Imagine this. It’s a little past 11 at night, and you’re still living with your parents. You were in a dorm half a year ago, but you had to move back in and it’s Whatever, it’s Fine. Your phone buzzes and you roll over in bed to check it. Since you moved into the room on your 13th birthday, you‘ve been shielded by the same lamplight. You’re 21 now.

Sleepless Nights

The notification is a Snapchat from your best friend, and you reach to check it immediately. You are worried about her after she just went through a heartbreaking breakup and is now living on her own. When you unlock your phone, you see a slightly blurry photo of her back entry room. A picturesque husky looks up at the camera with its tongue hanging happily out of its mouth. Caitlin doesn’t have a dog. Hurried text captions the photo: “found a dog outside near my car, let it in for the night”.

You instantly raise your eyebrows when she replies, leaving any sleepiness behind.

“R u okay?? Do u need help with it???”

Caitlin finally admits that the situation she‘s put herself in is out of her control after some prodding and texting back and forth. She asks you to come over, to help her take care of some stranger’s dog for the night.

You can’t resist such a challenge- who would refuse? You pull yourself out of your cozy sheets, a little sorry that you have to, and tug some pants on, throwing overnight necessities into the first bag you grab.

You pad out of your bedroom and into the hallway. In a strange moment of serenity, you gently open your mother’s bedroom door. She’s asleep behind it, and into the dark you softly call to her. You let her know what’s going on, where you’re going for the rest of the night. No need to, you‘re grown now, but knowing where you are helps ease her anxiety.

Your footsteps remain gentle, as you slip through the front door with a pillow, backpack, phone and keys all in hand. The summer air is sticky with humidity when you step out and onto the front porch.

You climb into the little two-door silver car who you have named Hailey- the one that doesn’t have Bluetooth. She’s missing a sun visor and a tire pressure sensor, and that the horn doesn’t work. The side of the car has a red scratch and the hood is dented from hitting a deer on a dark backroad. Despite what you tell yourself, you love that little car.

The roads are silent and nearly tranquil as you swerve through your small, church-centered town. Less than a handful of cars join yours, even though it’s not technically that late. The stoplights will turn off soon, flashing red until the sun rises. It’s times like these that you remember why driving at night clears your head so aptly.

Caitlin’s living situation is not a typical one. She is a couple years younger than you are, living in her paternal grandparents’ house- their second one. Apparently when you’re old and bored and have an excess of money, it becomes a normal to buy the house for sale in your son’s neighborhood. And to be able to fill it entirely with spare furniture. And to volunteer your son and his family to renovate it for you. With a fair share of begging on Caitlin’s part and a sliver of generosity on her grandparents’, they agreed, begrudgingly, to let her live there. In this entirely stocked, freshly-renovated house, minutes away from her parents, but far enough away to afford some semblance of freedom. You are not jealous of her, and it’s fine, everything’s fine.

An idea strikes you, as you drive. If the two of you plan to stay up most of the night taking care of some stranger’s dog, you’ll need artificially-provided energy. You steer into the brightly-lit parking lot of the Shell gas station. Windows made up the entirety of the storefront, and the warm night air had caused the glass to fog up.

Small Town Sensations

As you make your way into the shop, the woman behind the counter recognizes you and gives a little wave. This is where you come for quick, greasy breakfasts when work mandates you show up insufferably early, up even before the sun. If her gaze follows you as you stride across the brightly-lit store, you don’t notice. As you stand in front of the glass doors of the drink coolers, you realize that you don’t know what Caitlin would pick out. Price, caffeine content, and flavor all have pros and cons – and the choice is made. Enough time has passed now, and you don’t remember which kind of energy drink you chose, but they all work. Plus, your friend has never been a picky person.

You take the drinks up to the counter and pay more than you would like to for them, swiping your card and refusing a plastic bag. An environmentalist raised you, after all.

Back in the car, you toss your purchase into the passenger seat. The cold cans, now blanketed in a thin layer of condensation, roll and settle themselves in amongst your things. If memory serves, you move delicately as you twist the key to start Hailey up. You haven’t replaced the key fob yet, and it has a tendency to fall apart in your hands, or even once, while it was in the ignition. 

You tear out of the parking lot and fly down the road, more to chase the thrill than make up for lost time. Adrenaline and serotonin don’t come cheap- you’ve learned to take what you can.

You lift your foot off of the gas a little and turn off whatever Top-40’s is blaring as you pull into the familiar cookie-cutter neighborhood. You’ve made a habit of missing the turn that leads to your friend’s house–it’s almost comical at this point. With the radio off and a speed of around 10 over instead of 25, you’re more easily able to focus on your imaginary landmarks: The house with the cop car, the triple bump in the asphalt, the dog that barks when you pass.

You didn’t miss the turn that night. Or did you? You’ve traveled down that cracked road and back and missed that one turn so many times. Plus long-term depression has made your memory so much worse than it ought to be. The house appears in your line of sight, and you squint your eyes, skillfully making the tight little turn into your friend’s driveway. You are careful to miss the light pole that stands ominously close to the pavement.

You remember hearing the dog barking from inside the house before you saw him. Before you even put the car into park and took off your seatbelt. That’s where your memory starts to fade- it was a long, sleepless night, exhausting.