Stephanie

         Her name was Stephanie. She was thirteen years old. She was pregnant. She was a friend of my current girlfriend, who had just moved across town. I was fifteen.
         We were hanging out together every day after school. We would walk around the neighborhood or sit in the model apartment, where her parents were the managers, and watch TV.
         The father of her child was gone and would never be around. Her parents had already planned the outcome of the pregnancy. Her parents, being catholic, had arranged for the child to be adopted. Reservations were in place at a home for unwed mothers, where Stephanie would go to live after school was out for the year. This was all against her wishes, of course. She wanted to keep the baby or kill herself and the baby.
         We talked and talked, for several months, until I moved away. I never heard from her again. I often wonder what happened to her and her baby and also wonder what would have happened if she and I had run away, like she wanted to do and I talked her out of.