Rock All Night

66




We finally reached the cabins.

And Bob.

He was outside in the dark, surrounded by the dogs, who were running around him and yapping.

“You guys okay?” he asked.

In reality, his tone of voice was probably just concerned. Solicitous. Wanting to make sure we were alright.

But remember, at this stage of the game, I was still convinced he was God.

I believe I now have some insight about how Adam and Eve must have felt when their Maker showed up in the Garden of Eden and asked, Hey, have you two crazy kids been eating any apples?

I felt like my soul was laid naked before him, and he could see all my sins. All I wanted to do was run and hide.

Not Derek.

“Never better, Bob!” he crowed.

Killian just giggled uncontrollably as he kept playing his weird, atonal guitar solos.

As the lone sober person, Ryan stepped in as ambassador for the rest of us druggies. “We’re good, thanks.”

“Okay,” Bob said. “If you need anything, just holler.”

And then God and his angels retreated to Heaven, leaving us mere mortals alone in the void.

By this point, my teeth were chattering, I was so cold.

“We should get you a jacket,” Ryan said.

I nodded.

“Derek and I are going in the other cabin, spark up a joint,” Killian announced. “Want to join us?”

“Not for the joint, but we’ll be over in a minute,” Ryan told him.

And Derek and Killian walked off to the other cabin, chatting and laughing madly.

Ryan walked me into my cabin. “Do you want to – uh, Kaitlyn, what are you doing?”

I was running into the kitchen, is what I was doing.

I had only seen the cabin during the daylight. Now that it was dark, I was not entirely convinced that this was actually the right cabin.

‘Not entirely convinced’?

Hell, I was pretty damn sure that I was in the wrong place.

But I knew that if there was orange juice in the fridge, then this was the right place. That I hadn’t been duped.

That I wasn’t irretrievably lost.

And so I raced into the kitchen in the darkness and flung open the refrigerator door –

And there, in the dim light of the weak little bulb, sat the orange juice container.

I was safe.