September

“We have to get a Philly cheese steak, obviously.”

“Yes, Andrew we will get your fat lard ass a cheese steak,” I said, finally catching up to my friends. They had left me, half asleep, in the car. The boys had taken turns driving the 12 hour drive and I agreed on the three hour drive home.

We left Chicago late but the boys insisted on getting home tonight. I agreed. Another starchy motel bed might just kill me. Despite our sudden desperate want to get home, the Philly lights had called to us. Or well, to them; I was sleeping at the time.

“No need to be a grump man, I’m sorry we woke you up from your cat nap.”

I attached myself to my boyfriend’s side and stuck my tongue out at the offender. He let me get a glimpse of his middle finger as he wrapped his arm around my best friend’s shoulder. Cora let out a laugh.

“You’re such a child,” she said mildly, leaning her head on Andrew’s shoulder. I scoffed and continued walking in silence. Part of the whole newfound happiness thing was that I was able to keep my ego in check.

It was starting to get dark out and we were all starving. We found a cute little diner that looked like it was straight out of the fifties and without looking at the menu, we all ordered chocolate milkshakes and Philly cheese steaks. Mostly because that’s just what you do in Philadelphia.

“It feels weird to think we’re so close to home,” Cora said, sipping at her milkshake through a white and red striped straw.

“It feels weird to think that I actually want to go home. I never thought I’d see the day,” I said. Brendan rested his arm on the top of the seat and I leaned into him. He smelled clean, which was something he never smelled like.

“I’m happy to be going home but it’s gonna suck without you two around,” Brendan said. Cora and Andrew were leaving in two weeks today to start their college life at Duke.

“You’ll still have me Bren,” I said sweetly, looking up at him. He grinned down at me and kissed my nose and then my lips.

“You’re all I need babe.”

“Oh, don’t make me sick,” Andrew said, fake vomiting over the side of the booth. I rolled my eyes and tried to slap him across the table. He leaned away and chuckled.

“I dealt with you and Cora and you guys were so much worse than us!”

“Only a little bit worse!” Cora protested. At the look on my face she laughed. “Okay, yeah, we were worse.”

“You still are worse, don’t lie to yourselves,” Brendan said, sitting back as the waitress put our dishes in front of us. Cora picked a fry off her plate and threw it at him. I laughed and threw one of mine at her before I plucked the ketchup from the end of the table and drowned the rest of my fries in it.

We talked about getting home and how delicious an actual Philadelphia Philly cheese steak was as we ate. I felt a little sad that this was the last meal we would have on the road. It was a nostalgic kind of sad though, so it was okay.

Before we got the check, an older couple put an Elvis song on the jukebox and started dancing to it. True to our strange, eclectic selves, we went over and danced with them. It was an awkward dance from a time that we weren’t from but it was fun anyway. When the song ended, the couple thanked us with smiles on their faces.

The red-haired waitress told us that our food was on the house since we were the nicest kids to come in the place. We insisted that she let us pay and she insisted that we didn’t. We gave her a forty dollar tip.

“You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog,” I sang to Brendan as we walked through the city, “And you ain’t no friend of mine.”

“Damn right that’s because I’m your lover,” he responded smugly. I hit his chest and laughed. He gave me a piggyback ride the rest of the way to the car when I told him off. Life felt good.

I got in the driver’s seat and watched as Cora and Brendan fought over shotgun. She slapped his chest and then kneed him in the crotch before sliding into the passenger seat and leaving my boyfriend to cradle his crown jewels outside.

“I should probably scold you for that,” I said, “But it was funny so high five.”

Brendan eventually found his way to the backseat and I found my way to the highway, where I sped toward home. Cora put Black & White in the CD player so we could listen to it for the last time on the road trip. The boys fell asleep in the back as we sang along quietly, holding hands.

Everything was different now and that was fine by me because technically, everything was the same too.

“I guess you owe me a pot smoking camel then huh?” she said as the last song on the CD ended.

“What?” I asked, glancing over at her and then back at the road when I remembered. I remembered the deal I made with her at the very beginning of the road trip. “I don’t think that exists. I hope you don’t hold me to it.”

“Nah, I won’t but you can buy me some pot and a stuffed camel?”

“We haven’t smoked pot since like, junior year.”

“Maybe we should again before I leave. It’ll be like traveling back in time to our stoner days.”

“Do we know any dealers anymore?”

“I’ll get Andrew to get us some.”

“Okay, sounds good to me.”

We used to get high all the time. We had our own little rock to sit on in the small patch of woods behind my house. It always excited me to do it when my parents were home, lighting up the small green bowl I’d bought at some music festival and walking through the house to my room with bloodshot eyes.

Cora and I had quit smoking regularly a long time ago, only months after we started. It wasn’t really our thing. Every once in a while was cool though, that was fine by me. We fell into silence, each of us wondering about how much had changed since junior year.

An hour later I got off the familiar exit to our sleeping little town. Cora directed me to Brendan’s house, since I didn’t know where it was. I was parked in front of a nice house with the porch light on and a TV flickering in the window.

“Brenny. Bren. C’mon, wake up,” I nudged, leaning over my seat to push his shoulder. His eyes opened slowly and he blinked. “We’re home babe.”

“Oh shit, are we really?” he asked, sitting up. His voice was raspy and it reminded me of mornings waking up next to him in a weird smelling motel. Andrew woke up too, looking just as confused as the other boy. We all got out of the car.

We stood in a circle and just looked at each other. This was it. This was the end of the road trip right here and now. Brendan shifted his weight and hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder.

“Well, I guess this is it then.”

“I think I’m gonna cry,” Cora said, “We should have stayed in Philly tonight. I’m gonna miss you guys.”

“We’ll see each other tomorrow most likely, what are you talking about silly?” Andrew said, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend.

“Nah, it is kind of sad,” I said, frowning a little bit. “I don’t want to keep dropping you guys off until I’m alone in the car for the first time in months and then just go home. It’s weird.”

Brendan pulled me into a hug and I felt like I was going to cry. There were no tears though, just a sentimental sadness; the kind that came with the end of epic road trips.

His front door opened and I saw a blonde woman standing at the door, peering out with a bathrobe on. Brendan looked at her and then we all had a nice group hug. I leaned up and kissed him on the lips.

“Call me if you need me okay?” he whispered and I nodded. He kissed me again before he started walking up his front lawn. We watched as his mom opened the screen door and hugged him. “Hey Ma,” we heard him say distantly.

I drove through the familiar town, this time listening to Cora babble endlessly about how she couldn’t believe this was over. I couldn’t believe it either but I had nothing to say about it.

When I pulled into Cora’s driveway, her mom and dad came out to hug us all. Usually Cora’s parents went to bed early but they’d obviously waited up to see us. I watched her dad carry her suitcase into the house.

My best friend attacked me in a huge bear hug and I felt her hot tears slide down my shoulder. I cried too then. It was hard not to when you were holding onto your skinny best friend who was crying over something you never thought would be quite as great as it actually was.

“Hey, every summer will only get better from here, right?” I said, sniffling and wiping my eyes. She nodded but looked like she wanted to cry more. I let Andrew take over for a little bit.

Her mother finally calmed her down with the promise of Chinese leftovers and a nice clean bed. We waved goodbye to them and Andrew got in the front for the short drive home.

“Some road trip huh?” he said conversationally.

“I’ll say,” was all I said. We were silent, pitch black staring in the windows around us. “Listen, I just want to say thank you for being there for me and Cora but especially for just being a really great friend to me this summer.”

“You don’t have to thank me for being your friend Rae,” he said as I pulled into his driveway. I put the car in park and peered at him through the dark.

“I’m not thanking you for being my friend. I’m thanking you for being a really great friend that not only pushed me to be my best, but stuck up for me that night in Vegas.”

“Well, you’re welcome but that’s what any decent human being would do.”

“Shut up, stop being modest and shit, you’ve helped me out a lot this summer Drew. Just take my thanks and get the fuck out of the car,” I said, playfully punching his shoulder. He threw his head back and laughed at this.

He opened the door and stepped out into the dark. Before walking up to his house he leaned down and looked into the car. I looked up from the steering wheel.

“You’re not so bad yourself Reagan and believe it or not, you’ve taught me a lot of things this summer too.”

I didn’t have a chance to say anything because he slammed the door in my face. I took the compliment and backed out of his driveway. He raised a hand and I was tempted to honk the horn but decided against it.

Five seconds later, I was pulling into my own driveway and parking. I sat in my dark car for a few minutes, just contemplating the past few weeks and this very night. It was impossible to deny it had been something from a storybook. When the porch light flickered to life, I got out of the car.

My mom was standing at the door and I carried my suitcase from the trunk to the door, locking my car at the steps. We looked at each other for a minute before I dropped my suitcase and hugged her. She hugged me tightly, tighter than I could ever remember her hugging me before.

“I missed you Reagan,” she said into my hair.

“I missed you too Mommy,” I whispered into her neck and it was true. Maybe being away from your family makes you realize how much you actually love them and need them. Maybe sometimes it makes you realize how much you don’t need them. “Where’s Dad?”

“Sleeping, he has work in the morning. Nana and I are watching Pawn Stars. We have popcorn, want to watch it with us?”

“Sure.”

I hugged my grandmother and my beagle before sitting on the same couch I’d always sat in. We ate popcorn and watched Pawn Stars. They assured me we could go to breakfast in the morning and I could fill them in about the road trip. I wanted to talk about it.

“I think I’m gonna go to bed now,” I said after my second episode. It was weird to be sitting in my living room again. It was weird to be leaving my shoes by the door and bringing my suitcase up to my bedroom.

I emptied my clothes into my hamper and put away my toiletries. Books and CD’s found their way back to their shelves. I turned on my laptop and went through some of the pictures Cora had uploaded so far.

I loved them all. I hadn’t realized how many pictures she took. They were there from the night of the fireworks and the Hollywood graveyard and the night we got drunk and random ones of us all sleeping, in the car or otherwise. My favorites were the ones with The Maine.

I made my Facebook status simply Home and turned my laptop off. I took a shower in my own bathroom. I brushed my teeth in my own bathroom. I dried my hair with my own blow drier. It was one o’clock in the morning before I was actually ready for sleep.

I could hear my mother and grandmother downstairs in the kitchen. The TV was off but they were probably drinking warm milk before bed. I suddenly wanted to be a part of it. I padded down the stairs to say good night. They kissed my cheeks and hugged me again.

I hesitated at my bedroom door and looked down the hallway. My parent’s bedroom door was open. I heard the toilet in the hall flush and looked up, seeing my dad walk out in his pajamas. He stopped and looked at me.

“You’re back,” he stated simply.

“You didn’t tell her,” I stated back.

“No. I didn’t,” he said. He just looked at me. There was no emotion in his eyes, not even sleep. I wondered if he had even been asleep. I wondered if he had been on the phone with his secretary.

“Okay,” I said, “She’ll know tomorrow.”

I stepped into my bedroom and he started walking down the hallway. I swallowed the lump in my throat and leaned back out of my bedroom door. “Oh and Dad?” I called lightly. He stopped and turned.

“It’s nice to see you too.”

I shut my bedroom door tightly and locked it, breathing in through my nose and then out through my mouth. Tomorrow, I pledged to myself. I had sorted through every problem in my life except for this one. This had to be taken care of.

I turned off the light and crawled under my familiar sheets. The window above my bed was open and a cool breeze blew through. I inhaled the familiar scent of my bedroom and shut my eyes.

It was good to be home.