I was once “so in love” with a boyfriend from my sophomore year of high school. It was summer break of my upcoming senior year and my boyfriend Charlie informed me that he was moving back to Portland in two weeks with or without me. I had made up my mind the second after he told me that I was going with him. I didn’t cry or beg him to stay. The thought never crossed my mind to do so. The only concern I had was that he was leaving and I was going with him. From then on until the day we left my days consisted of planning to run away from home, because I knew there was no way my parents would understand and let me go with him. I had just turned seventeen two weeks earlier and like any teenager was tired of my parents’ rules, so the day I left I wrote a letter to them explaining that I was going on a road trip and left it on my bed.
Charlie and his friend Adam picked me up around noon that day, said that we were going to the beach that evening then we hit the freeway headed towards Portland. After what had seemed like an entire day driving we arrived at Charlie’s step dad Jim’s house to drop off our belongings. When I stepped foot in the house I began to wonder what I was getting myself into, and that I should have stayed home. The house was atrocious. Before we walked in the door we were met with piles of junk on the front porch. After entering the house I noticed that the furniture was strewn all over the room, untidily, and looked as if there had been no one there to clean in months. The kitchen counters were piled full of dirty dishes that were becoming towers of dishes from counter to counter on either side of the sink. The family room had miscellaneous items lying around everywhere and was arranged like no one cared what it looked like. I didn’t go any further because Adam was deadset on going to the beach, and wanted to get going. We put our belongings in the spare bedroom, the smallest and cleanest room in the house so far and