"I'm sixteen and can do what I want"

Last evening I was dispatched not to an address, but the intersection of two dirt roads out in the country.
I am not fond of these type of dispatches-because with no actual address its a crap shoot whether there will actually be anybody there. But there she was a young girl standing on the side of an open field-cell phone in hand.
 She jumped in the back blurted out an address in town,and continued a rapid fire conversation on her cell with what I assume was one of her girlfriends.Talking away on her phone-like most teenagers do-like she was the only one in the car,nothing subtle with kids,
I usually turn a deaf ear to babbling teenagers engaged in conversation-but this one caught my attention.
She had just had an argument with her Mom about her skipping classes. Her failing grades at school and her failure to do any chores while her Mom was away on business for two days.From what she was saying I guessed  this argument ensued in the kitchen and her Mother had thrown and broken a glass on the floor.I assume out of sheer frustration.

 The girl continued on with a taunting tone about how she had run up to her room.Made up her bed like she was under the covers and then slipped out the back door to call a cab.

"I would love to see my Mom's face when she realizes I 'm gone" she exclaimed to her friend. "My Mom's a fucking psychopath- throwing a glass like that." "I'm sixteen and can do what I want-there is nothing they can do about it it" she went on.She was apparently going to couch-surf now for the rest of the week- end and maybe even stay away for a week.I cringed at the thought of her poor parents not knowing where she was.I was going to suggest to her that what she was doing was not the brightest idea.But I doubted she would be much interested in another opinion from an adult-so I kept quiet.

As I dropped her off at her friends house and drove away,I kept thinking about what she had said about her failing grades an skipping so many classes,and her problems at home.God I thought ,sixteen years old,she is still just a baby in the scheme of things.What will her life be like as she reached maturity I wondered.I consoled my-self with the thought that this was probably just her time of teen age rebellion.I hope so-we have enough lost teenagers living on the street.