Bradin walked into his house smiling. He saw his Aunt Ava and family sitting around the dinner table finishing their dinner.
"Where have you been?" his aunt asked.
"I was out with a friend. They needed my help."
"You should have told someone where you were going," his aunt's co-worker, Susannah, said.
"I'm seventeen. It shouldn't matter to you where I am."
"We NEED to know where you are," Jay said. "What happens if something bad happens to you? What if this person is like Sarah and gets you into trouble?"
"Kaitlin is nothing like Sarah!" Bradin yelled.
"Who?" they all asked.
"Forget it. None of you would understand," he said as he turned and ran up the stairs to his room. He slammed his door telling them that he wanted to be alone.
"What's going on with him?" Ava asked Susannah.
"He's probably going through a stage," Johnny said, "Maybe this girl turned him down after he asked her out."
"I don't think so, mate," Jay said.
"Then, what do you say is wrong with him?" Susannah asked.
"He likes this girl but knows that she has a problem that makes her scared to be around him."
"How do you know that?" Johnny asked.
"I followed him earlier to a music store. He met a worker there."
"This Kaitlin girl, right?" Ava asked.
"Yes. She's nice," Jay said, "But, she had a bruised eye. I'm guessing that something happened to her that made her get that eye."
"What, though? Bradin won't tell us. And, if she's hiding something from him, how much will it hurt him?" Ava asked.
"Who knows? We'll have to wait," Johnny said.
Kaitlin and her parents sat in the living room looking over some things when the doorbell rang. Kaitlin got up and opened the door. A man in his 30s appeared behind the door.
"Are you Kaitlin?" he asked.
"Yes. Can I help you?" she asked.
"May I come in and talk with you and your parents?"
She stepped aside and let him in. She led him to the living room where her parents were.
"Hello," he said, "My name is Evan and I work with Social Services."
"How can we help you?" Kaitlin's father asked.
"I came to talk to you three about your three year old relative, Ethan," Evan said.
Kaitlin looked at her parents with a worried look.
"We have to take him away."
"NO!" Kaitlin yelled.
"We have reviewed the past few years since he's been born. He needs someone who can always be with him every day and not go off to work and hang out with boys."
"I go to work to help take care of me and Ethan! I only hung out with one boy since I've been raped! All of the other times I've been home taking care of him!" Kaitlin yelled.
"I'm sorry. You can't take care of him anymore. You can't have him anymore," Evan old her, "You're a teenager who needs to graduate from high school. You can't have him."
"This is bullshit!" Kaitlin's father yelled. "She has done a very good job at taking care of her son! Yes she had our help at some points but that's because she had to go to work and eat!"
"According to what Social Services told me, someone saw your daughter making out with a guy every day since he was one."
"BULLSHIT!" Kaitlin yelled running up the stairs to her son's room.
