#my natural caregiver drive (thanks dad) took over and I was like CHILD? CHILD ALONE? BAD BAD BAD BAD

[silverspleen]

Had a super weird experience Friday night where I left to go hang with friends and there was someone in a gray hoodie sitting on the steps outside my apartment, which like, weird but ok, and then I come back like three hours later and the person is still there but they’ve tucked their legs under the hoodie to stay warm and I say “hey, do you need a blanket?” and a small tween girl voice goes “...yeah.”

And I go “....do you want a glass of water?” and get “............yeah.”

And I get a blanket and a plastic cup of water and I apologize that there’s a bug on it to this tween who has quite possibly been sitting on the steps outside my apartment for at least four hours at this point. And it’s night time. And while we don’t live in a particularly dangerous area like, this city is not known for being safe.

And I go “you live here?” And she point up somewhere above me.

“Did you get kicked out?” “..............yeah”

“Do you know when they’re gonna let you back in?” “................no.”

And I tell her I’m leaving my door unlocked, and she should knock if she needs anything, if she needs to use the restroom or anything, and I offer another blanket and she declines.

And I close the door and go, and what the hell am I supposed to do with this lowkey child endangerment situation. I can’t call the cops, that will escalate the situation in a bad direction, do I go talk to the family? That makes things worse doesn’t it? And I spend ten minutes in my house going “?????????????????” before I finally open the door back up and go “hey, I just feel really uncomfortable with you out here alone, it’s dark and like it could be dangerous here, so like, I’m gonna clean my trashcan on my front doorstep next to you, and I’m sorry it’s gonna smell kind of bad.”

And I clean out my stinky trashcan with knockoff clorox wipes in weird silence five feet away from this tiny little teenage girl who has been out in front of my apartment for god knows how long as I just kind of wait for something to happen because I’m not leaving this girl alone and she’s just kind of alone on the steps.

Eventually her parent comes to pick her up with a cryptic grumble about “having to tell the class” and does not acknowledge me at all and this tiny girl hands me back my blanket with a “thank you” and I tell her “good luck” and she goes back upstairs but m’am, m’am. You punished your child by leaving her on the steps of an apartment complex for like... At least four hours. In the dark. Until midnight. As temperatures started to drop into the low 40s high 30s. That’s kind of fucked up? That’s a little fucked up? What am I supposed to do???