Missing

"You can either take this lot and pay me or I'm out of here," I snarled glaring down at the boy in front of me. He was on his knees, hands clasped together.

"No! Please, please. I'll pay anything. Just give it to me," He begged, crawling closer to me as I took steps backwards.

"Two hundred," I demanded and he debated it before pulling out his wallet and fumbling for the bills. He gave me five twenties and two fifties before I toss the small baggies at him.

One thing I knew I could do on these streets, was overcharge the junkies. If you were too dependent on meth, then you'd pay any price. The smart users are the ones that keep their balance and know their price. Most people around this side of town are dependent on their drug dealers, handing out whatever they could just to get high for a couple minutes.

I had scored big tonight. I sold twenty dollars worth of meth for two hundred bucks. This doesn't come often, though. Usually I could charge up to twenty extra if the junkie is hooked. This guy was begging, and I knew I could get a lot out of him.

His name was Daniel, and he was pretty common around the dealers. He was a spoiled rich kid who got hooked on meth a year ago. Before, he was some snarky kid who thought everything was over priced. With the money his parents gave him, he just bought more and more until he was a complete addict. Now, he's a nervous wreck who can't go a day without lighting up or jabbing a needle in his arm.

I kind of felt remorse for Daniel. He had a life ahead of him- college, marriage, and a family. He was kicked out of San Diego State as a freshman for getting caught with meth. His long-time girlfriend left him for someone who wasn't such a junkie, and everyone in his family- besides his parents- had practically disowned him. Me selling him meth wasn't the most impressive thing on my resume right now, but I had to make a living.

Perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Van. I've been living on the streets for about four years now. Ever since I was twelve I've been on my own. My family before me were from foster care, and didn't really care for me. They did horrible things to me as a child and I wasn't going to take shit anymore. So as a twelve year old, I packed up and left in the midst of dawn.

By that morning, I found myself in a park. So cliche right? As I was looking for a place to sleep, I started to sob like a maniac. The thought of running away and actually surviving on my own sounded so stupid at the time. Luckily, an eighteen year old boy had heard my cries and ran to my rescue.

Jesse had been living on the streets with his mother as a child. Once he turned fourteen, his mom was arrested for possession and he was on his own. He learned from others how to con money from people and make a living without a high school diploma.

When I met Jesse, he was a pimp working out of a clean apartment near Los Angeles. He took me under his wing. The best part of living with Jesse, was that I was his number one girl- no matter what. He would never let me work for him, because a twelve-year old prostitute was way beyond his morals. Of all the girls that lived with him, I was the one treated like royalty. It was so different compared to my old life. With Jesse, I was given food and water and my own room even.

One day, one of Jesse's prostitutes was killed during her job. Guilt consumed him, and he let his girls go. He wasn't a bad pimp to begin with. He took care of his girls and never abused them, and even split their earnings so they could make a profit as well. But he couldn't stand the fact of him being the reason of one of his girls dying.

I came home one day to find all of our stuff packed and Jesse ready to leave. He told me we were going far away. A few hours later we were on a bus headed for San Fransisco. Jesse wanted a new start and the best way was a new town.

Life was good for a while up in San-Fran. We lived in a nice apartment and always had food on the table. Jesse didn't have to work for a while, but then the money got low and we had hit a rough-patch. During this time I was thirteen and starting to understand life more. I had been so selfish, letting Jesse take care of me and not paying him back. I needed to get a job, and so I did.

I told Jesse I had found a job working as a helper in a laundromat run by a Chinese family. This was all a lie, though. I was really working as a prostitute in the dirtier parts of the city. My pimp was named David, and he was nicer than any other guy I had met- besides Jesse. He never let me go too far with a client. I went as far as touching and fondling, but it was good pay and I could keep my virginity.

Not wanting Jesse to catch on about my job, I would sneak a few hundred into his bank account every month and give Jesse my fifty-dollar paycheck in cash every Friday. For a while things were great and we had money. I was working my job and Jesse had found a job as a busboy in a busy restaurant by the pier.

My lie had caught up to me one day. Jesse hadn't been checking his bank account. The last time he had checked it was in two months. When he finally went to pull money out, he noticed his ten-thousand dollar balance and contacted the bank. He didn't want to be charged with fraud, as that's what he thought was going on. Instead, the clerk had told him that someone had been updating his account with hundreds every so often.

For a week after this, Jesse had contemplated who was putting the money in his account. Finally, he was let off early from his job and took a stroll down to the laundromat. The woman there had told him she had never heard of me before and she would never let someone outside of her family work in her business. It wasn't long after that until Jesse decided to follow me out one night and find out what I was really doing.

As I was about to get in a car with a wealthy married man in his thirties, Jesse ran up, grabbed me, and carried me all the way back to our apartment. I had never seen him so mad before, and it was the first time I had ever felt filthy from my job, "Why would you do something like this, Van? You could have told me you didn't have a job," He said softly after he had calmed down.

"You had taken care of me for nothing, and I couldn't not pay you back. I had to do something and it was the only thing opened. I just wanted to pay you back," I had started to cry and Jesse took me into his arms.

"You'll never have to pay me back, Van. Never."

Jesse stayed up with me all night, crying. He sobbed just as hard as I did. That night was the night he vowed to take care of me, no matter the price, "You'll never have to work like that again, Van. Do you hear me?" I nodded, "I'm going to take care of you so you'll never have to work on the streets like you were. You deserve better, Van."

We decided to leave San Fransisco just after my fourteenth birthday. We headed back down south to Orange County.

Orange County was a special place to me. I never knew why that place just felt like home. Every time I walked down the street or the beach, I just felt like I belonged there. I had a connection with the warm sand and salty water. When the waves crashed into me, I felt like I was apart of them.

We lived in an apartment towards the center of Long Beach. It wasn't the nicest area and it wasn't picture perfect Orange County like everyone had thought. But it was home to me. Jesse couldn't find a job, so he took up dealing with some more friends he had reconnected with. By this time, I was fourteen and a half and wanted to learn the ropes.

"I'll teach you how to deal, Van. But I swear," He shook his head, "The day you start using drugs, you're going to have a whole lot of hell coming at you from me. I don't ever want you to be a druggie. Do I make myself clear?" He asked and I had agreed to his terms.

Jesse, much to his dismay, had taught me how to deal meth the right way so I wouldn't piss anyone off. He let me know what words to use and how to stay away from police and undercover cops. I was pretty good at what I was doing, and pretty soon Jesse and I were like a dynamic duo. We were getting tons of business and we were really living well.

Everything had crashed down a couple months before my fifteenth birthday when Jesse was caught red-handed and thrown in jail. Jesse pleaded with the cops, letting them know that he had a baby-sister to take care of. Though I wasn't really his sister, the cops took it into consideration and gave him a few options. They told him to give up all of the dealers he knew, and he could walk with not even a mark on his record. He would be clean to leave and nothing would follow him.

Gladly, Jesse gave up his friends and was released to me the next morning. We didn't want to stick around for the aftermath. We knew friends would find out that we were rats and they would hunt us down if we stayed in Orange County.

I cried like a baby the day we left Orange County. Jesse had held me tight and a few people at the bus station had thought that I was going crazy, I was crying to hard. Jesse had promised we would return sooner or later, "Once everything cools down, we'll go back. Don't you worry, Van. We'll get a nice house on the beach and we'll be living the life," He promised.

And that's how we got here, in the lovely city of San Diego. It was nothing like the O.C., but it had a beach and nightlife. We've been here ever since, coming across a few part-time jobs in coffee shops and record stores between our drug dealing. It was no paradise, but it was something I could live for, "You got me and I got you. That's all that matters, really," Jesse had told me, and it was true. Nothing really did matter.