Page 67 of Oblivious Roommate

Are we even on the right track?

“What do you want me to do? It was meant to be warm-ish, sunny, with a bit of wind and no rain. How could I have predicted this?” Cassian shouts back. He’s ahead and has to turn around so I hear him over the buzz made by nature clashing above us.

Water drips from my hood and I can’t help feeling sorry for myself, because his jacket is of better quality, and I’m sure it’s not leaking. Unlike mine.

“What if there’s bears around here?” I complain, but then the flashlight attached to my shoulder glitches a few times. And then dies. “Oh, just fucking perfect!”

“There’s no bears!”

“Well, there wasn’t supposed to be any mountain lions around, but one decided to follow us for half an hour,” I call back, increasingly agitated.

Cassian slips, and I hold my breath as he slides down the slope, somehow managing to keep himself upright.

“Damn it!” he growls but grabs a tree to help himself move out of the path and onto the mossy undergrowth.

“Are you okay? Maybe we should turn back after all? My flashlight’s broken!” I rush over, frustrated by how slow the mud makes me. I’m about to reach him when I lose my footing and fall to my knees, straight into a puddle. “Fucking shit! Can I get a break?” Frustrated, I sit in the damn mud, because there’s no salvaging this situation.

Cass scoots next to me and places his hand on my shoulder. It’s as cold as I am, and no matter how much I love nature, I wish we hadn't left our cozy apartment in town tonight.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles from under the hood as a gust of wind snatches water off him and splashes it in my face.

I can’t win.

I take a deep breath. As much as I love him, this trip was a bad idea. We noticed the dense clouds when leaving the apartment earlier, and if he’d listened to me, we would have turned back before this onslaught of rain.

“We’re gonna die here,” I complain and reluctantly grab his hand when he helps me up.

He exhales, and while I can barely see his face at this point, I know him enough to imagine his resigned expression. “No. We’ll just be wet and disgusting, and way too exhausted for a horny weekend in nature.”

I grunt in displeasure, because he’s reading my mind. That’s what I’m really upset about. I imagined cuddling under two blankets on the porch, or some action by a moss-covered tree. Dumb, I know now, but a boy can dream.

“Let’s just go so I can warm up at some point, because at this rate I will get pneumonia and you’ll have to leave me to the bears.”

“Honey, I would never leave you to the bears. I would sit on your shoulders, and we’d push back against them together,” Cassian says, giving me a brief hug that for once doesn’t feel at all nice, because we are both wearing damp water-resistant jackets, so it feels like we’re two icicles rubbing through cellophane.

But I’ll take what I can get.

I sigh and when he starts walking, I follow, resigned to my fate. I wanted to pick a fight because of how miserable this all is, but he manages to calm me down even in these dire circumstances.

“‘Honey’ sounds nice,” I mumble.

“You like that?” he shouts back as the rain intensifies. I reach for his hand, but it’s so cold we both decide to focus on just reaching our destination instead of holding hands like two babies on a Victorian Valentine’s card.

The trek is miserable, but I also find myself battling guilt over going after him so hard. Cassian booked us a cabin because he wanted to spend time with me, away from everyone else, and here I am, only pointing out the bad things.

Still, I know there is no point in having this conversation now, so I drag one foot after the other, following Cassian’s lead. I don’t know how much time passes before he utters a loud cry of victory.

“We’re here!”

“What? Where?”

I look around, and a lightning bolt illuminates the sky revealing a dark cabin at the top of the hill we’ve been climbing.

I wished to hide from the rain, but now that I see the place, I’m freaked out by how spooky it appears.

“What if there’s squatters?” I ask. “Not that I’m scared or anything!”

“There’s no squatters. Just look how dark it is,” Cassian says and grabs my arm, instantly invigorated. The air smells of moist dirt and leaves, but right now I want nothing more than to leave those wonderful natural scents behind and follow Cass to the dark silhouette of the building. There’s also a shed close by, but we ignore it and dash straight for the main building.