They Forgot Me at a Rest Stop, I Forgot Them Forever novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Nobody Leaves Without You
Camille buys Samantha a coffee at a highway service plaza and promises nobody will leave without her; when Samantha comes out, the van is gone, and her mother says Samantha texted that she'd take the bus.
My sister bought me a coffee at the service plaza and promised nobody would leave without me.
Her name is Camille.
She was turning thirty-one that weekend, and my whole family was driving to a rented lake house to celebrate her birthday and her engagement.
I had baked the cake.
It was three layers of lemon, and I had held the box on my lap since we left home.
"Ten minutes," my dad said, pulling the silver van into a slot by the doors. "Bathrooms, snacks, stretch."
He pressed a twenty into my hand, the way he always did, for snacks.
My tote bag stayed on the floor of the van with my wallet and keys in it.
Camille's fiance, Brent, had driven up separately to follow us the rest of the way.
His black SUV pulled in behind the van, and he climbed out checking his watch.
"Family photo," I said. "Mom wants one for the group chat."
I stood them in front of the van in the cold sun, Mom in her lilac cardigan, Dad with his reading glasses on their cord, Camille in her cream blazer.
I held up my phone and took the picture.
Behind them, a woman with a toddler on her hip had stopped at Brent's window to ask him something.
He pointed toward the highway.
Camille leaned over my arm and looked at the screen.
"I look terrible," she said. "Don't send that one around."
"You look great."
"Leave your phone plugged in the van, okay? Dad's charger's in the cup holder. I want it full for the lake, I need pictures of the toast."
She was smiling the whole time.
I put my phone on the charger and went inside.
The line for the women's room ran out the door.
When I came out, Camille was at the coffee counter with two cups.
"Hazelnut," she said. "Your favorite. Go sit, I'll tell Mom you're in the line."
"They won't leave, right?"
"Nobody leaves without you," she said, and squeezed my arm.
I was grateful.
I really was.
I stood by the window and drank the coffee while a man in a canvas jacket at the next table looked up from his sandwich, looked at me, and went back to eating.
It was only when the cup was half gone that I walked outside to find them.
The slot where the van had been was empty.
The black SUV was gone too.
I stood in the cold with a twenty-dollar bill and a paper cup and turned in a full circle.
Then I went back inside and asked the woman at the register if I could use her phone.
"Honey, you okay?"
"My family drove off without me."
She slid the cordless phone across the counter.
I knew only one number by heart, my mother's.
It rang six times.
"Hello?" Mom said, over the radio and the sound of road noise.
"Mom, it's Samantha. You left me at the service plaza."
"What? Where are you?"
"In Scranton. At the rest stop. We stopped twenty minutes ago."
There was a pause.
I could hear Camille laughing somewhere behind her, and a car door shutting.
"Samantha," Mom said, in the voice she uses on the church committee. "Camille said you texted her. You're getting a ride with a friend and taking the bus tomorrow."
"I didn't text anybody."
"She showed us the message."
"My phone is in the van. It's in the cup holder."
"Well, I'm not turning this van around on her birthday weekend. We're twenty miles up the road and your father is in the left lane."
"Mom."
"You're twenty-eight years old. You've never needed anyone, that's why it's always you who sorts it out."
Then she said the thing that made me put my hand flat on the counter.
"And don't you dare make a scene up there. Not this weekend."
She hung up.
The cashier looked at me.
"I'll check the lost and found," she said.
I looked at the phone in my hand.
I had not sent a text, and my phone was charging in a cup holder under my sister's hand.
I was not going to stand at the window for another hour and wait to be remembered.
So I handed back the cordless phone and walked out to the trucks.
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