Runaways and Almosts
Sometimes the relationships that shape you the most only last a few weeks.
There are a lot of wild stories from those apartment years. Some funny. Some reckless. Some probably better left sitting in the dark where they happened.
But every once in a while, one memory pushes its way back to the surface quieter than the others.
Not because it lasted the longest.
Because it hurt differently.
Memory soundtrack: Turn Up The Radio
Because when you are young, a month can feel like forever.
Runaways and Almosts
The apartment felt different than Adan’s place.
Not better.
Just older somehow.
Like everybody there was trying to outrun childhood at the exact same time.
Tom and my brother Steve got our first apartment around then. They were both working moving jobs for Tom’s uncle, making just enough money to feel independent without actually being stable. I was working swing shift at 7-Eleven by that point. Making money. Sleeping weird hours. Kind of meandering through life without any real direction.
We were all still in each other’s orbit, but not really in each other’s worlds anymore.
Todd was still around when he could be. Gregg drifted in and out. Adan mostly stayed tied to his own crowd and chaos. The old tribe had started breaking into smaller pieces, but everybody still crossed paths eventually.
The apartment became one of those gathering places.
Music always playing.
People sleeping on couches.
Late-night food runs.
Arguments that disappeared by morning.
Girls and guys falling in love for three weeks at a time like it was life or death.
We all felt older than we were.
None of us were.
Around that time I met Karen.
This part feels strange to write about now because times were different, and honestly, some of those differences probably needed to change.
Karen was sixteen, almost seventeen.
I was barely eighteen myself.
Back then, that did not feel shocking the way it would now. We were all standing right on the blurry line between being teenagers and pretending to be adults.
Karen came from a decent upper-middle-class family, but when I met her, she was a runaway.
I do not even remember exactly how we met anymore.
Just the feeling of suddenly being inseparable.
For about a month, maybe a little longer, we became each other’s entire world.
At that age, a month feels permanent.
You think intensity means destiny because you have not lived long enough yet to understand how temporary people can be.
We spent almost every day together.
Driving around with nowhere to go.
Talking for hours.
Sitting in parking lots late at night sharing secrets and future plans neither of us were actually prepared for.
I think both of us were looking for escape more than anything else.
Escape from parents.
Expectations.
Chaos.
Loneliness.
Whatever hurt we had carried into each other.
For a little while, it worked.
Then one day she told me her parents wanted to meet me at the mall.
I remember being nervous, but hopeful too. Like maybe this was going to turn into something real instead of just another reckless young relationship built inside borrowed time.
Instead, the second we got there, private security hired by her parents picked her up and took her away.
Just like that.
One moment she was standing beside me.
The next she was gone.
No dramatic goodbye.
No movie scene.
Just this sudden emptiness where a person had been.
Her parents sent her away to some kind of youth camp or program to get her “straightened out.” That was the language people used back then for anything they did not understand.
I did not see her again for a long time after that.
Maybe a year.
Maybe two.
Time moved strangely back then. Everything blurred together between work, apartments, parties, friendships shifting, and everybody trying to figure out who they were becoming.
When I finally saw her again, we spent some time together catching up.
That was when she told me she had gotten pregnant.
And that her parents had forced her to get an abortion.
I remember feeling hollow more than anything else.
Not angry in some explosive way.
Just… hollow.
Like life had happened somewhere offstage while I was still mentally standing in the mall watching her disappear.
I did not really know how to process any of it back then.
Honestly, I probably still do not.
That relationship became another broken thread in a period of my life filled with them.
Bad timing.
Bad decisions.
Young people trying to play adult with no idea what adulthood actually costs.
There are a lot more stories from that apartment.
Some hilarious.
Some reckless.
Some darker than I probably even want to admit yet.
But today, this is the part that stays with me.
Not because we were together that long.
But because for a little while, she made me feel like somebody had chosen me completely.
And when you grow up spending most of your life feeling unseen, even temporary love can leave fingerprints on your soul for decades.
Looking back now, I do not think either of us knew what we were doing.
We were kids trying to build permanence out of instability.
Trying to become home for each other before either of us knew how to be home for ourselves.
But some people leave marks on your life far bigger than the amount of time they spent in it.
Karen was one of those people.
If this piece resonated with you, feel free to like, restack, or share it with someone who still thinks about the people who almost changed everything.
Sometimes the shortest chapters echo the longest.