“Run, Run!” I heard Toby yell from the next aisle. He’d been caught by a security guard. It was a good distraction for me because I had already stolen everything we needed for that night. While everyone else was occupied with Toby, I ran outside and all the way to his small house in the projects.

This is where our gang hung out. Yes, I was part of a gang but I’ll tell you more about that later.

Toby had been my best friend since we were in preschool. Our grandmas went to the same church so we met in Sunday school. We had a lot in common – for example, we lived alone with our grandmas. When Toby was twelve, his grandma passed away but he didn’t want to go into foster care so he ran away from the officials whenever they tried to find him. Later, he ended up joining a gang because the guys on the block treated him like family. He dropped out of school and started doing things that no kid should be doing really. The gang became like his family and they were practically raising themselves. They all liked to hang out at his house because no one was there to see what was going on. There were no nosy adults.

Instead of trying to change Toby’s mind or helping him to do something different, I ended up being sucked into that same gang too.

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