As a teen no one really told me what to do, my mom gave up raising me & my grandparents took me in with the incentive of getting government assistance off of me. (I didn’t learn that last part up until recently) All my life I felt unwanted and like I was better off not being around since I was treated like a problem or a burden. I would stay out late and come home whenever. I wasn’t engaging in anything illegal or wrong I was always just at my friends house. Her mother treated me like family and I liked it. It was the only sense of family I had.

One night my friend and I took a long walk to another friend’s house. That by the time we were walking back home it was super later. We separated at a bus stop she walked home and I walked towards downtown since I lived about two blocks from it. Growing up in the city you’re made to always be aware of your surroundings. I also made sure I was in well lit areas. It was about 1am and I was walking up the hill to get to my street that lead to my house all the way down the street. So as I’m walking up the street I notice the streets are dead barely any cars and I didn’t see or hear anyone around. Few seconds later I come to the top of the hill and a van pulled up the hill stops at the red light at the top of the hill. I thought nothing of it. Only thought was “I’m almost home”. I crossed the street with the van still at the light. I was about 8 minutes away from my home now.

As I’m walking and thinking what I was going to do when I get inside either shower or eat something, from the corner of my eye I see that white van again. The van was driving as fast as I was walking. So I took special note of the creepy blacked out windows and a white delivery van. I made note of the license plate as well. I made it to the front of a corner store that was right behind my house there was also a light there too but it just so happened to be green. So I speed up my walking made it to the driveway of the building I lived in. As I took the turn the van noticed and took off speeding. I ran to my back door unlocked it an ran to the living room to see if anyone was outside the building. The van was gone. I can only assume I was going to be kidnapped. One of the scariest moments of my life. I didn’t tell anyone what had happened.

But I was lucky when I turned into my driveway where I did. Where I lived was a long street it went all the way down to downtown and all the way up next to a community college. There were apartments on one side of the college gates, and then the other side was a sidewalk of pure darkness no street lights what so ever. I would avoid that area at night since it was so creepy. Had I went up that way when the van was following me I sure they would have attempted to snatch me. Since there was no lights or cameras and it was so dark. I got lucky that night. Few weeks later it was said in the news that they were looking for a suspect in a white van that was taking school aged kids. I never found out if that was the same van. But I never walked outside after 10pm alone.