steal a car from the wrong guy, and he paid for it. He was shot once in the stomach, but he made it back to the apartment with the same guy chasing him. Nikki ran upstairs with the guy right on his tail, and I tried to shut the door on him, but he punched me and shoved me aside, and he shot Nikki in the head and left. I don't think I've ever cried that much. Nikki was my life, and this guy had taken it from me. I looked up towards the door, and I got up, grabbed a baseball bat, and ran out the door. I got outside and the guy was still getting in his car. I went over and smashed in his window with the bat. He got out of his car, screaming at me, but I never heard a word he said, I only heard a small voice in my head, telling me to beat him. I hit him once with the bat, and I couldn't stop. I just kept hitting him, and yelling at him. Finally the police came and took me away. They told me later that I was lucky he wasn't dead or I'd be on trial for murder. I yelled at them, telling them that he should be on trial for murder, but they didn't listen. Five days later, they released me without charges because the other guy had confessed to killing Nikki. He is still in prison right now.
I go upstairs to the apartment and I go inside. All the furniture we could get was still in place; it even smelled the way it used to. Everything is the same. I sit down on Nikki's bed, and I burst into tears. My life is nothing. I had always hoped, when I was little, that someday I would actually be someone, someone who was remembered for doing something great, but I realize that I have little chance of surviving the next few months, let alone doing something great for the world.
I don't understand why I torture myself with these thoughts. I will never be anything other than what I am now. This is me: Kaia Anderson, an eighteen-year-old runaway thief with nothing to show for my survival of the world. Maybe someday I will be able to turn my life around, and maybe I wont. The question is: will I live long enough to find out?