When I was 14 years old, I went missing on a summer day in 1992, just weeks after my middle school graduation. When my parents realized I wasnt where I was supposed to be and that none of my friends knew my whereabouts, they filed a missing persons report with our local police district in Little Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, and then they waited for two days to hear something.
What my parents didnt realize was that I had met a man at our local shopping mall a couple weeks earlier, and that I had begun to talk to him regularly over the phone. This man told me that I was pretty enough to be a model and that I was too mature for high school. He told me that, if I ran away with him, he would get me a fake ID, that he could get me into dance clubs, that I could meet famous people, and that he could give me a red Corvette to drive to Los Angeles and work in the music industry. As an angry, insecure, naïve, and impulsive teenager, I believed him. I wanted to be in a relationship with an older guy; and more than anything else in the world, I wanted to be an adult. I didnt want to go to high school. I wanted to be able to make my own choices, to come and go as I pleased.
And so, on July 1st, 1992, I chose to run away with this man from the mall. This wasnt the first time I had run away on a whim or in response to my teenage emotions, but it was the first time I had run away with someone I didnt really know. Within hours of running away, this man forced and coerced me into prostitution on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Because I gave this man my phone number and because I agreed to run away with him, I believed I had gotten myself into this situation. I believed I alone was at fault for my circumstances. And, as the hours passed in Atlantic City, the idea of ever going back home became less and less of a reality to me, so much so that I failed to seek help from anyone, including law enforcement, as they passed by me in the hotels, motels, and on the streets of Atlantic City.
When I was finally approached by a law enforcement officer the following night on Pacific Avenue, I was questioned about my age. At first, I insisted that I was over 18, but then I asked the officer what would happen if I was underage. What I meant by this was What are my options? I wasnt ready to face my parents or my past, but I wanted to get away from the man who lured me away from home and then raped me inside a motel room. In response to my question, though, this officer arrested me, and then he ridiculed me as we drove to the Atlantic City police station.
