Every summer my parents found a reason I couldn’t come on the family trip, but the year they

Every summer my parents found a reason I couldn’t come on the family trip, but the year they promised me Myrtle Beach, left before dawn, and replaced my seat with my sister’s boyfriend, all I found was a $40 Applebee’s gift card and a note saying, “Treat yourself.” I packed my truck, drove 2,000 miles away, and eight years later, that little card was still waiting for them…

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I don’t really remember standing up.

What I remember is that I had burned my tongue on my coffee maybe a minute before Tanya came in, and for some reason that was the detail my brain kept grabbing onto.

My tongue hurt.

My parents were in Boise.

Dad hated flying.

This was a man who had once driven fourteen hours to Florida because getting on an airplane bothered him that much.

But somehow, after eight years without seeing me, Randy and Denise had gotten on a plane and flown all the way from Ohio to Idaho.

I walked into the lobby.

Mom was holding a metal tin.

I knew exactly what was inside before she opened it.

Buckeyes.

Peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate. She made them every Christmas when I was growing up.

She looked smaller than I remembered. Her hair was shorter. Dad was heavier, tired around the eyes, and wearing an Ohio State quarter-zip even though it was August.

Mom saw me.

Her entire face changed.

“Oh, Wade,” she said. “Look at you. Look at you.”

Then she hugged me.

I let her.

My receptionist was there. Two of my technicians were passing through the lobby. I had no idea what else to do with my body, so my arms just hung there while she held me.

Dad waited until she stepped away and offered his hand.

“Nice operation, bud.”

He held the handshake a little longer than normal.

Then he looked around.

At the photographs of our trucks.

At the company sign.

At the awards and framed articles.

At employees walking in and out wearing shirts with my company name on them.

I could practically see him doing the math.

Mom wiped her eyes.

“We always knew,” she said. “We always knew you’d be the one who’d be just fine.”

I stared at her.

Of all the things I could have said after eight years, the only sentence that came out was, “You flew.”

She laughed and patted Dad’s arm.

“Your father hated every minute of it. But we had to come. When Kelsey showed us that article, I just sat down on the floor. Eight years, Wade. Eight years and not one word.”

I took them to the breakroom.

I didn’t want to have whatever conversation was coming in front of the receptionist.

The breakroom had one long table, some mismatched chairs, and a refrigerator with a sign Tanya had made reminding everybody to label their food.

Mom put the tin of Buckeyes in the middle of the table.

It looked like a peace offering.

For twenty minutes, we talked about almost nothing.

That was probably the strangest part.

Mom told me who had died back home.

Our old neighbor Gail had moved into a retirement community.

Grandma Jean had passed away four years earlier.

I already knew that.

I had found out on my own.

I’m not going to get into Grandma Jean here because that is one thing I still don’t know how to talk about without getting quiet.

Then Mom told me Kelsey and Brent had two children.

A boy and a girl.

She pulled out her phone and showed me pictures.

The kids were cute.

The boy had red hair.

“He burns,” Mom said with a smile. “Just like you did.”

I looked at the picture.

I didn’t answer.

Then Dad cleared his throat.

Both of his hands went flat on the table.

Something about the way he did it told me the small talk was over.

“Bud,” he said, “things have been a little tight back home.”

And there it was.

At first, everything came out slowly.

Dad had been let go from the insurance company in January.

Nearly thirty years there, and they terminated him on a video call.

He was 61.

He had spent most of his adult life working in claims, and apparently employers weren’t lining up to hire a 61-year-old claims adjuster at his old salary.

Then there was the house.

A few years earlier, my parents had refinanced it.

Part of that money had helped pay for Kelsey’s wedding.

Apparently the wedding had been a pretty big production.

The other part had gone toward buying into a timeshare.

In Myrtle Beach.

I actually thought I had misheard Mom.

“A timeshare?”

She nodded.

They owned one week in a condo every July.

Every July.

The fees had gone up twice, and between the refinance and everything else, they now owed more on the house than it was worth.

Then Mom told me Brent’s company had restructured.

Brent was unemployed too.

That was when I understood why this conversation was happening in my breakroom instead of why they had simply wanted to see their son.

“Brent knows the business, Wade,” Mom said. “Heating, cooling, it’s the same business. And you have what, forty trucks? Surely there’s one spot for family.”

Forty-one, technically.

I didn’t correct her.

Dad looked uncomfortable.

Then he said, “And maybe… maybe a little help with the house.”

Mom jumped in.

“A loan.”

Dad nodded.

“We’d pay it back.”

“How much?”

There was a pause.

“Eighty would cover it,” Dad said.

I looked at him.

“Eighty?”

“Thousand.”

Then Mom said the sentence that I think finally made everything click into place.

“That’s nothing to you now.”

I didn’t get angry.

That surprised me.

I sat there looking at that tin of Buckeyes.

Then I asked, “Do you remember the summer I turned twenty?”

Mom tilted her head.

“Which part, honey?”

“The summer I left.”

Her face changed.

Not guilt.

Confusion.

Real confusion.

“Wade, we came home from a family vacation and you were just gone.”

She leaned forward.

“Gone. Do you have any idea what that did to me? I thought you’d been in some kind of accident. I didn’t sleep for a month. I called hospitals.”

“You knew I wasn’t in an accident. I texted you.”

“One text,” she said. “One text, Wade, after everything we did for you.”

I looked at her.

“You told me I could come.”

She blinked.

“What?”

“In February. At dinner. I asked if I could come to Myrtle Beach that year. You said, ‘Of course.’ I took the week off work. I packed a bag. I set an alarm.”

Dad stopped looking at me.

I continued.

“And you left at four in the morning so I wouldn’t wake up.”

Mom looked at Dad.

Dad looked down at the table.

Finally Mom spoke.

“Honey, Brent was coming.”

“I know.”

“It was a two-bedroom condo. I couldn’t have you sleeping on a couch at twenty. That’s not fair to you.”

I almost laughed at that, but nothing about it was funny.

“And you never cared about the beach,” she continued. “You always told me you were fine.”

“I was a kid.”

She frowned.

“Kids say they’re fine.”

Her voice started getting higher.

“You had the whole house to yourself every summer. Do you know how many teenagers would love that? We trusted you. We gave you that.”

Gave me that.

I sat there remembering cereal for dinner at thirteen.

The lawn.

The fake football conditioning.

The geometry class.

Paige asking why I never got to go.

Mom telling her I burned.

“Kelsey was always so anxious,” Mom said. “She needed the trips. It was the only time all year she was really happy. You were the strong one. You never needed anything.”

I felt something happen in my throat.

Not crying.

Not quite.

Just a tightness.

“I needed to come.”

That was the only sentence where my voice betrayed me.

“I needed to come.”

Dad finally looked up.

For several seconds, he just watched me.

Then his eyes dropped back to his hands.

Mom pressed her lips together.

And then, somehow, she moved on.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a blue folder.

She slid it across the table.

Inside was Brent’s résumé.

Under that was a printed copy of my parents’ mortgage statement.

A number had been circled in pen.

“We don’t need to fight about the past,” Mom said. “We’re here now. We’re your family. Family helps family. That’s all this is.”

I stared at the folder.

Eight years.

And somehow the past had taken about five minutes before it became inconvenient.

I closed the folder.

“Let me think about it.”

Mom’s face brightened so quickly it startled me.

“Of course. Of course, honey. Take your time.”

Then she told me they were staying at an extended-stay hotel near the airport.

“We’re not going anywhere until we sort this out.”

I walked them to their rental car.

Mom hugged me again.

Dad shook my hand.

He opened his mouth like he was about to say something.

Then he stopped.

I watched them drive away.

When I went back inside, Tanya was standing in the breakroom doorway with her arms crossed.

Our breakroom door doesn’t close all the way.

I’d been meaning to fix it for about a year.

She had heard most of the conversation.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

And I meant it.

For the next two weeks, I did almost nothing about them.

I didn’t call.

I didn’t text.

I didn’t contact Kelsey.

I went to work.

I ran meetings.

I handled customers.

I went to my Thursday night basketball game and shot maybe thirty percent, which is bad even by my standards.

I walked Biscuit.

Biscuit is my dog. She came from the shelter and is afraid of vacuum cleaners and, for reasons nobody has ever explained to me, the color orange.

On Sunday, I went to the diner on Vista Avenue.

The same diner where Lyall had once sat across from me over pancakes and offered to sell me his van and customer list.

I finished breakfast and stayed in the booth long after the plate had been cleared.

Meanwhile, Mom texted every day.

Sometimes twice.

At first, the messages were sweet.

“So good seeing you, honey.”

“Your company is so impressive.”

“Dad hasn’t stopped talking about it.”

Then they became practical.

“Brent could start as early as Monday if that helps your schedule.”

Then the tone shifted.

“Wade, we can’t stay at this hotel forever. It’s not cheap.”

Dad sent exactly one text during those two weeks.

It came on the ninth day.

“Your mother hasn’t been sleeping.”

Kelsey sent me a much longer message.

“I don’t know what happened between you and them, but they’re old, Wade. Dad lost his job after 30 years. Whatever you think they did, they’re your parents. Don’t be petty. You have literally millions of dollars.”

Then came the part that stayed with me.

“Typical Wade, just disappearing when things get hard.”

Typical Wade.

I read that sentence several times.

I wondered what story they had told themselves about me for eight years.

Maybe they genuinely believed that I was the difficult one.

Maybe that was easier than remembering the empty garage.

On the eleventh night, I walked outside to my Silverado.

I still had the truck I bought at eighteen.

The tailgate only opened if you hit one particular place with the side of your fist.

I could afford any truck I wanted.

I just never wanted another one.

I opened the passenger door and sat down.

I almost always drive, obviously, so sitting on that side felt strange.

Then I opened the glove box.

Registration.

Tire gauge.

An old Lyall’s Heating and Air pen.

And behind all of it was the envelope.

The cardboard had gone soft around the corners.

The sticky note had lost its adhesive years ago, so at some point I had taped it back onto the envelope.

I couldn’t even remember doing that.

Mom’s handwriting was still perfectly readable.

Treat yourself.

Love, Mom.

P.S. Garbage goes out Tuesday.

I sat under the dome light for a long time.

I thought about nine-year-old me watering Grandma Jean’s tomatoes.

Eleven-year-old me counting seats.

Thirteen-year-old me mowing the lawn while the three of them stood together on some beach in white shirts.

Fifteen-year-old me quietly checking the community college schedule and discovering Mom had lied about the next geometry session being full.

Eighteen-year-old me offering to pay for his own room.

Nineteen-year-old me buying sunscreen because for once I had believed her.

And then I thought about the sentence:

“That’s nothing to you now.”

Maybe eighty thousand dollars really wasn’t a life-changing amount for me anymore.

But that wasn’t the point.

For two weeks, I kept trying to make the decision about money.

It wasn’t about money.

On the fourteenth day, I texted Mom.

It was the first time she had ever had my new number.

“Applebee’s on Milwaukee Street. Thursday. 6:00. Bring everyone.”

She answered within thirty seconds.

“Wonderful. We’ll be there. Kelsey and Brent are flying in. We were going to tell you. They want to see you so badly. Love you, honey.”

I stared at that one for a while too.

Kelsey and Brent were already flying in.

Before I had even said yes.

Thursday evening, I got to Applebee’s around 5:45.

I asked for a large booth in the back.

Our server was a young guy named Colton who had more energy than I think I’ve had in my entire life.

I told him I’d be covering the whole table.

He gave me a thumbs-up like I had just done something heroic.

A little after six, my family came through the door.

Mom first.

She was wearing a nice blouse and had clearly made an effort.

Dad followed.

Then Kelsey.

I hadn’t seen my sister in eight years.

That’s a strange experience.

She looked exactly like herself, and yet somehow like a completely different person.

Older around the eyes.

Same way of walking.

Same expression she got when she was evaluating a room.

And around her neck was the shark tooth.

The same kind of leather necklace she had come home wearing after that first Myrtle Beach trip.

Maybe it was the same tooth.

I never asked.

Brent came in behind her.

His teeth were still very white.

He walked right up to me, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hey, chief.”

He called me chief.

Just like he used to call Dad.

I shook his hand.

Kelsey gave me a quick, stiff hug.

“Wow,” she said, looking me up and down. “Look at the big shot.”

Then she added more quietly, “Thanks for finally answering.”

We sat down.

Mom ordered the salad she had always liked.

Dad ordered a steak.

Brent ordered the most expensive entrée on the menu and an appetizer for everybody.

Kelsey ordered a margarita.

I got water.

For a while, nobody talked about why we were there.

Mom showed me more pictures of the grandkids.

Kelsey checked her phone every few minutes.

Brent talked about the HVAC industry for six straight minutes.

He talked about efficiency ratings, commercial accounts, margins, and what he thought I should be doing differently.

“I’ve got a lot of ideas about your commercial side,” he told me.

I nodded.

I had never asked for his ideas.

When the food came out, Dad put down his fork before taking his first bite.

He looked at me.

“So, bud. Have you had a chance to think?”

Everything at the table stopped.

Kelsey placed her phone facedown.

Brent stopped chewing.

Mom watched me expectantly.

“I have.”

I reached inside my jacket.

I took out the cardboard envelope.

And I placed it on the table.

Then I slid it toward Mom.

It stopped beside her salad.

She stared at it.

For the first second or two, she clearly had no idea what she was looking at.

Then she noticed the sticky note.

Her handwriting.

Her hand moved toward her mouth.

Kelsey leaned sideways.

“What is that?”

Mom didn’t answer.

“What is that?” Kelsey repeated.

I looked at my mother.

“It’s from the morning you left for Myrtle Beach.”

Nobody spoke.

“When I was twenty,” I continued. “It was sitting on the counter when I came downstairs with my bag.”

Mom touched the edge of the envelope.

I could see recognition spreading across her face.

“It’s the last thing you ever gave me,” I said. “I never used it.”

Her eyes filled.

“You kept this?”

“For eight years.”

I leaned back.

“I kept it in my truck. I figured one day I’d give it back.”

Then I put my hands flat on the table.

Exactly the way Dad had in my breakroom.

“Dinner’s on me,” I said. “That’s my answer.”

There was a moment when nobody understood.

Then everybody did.

Brent reacted first.

“Wait. What does that mean for the job?”

“It means there isn’t one.”

Dad looked at me.

“Wait.”

He said it softly.

Mom lifted her eyes from the gift card.

Her voice cracked.

“Honey, we have a mortgage. We could lose the house.”

“I know.”

I paused.

“I’m sorry about Dad’s job. I mean that. But I’m not going to pay for the house you refinanced for the timeshare you bought for the trips I wasn’t allowed to go on.”

Kelsey’s face turned red.

“Oh my gosh. Are you seriously doing this in an Applebee’s?”

I looked at her.

“You picked the restaurant.”

She frowned.

“What?”

“Eight years ago.”

Her mouth opened.

Then closed.

For a second she looked down at the envelope.

Then at Mom.

Then, I think, at the shark tooth hanging from her own neck.

Maybe I imagined that last part.

I’ve replayed the dinner enough times that I no longer trust every tiny detail.

Dad stared at the card.

“Forty dollars,” he said.

He gave something close to a laugh, except there was nothing amused about it.

“That’s what you’re going with? Forty dollars?”

“That’s what you thought I was worth.”

The table went completely silent.

“I’m just giving it back.”

I didn’t yell.

That matters to me for some reason.

I didn’t say it cruelly.

I said it the same way Lyall taught me to give a customer a repair price.

Straight.

Fair.

Mom started crying.

Not theatrically.

She didn’t cause a scene or raise her voice.

She just sat there with one hand over her mouth and the envelope in the other.

Dad put his arm around her shoulders.

Then he looked at me.

I have spent months trying to understand that look.

The closest description I have is that he looked like a man who had just been handed a bill, checked every line, and realized the total was correct.

Brent leaned back.

“This is unbelievable.”

Nobody answered him.

I stood.

I walked away from the booth and found Colton near the host stand.

I handed him my credit card.

“Run the whole table,” I told him. “And put a good tip on it.”

Then I handed him the Applebee’s gift card.

“Use this first.”

Somewhere between the booth and the host stand, Mom had given the envelope back to me without saying anything.

Colton looked at the card.

Then the old envelope.

Then at me.

“It’s still good,” he said. “These never expire.”

“I know.”

I looked toward the back booth.

“That’s kind of the whole thing.”

He ran the card.

Forty dollars.

Balance: zero.

He asked whether I wanted the empty plastic card back.

“No. You can toss it.”

But I kept the sticky note.

I didn’t return to the booth.

I walked outside.

The Silverado was sitting under the parking lot lights.

I got in and started the engine.

For about a minute, I just sat there.

Through the restaurant window, I could see the booth.

Mom was still crying.

Dad sat beside her staring at nothing.

Kelsey was looking at her phone.

Brent was eating the appetizer.

That detail made me laugh later.

Not that night.

That night I put the truck in reverse and drove home.

That dinner happened two months ago.

My parents stayed in Boise another three days.

Then they flew back to Ohio.

I know because Mom texted me from the airport.

“I hope someday you understand that we did the best we could.”

I read it.

Then I read it again.

I didn’t answer.

The strange thing is that I believe she believes it.

I don’t think Mom wakes up in the morning thinking she was cruel to me.

I think in her version of our family, Kelsey was the child who needed more and I was the child who could handle less.

Every time I accepted less without complaining, that became proof that I needed even less the next time.

And because everybody kept functioning, she called that good parenting.

I don’t know what text message fixes a belief like that.

So I didn’t try.

Kelsey handled things differently.

She made a long Facebook post about family, forgiveness, and what money does to people.

Several cousins sent me screenshots.

I read the first paragraph.

Then I stopped.

I didn’t need to know which role I had been assigned.

The greedy brother, probably.

The bitter son.

The guy sitting on millions while his parents struggled.

Maybe all of those things make sense if your version of the story begins eight years too late.

In September, the house in Westerville went up for sale.

I know because one night I looked it up.

Just once.

The listing photographs were weird.

The rooms had changed, but they hadn’t.

Different decorations.

Different furniture in a few places.

But the kitchen still had the same basic counter.

Same coffee maker.

I stared at the picture longer than I should have.

I could almost see that cardboard envelope sitting there again.

I don’t know whether Mom and Dad managed to sell the Myrtle Beach timeshare.

From what I understand, those things can be hard to get rid of.

Brent found another job.

I heard he was selling water heaters at a big-box store in Columbus.

Good for him.

I mean that.

I never wanted Brent to be unemployed.

I simply didn’t want him working for me because my family had suddenly decided my company was a family resource.

Then, about a month after the Applebee’s dinner, Dad sent me one final text.

No greeting.

No explanation.

Just one sentence.

“The van seated seven, bud. I’m sorry.”

I sat at my kitchen table and read it.

Then I read it again.

Then again.

I’ve read that message a lot more times than anything Kelsey wrote.

I still haven’t answered.

I might.

I honestly don’t know.

The strange thing is, I’m not angry at Dad the way I expected to be.

Maybe I should be.

He stood behind Mom while she told me there wasn’t room.

He nodded toward the cooler.

He watched television while I asked to come on the trips.

He said, “Your mother handles the trips.”

He let that be enough for years.

But when I picture him now, I don’t picture some villain.

I picture a man who spent thirty years letting somebody else “handle the trips” and only recently understood how expensive that decision became.

Not financially.

Although apparently that too.

Around the same time Dad sent that message, I finally made a decision about the private equity offer.

I signed.

Nine million dollars.

Even typing that still looks fake to me.

The deal also has me staying on as president for another two years.

I’m fine with that.

I like working.

I like the company.

And I’m not sure what I would do with myself if I woke up tomorrow with nowhere to go.

Tanya got a raise.

A big one.

Big enough that she cried when I told her.

She will deny that if anybody asks.

I paid off the loan on our Nampa building.

Then I called Lyall’s wife in Arizona and got some information from her without telling Lyall what I was doing.

I bought them a new car.

Lyall called me as soon as he found out.

He yelled at me for approximately eight seconds.

That was always about how long his temper lasted.

He told me I was an idiot.

Said I had no business spending money on an old man.

Asked what was wrong with his current car.

Then he went quiet.

“Thank you,” he said.

That was it.

That meant more to me than most things.

And then I did something Tanya had been trying to make me do for years.

I booked a vacation.

A full week.

Eight years in Boise.

No real vacation.

Not one.

Tanya asked where I was going.

“I’m not sure yet.”

She leaned against my office door.

“Not the beach, I’m guessing.”

And I almost immediately said no.

Then I stopped.

Because suddenly I realized something.

“I might.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“The beach?”

“Yeah.”

“Which beach?”

I laughed.

“I don’t know. Maybe Myrtle Beach.”

That surprised both of us.

For most of my life, Myrtle Beach hadn’t really been a place.

It was proof.

Proof that there was room for Kelsey but not me.

Proof that a condo could fit her friend but somehow not her brother.

Proof that Brent’s presence mattered more than a promise made five months earlier.

Proof that my family had a “happy place” and I wasn’t part of the picture.

But when Tanya asked me where I wanted to go, I pictured the actual beach.

Sand.

Ocean.

That Ferris wheel.

Some kid digging for shark teeth.

And I realized I wouldn’t mind it.

I could go to Myrtle Beach.

I could ride the Ferris wheel I looked up when I was nineteen.

I could walk along the water.

I could look for a shark tooth.

And it would just be a beach.

Not their beach.

Not Kelsey’s beach.

Not some judgment on whether I had been a good enough son.

Just sand and water.

That realization felt bigger than I expected.

A few nights after I signed the company deal, I left the office later than usual.

I drove home in the Silverado with the windows down.

It was the first week of October.

Somewhere nearby, somebody had started using a fireplace, and the air smelled faintly like smoke and dry leaves.

I passed a billboard.

Of all things, it was an advertisement for sunscreen.

For years, the smell of sunscreen could put this strange knot in my stomach.

Especially in July.

It would bring back the sunglasses sitting in my cup holder for five months.

That bottle I bought because I was finally going.

The empty garage.

That stupid exclamation point after “Treat yourself.”

I waited for the old feeling.

Nothing happened.

I just kept driving.

When I got home, Biscuit was waiting at the door.

I fed her.

She followed me into the kitchen.

I looked at the refrigerator.

There’s a picture there now of my crew from the company barbecue.

About a hundred people scattered across picnic tables and folding chairs, spouses and kids mixed in, everybody squinting into the sun.

Nobody wearing matching white shirts.

Beside that picture is the yellow sticky note.

I put it there after the Applebee’s dinner.

I don’t keep it hidden in the glove box anymore.

Treat yourself.

Love, Mom.

P.S. Garbage goes out Tuesday.

For eight years, that note meant something very specific to me.

It meant forty dollars instead of a seat in the van.

It meant being remembered just enough to take out the trash.

It meant somebody saying, “Here, do something nice for yourself,” while driving away to do something nice without you.

Now I’m trying to let it mean something else.

Not forgiveness exactly.

I’m not there.

Maybe I never will be.

I haven’t called Mom.

I haven’t answered Kelsey.

Dad’s text is still sitting unanswered on my phone.

“The van seated seven, bud. I’m sorry.”

Sometimes I open it.

Sometimes I think about replying.

Not because I suddenly think everything is fine.

It isn’t.

But maybe there’s a difference between somebody asking you for eighty thousand dollars and somebody finally admitting there really was an empty seat.

I’m still figuring that out.

That night, after I fed Biscuit, I went out to the back porch.

The air was cold enough that I should have put on a jacket, but I didn’t.

I sat there for a while.

And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t replaying the Applebee’s dinner.

I wasn’t thinking about Kelsey’s Facebook post.

I wasn’t calculating what Mom and Dad owed on their house.

I wasn’t wondering what would have happened if Dad had spoken up when I was eleven, or fifteen, or eighteen, or nineteen.

I wasn’t thinking about the minivan.

I wasn’t even thinking about Myrtle Beach.

I was thinking about whether Biscuit would completely lose her mind if I ever bought an orange suitcase.

Then I laughed.

Just sitting there by myself.

The company was sold.

My employees were taken care of.

Lyall had a new car.

My parents would figure out their house.

Brent had a job.

Kelsey still had her shark tooth.

Dad had finally counted the seats.

And I had a week off.

The first real vacation of my life.

I still don’t know exactly where I’m going.

But Myrtle Beach is on the list.

Maybe I’ll ride the Ferris wheel.

Maybe I’ll walk the shoreline early in the morning.

Maybe I’ll finally find the shark tooth I put on the back of a spelling test when I was nine.

Or maybe I won’t find anything.

That would be okay too.

Because I finally understand that I don’t have to wait for somebody to invite me anymore.

The sticky note is still on my fridge.

Right beside the picture of my crew.

Treat yourself!

I’m working on it.

THE END.
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