Here is the back story…

About two weeks ago my 17 year old cousin started talking about moving to Alberta. She wanted to leave in the middle of the school year, she was going to get a ride with a stranger, and she had come up with the idea very suddenly. I tried to convince her to stay, and so did the rest of our family. I proposed that she wait a little bit to plan the trip, get a job and save money to buy a plane ticket, visit for a little bit in the summer to see if she likes it there, and then decide if she wanted stay permanently. She agreed that she was not going to go right away.

She lied, and she ran away from home a week ago. She cited some cliche reasons such as “small town life isn’t good enough anymore” and “something told me to head west” but the primary reason was that a friend of hers that she had met online had overdosed on crack and promised to go to rehab when my cousin got there.

Although she had been talking about going to Alberta before, she left without telling anyone where she was going, and we didn’t hear from her for four days. Since the ride with a stranger situation was so sketchy, she was registered as a missing person and the police took her computer to search.

In the search her friends were contacted, and the crack addict expressed no concern over the safety of my cousin.

Two days ago we got a collect call from my cousin. It turns out that her friend has no intention of going to rehab and my cousin is not allowed to stay at the addict’s house.

My cousin is living in a hostel. She has no money and absolutely no ID. No winter clothes, nothing.

My great-uncle owns a country wide moving business, and he offered to have one of his trucks bring her home, free of charge. She has refused.

I know her life here was not as bad as being on the streets with no friends. Her family life is good, we all love her no matter what hijinks she gets into. Her parents were never rich, but if she wanted something, like her ipod, they would work hard to get it for her. She has many friends and connections here, and even though there has been some antagonism at her school about her “alternative” style it is in the past now. She claims that her school and small town life sucks, but she would be graduating in 15 months anyway, so if she just waited she could potentially go to college and move to the big city then.

I know it may seem that I am meddling and that she is almost an adult, but I think the fact that she thought she could legally get a job without a social insurance number is a fine example of how naive she really is.

Anyway, does anyone know how I could convince her to just cut this out and come home?
I’m just so worried about her safety. If you don’t think I can convince her to come back, what do you think I can do to improve her situation, help her out a bit?

I am a student and I can not send money.

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