Disclaimer: I do not own American Graffiti. That much is obvious.

He should have left the second she got out the car. Hell, he should have left before she had even shut the door. But he hadn't. He had sat there in his car, saying he would leave when she reached the door, just to make sure she got in alright. Yet moments after she entered the house, he was still there, not ready to move.

"I haven't cried so much. And the tears and everything, man… I leaned down towards the microphone and I almost shorted myself out!" Wolfman Jack cackled over the radio, as the song Since I Don't Have You drew to a close.

Looking rather dejectedly at Carol's now-empty seat, Milner nodded his head to Wolfman Jack's raspy words, and slowly began to drive. He wasn't as relieved to see her go as he thought he'd be. He had been trying to get rid of her, to take her home, since she got into the car, but, in the end, he couldn't help liking her.

Glancing at the dashboard, Milner noticed the tiny needle on the gas gauge steadily advancing to "empty." He had wasted an entire tank of gas chaperoning that kid around. Running his fingers over the now knob-less gear shift, he glanced over at her empty seat again, still obviously sticky from the Coke that they had spilled there hours ago. Already the absence of her incessant chatter gave the car a silence the radio just couldn't make up for.

She was just a kid; not old enough for anything serious. She was what? Fourteen? It was lucky he was able to drive her around for a few hours without getting arrested! Come to think of it, a couple of times during the night, he almost had been. But in the end, it didn't really matter. It was just one more thing to laugh about later.

Turning the corner, Milner easily sped past the few cars still cruising at this hour. There were still some out there, but most were parked, usually containing more people than the owner had started out with. Slowing down as the light ahead of him turned red, he tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. The red lights had seemed a lot shorter earlier. Probably because, earlier, Carol had been there to talk to him. In the beginning, it had been distracting, but he had gotten used to it, even enjoyed it. He had to admit, she had ended up being pretty good company.

Pulling into a gas station, Milner took a slightly raw hand from the gearshift, now torn from using it without the knob.

"Shit," he muttered, turning around in his seat. He rummaged around in the back for something to cover the gearshift with, irritated with himself for giving her "something to remember him by," as she had put it. He finally unearthed an old rag he used to clean his car off when no other means were available.

He turned back around in his seat, rag in hand. So that was it. A few sticky drops of a once spilled ten cent Coke and a gearshift missing its knob were the only things that were left.

She had been dumped on him when he had gone cruising earlier that night. He, like her older sister and her friends, the girls that had originally taken her out onto the nighttime roads, the girls Milner had initially been interested in driving with, hadn't wanted her. Yet now, though he had once been so anxious to get her home, a part of him wished she had not given him her address.