The search for 13-year old Jayden Thomas and his 14-year old girlfriend, Braxton Wood, extends into its 10th day, the Daily Mail reports, the young couple having run away from home after their parents told them they would have to attend different schools, and there is little evidence of where they might be.
On the day that Wood and Thomas ran away, Thomas's mother told her daughter that she did not approve of her six-month relationship, telling her she felt it was "too serious" after Thomas told her mother she could not live without her boyfriend.
"That's when I felt I had to bring my daughter back to reality," Kelly Drinkwine, Thomas's mother, told TODAY.
That night, Wood got hold of his mother's Ford Explorer, and the Clare, Mich. couple took off in the middle of the night. The teens were last seen on Monday, Aug. 26 in their hometown, according to the Isabella County Sheriff's Department.
The couple was due to start their freshmen years at two different Michigan high schools this week, which their parents speculate prompted their runaway.
"They can't live on their own. They are 13 and 14 years old. They didn't want to do anything but be with each other. It was pretty intense for a 14-year-old," Wood's mother, Sarah Kiley, told ABC News. "We looked around the house and realized Braxton was missing and we still didn't comprehend it because Braxton hasn't had driver's training. He is a young 14, so no drivers' experience whatsoever."
"It's like a nightmare. You don't know what to do, where to go or who to call," Wood's father, Ed, said to WZZM13.
The parents of the teens, who believe their children had no less than $82, half a tank of gas, a coin collection and video game console between them, appeared on "Good Morning America" to speak about their children's sudden disappearance. Before she left with Wood in the early hours of Monday morning, Thomas wrote her mother a note in lipstick on the mirror, which read: "I love you so much, stay happy and beautiful."
As the teens are runaways and were not abducted, officials will have more trouble locating them, as they cannot issue an Amber Alert, though their license plate had been spotted on the seventh day after their disappearance.
"It's like they fell off the face of the earth. No one can find them," Drinkwine, who no longer supports her daughter's relationship after the runaway, told TODAY. "They are two babies trying to take on the world. There are mean, horrible people out there. Just come home, baby. Just come home."
Part of the team trying to find the teenagers is West Michigan private eye Mike Cook, who admits to reporters that it's "a bit more difficult" than he initially thought it would be to track them down.
"They are 13 and 14-years old, boyfriend and girlfriend. It's our impression they have not made contact with anyone," he told ABC News. "We know they have been in western Michigan. We know they have been throughout central Michigan. The last area we know for sure is the Mt. Pleasant area, but it's been a few days since we've had a good solid lead of where we knew they were." He added that the teens have likely run out of money and will "likely start doing things you don't want to see kids do to make money."
Click here to see photos of the missing teenagers who are being labeled a modern-day Romeo & Juliet. Hopefully, their story will not end in tragedy, and they will get home safely.
