Wondering what happened.

Until I was in grade five my best friend was the girl who lived across the road. She was a year older, and she was the adopted youngest child in a home with three older brothers. She was abused. I know that now, although I didn’t recognize it then. She got older; we drifted apart. She started hanging with the wrong crowd. She became scary. When she was in her late teens she ran away from home and we never saw her again. Her mother got a phone call a year later saying, “don't worry, I’m fine. I’m not coming home.” I understand why she would run off. I hope she found happiness and got her life together. But I wonder if truth isn’t much darker than that. She was chalked up as another troubled runaway, but my secret fear is that something happened to her at the hands of her family, and no one bothered to look for her.