The Summer I Left novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: There's Room

On the first Monday of the next summer, I packed the car in my parents' driveway.

It was my car now, a used green hatchback.

I had paid for it with diner money, campus job money, and a little left over from a cashier's check.

Eddie had loaded the cooler.

He had also loaded four bags of pretzels and a cardboard sign that said *LAKE OR BUST.*

"Minnesota is eleven hundred miles," Eddie said. "My mother has already made the lefse. She says she'll be offended if you're skinny."

"I'm not skinny."

"You are a little skinny. She'll fix it."

Nate stood on the porch with his headphones around his neck, counting the steps.

There were eleven. There had always been eleven.

He came down them one at a time and stopped at the bottom.

Dennis was at the trunk, jamming in a duffel that didn't want to fit.

Carol stood beside him with her purse in both arms and a folded sweater on top of it.

They had not asked to come.

They would never ask now. They had learned to wait for me to say.

"I'll pay for the first tank," Dennis said.

He did not look up. His ears were red.

I remembered another driveway, another cooler, and a first tank of gas I had paid for out of my tips.

"Okay," I said.

He looked up at me, and his whole face changed.

"You pay for the first tank," I said. "I'll get the second."

"Thank you, Drew."

"Don't thank me. Just get the bag in."

He shoved it in, and the trunk closed.

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