Queen of Nothing

14. Eighteen

So I sat down, and after what felt like hours, Detective Avery came out of his office, thumbs shoved in his pocket, 

"Hey hon. Glad you could make it." 

"What's going on?" 

He nodded towards the office, "Follow me." 

So I did. He led me to his desk, and gestured for me to take a seat, but I remained standing. 

"I'm getting anxious," I whispered, "what is it? Did they find a body?" 

He shook his head somberly, "No. But a tip was called in from somewhere in Louisiana that matched her description. Apparently it was a Jackie Sommers, from your sister's graduating class." 

I leaned back, in disbelief. Over the years we'd received many tips, by people who thought they'd earn a reward for reporting vague information that could be taken as fact, or by those who had wanted a piece of the sympathy, the action. 

Others were mistaken, or just flat out wrong. But a sighting by someone who knew her...it had just never happened before. Jackie and my sister had been friends for years, but towards the end of my sister's time at Crestwood they'd drifted. 

Was it possible?

"Did she try to approach her?" 

He shook his head, "She didn't want to spook her, and wanted to make sure that it was her. From her description, it may very well be." 

Gia was in Louisiana. All these years, I'd considered the worst case scenarios, but never had I considered that she would be alive in New Orleans. 

"Well what are you waiting for," I started, with a frantic edge to my voice, "why hasn't anyone started looking for her?" 

"Well," he began, looking tense, "she's twenty two now. Legally, there's not much we can do. It was different when she was a teen, but now...our options are pretty limited." 

"What are the options?" 

His eyes grew big and sad, as if he knew how terrible his next words would hit me, "We wait for her to come to you." 

Something in me cracked, a shimmering substance spilling out but I held it in. It always came back to this, didn't it? I can't help. My hands are tied. There's not many options left. 

There was always a way to circumvent those absolutes. But Detective Avery was about as exhausted as I was. 

"She's never going to come back," I whispered, pleading. 

"You don't know that," he chided, "things change. You never know if she'll decide to come back and pay you a visit." 

You never know...maybe...stay positive. This was a handful of half-hearted sentiments that also angered me beyond measure. What good was it offering hope to someone who never had it in the first place.

At first, I was devastated, of course, but slightly relieved. Gia needed to get out, get away from the mess our family had descended into. Mom's drinking had gotten out of control, and then men that she brought home had started to become skeevy and invasive. 

But as the years passed, as the notecards indicating her aliveness slowly dwindled, I wondered what I would have done if I had known what she was planning. Would I have run away with her too? 

I would have pleaded with her to stay, my fourteen year old self so hopeful that we could have found a way out. But her decisions fractured us, broke our family beyond repair. 

She could be living it up in Louisiana, or even dirt poor. And yet somehow it was me, it was always me, living with the consequences of her actions.