All Alone Is Where We Started, but We All Feel the Same

The rain poured down hard on top of the van’s roof, so hard it sounded like rocks hitting the roof and not water. Callie wiped the fog off the window that she sat next to, to see the dark figures of tress flash by the van. She sighed lightly to herself and looked away from the window and to her camera. She was going over all of the photo’s she had taken tonight; from them setting up to when they were putting the stuff away. Most of the photo’s turned out great, there was the usual couple that were blurry that she deleted, but other than that she was really happy with them.

She turned the camera off and put it away; she would put the pictures on her laptop tomorrow when they got to the hotel in the next city in the afternoon. She looked around the van. Everyone was either on their laptops, listening to their MP3, talking or daydreaming. The noise in the van from the rain was too loud to sleep, plus they haven’t had dinner yet. She was getting very hungry, well everyone was.

“Hey there is a petrol station up ahead, wanna stop there for food?” Jared pretty much yelled from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah!” About 3 voices yelled back.

Callie leaned forward and looked out the windscreen to see a small glow of lights come closer in the sheet of rain. Once they reach the turn off for the petrol station Jared quickly took it, he parked the van in the small sheltered area that was there, but the thing was, where they had to park was away from the building, to get their food they would have to run through the rain.

“Oh, great.” Matt mumbled opening the side door from next to Callie.

Everyone started getting out and stood at the back of the van looking out at the rain. Jared was the last one out and locked the doors.

“So who has an umbrella to sing in the rain with?” Mike asked.

Everyone laughed and Callie reached her hand out from under the cover to get drops of rain onto her hand. The water was cold. She pulled her hand back and shook the drops off. Her lips pressed in a line while she looked at the rain. She loved walking in the rain, but not when it was like this.
A huge gust of wind blew from behind her and wiped her hair into her face, she quickly pulled it back.

“On the count of five?” Matt suggested.
“Yeah, I guess.” Eric mumbled.
“1...2...3...4...” Mike yelled. “5!”

Just as the last number was heard they all started running for the shop, some laughing and others trying not to fall over in the puddles.

Suddenly there was a huge crash of thunder that scared the crap out of Callie and almost made her fall over. She gained back her balance and looked up into the sky as rain hit her face, the clouds were pitch black. She realised that for once the weather man was right; he had forecast thunderstorms in this area.

Then someone grabbed her hand to make her looked back down and run faster as another crash of thunder hit making the ground shake a little. Beau tried to not pull her hand too hard so that she would fall over.

Everyone made it under the outside cover of the shop around the same time. Everyone was breathing heavy and half soaked from the rain. Callie, like the others, pushed her wet hair from her face with her free hand. She didn’t let go of Beau’s hand and he didn’t let go of hers either. Eric then walked up besides her looking like a drowned rat. She started laughing.

“I fell ok.” Eric mumbled taking his beanie off and ringing it out.

She tried to bite back her laugh; it didn’t work well because Beau started laughing at him too. Eric rolled his eyes smiling as he placed his wet beanie back on his head.

“Hey, come inside before you all get more wet!” A man in his late 50s yelled from the door of the shop, it was obvious that he worked there as he was wearing a shirt with the petrol station logo on it.

Everyone went inside and Callie let Beau led her into the warm shop. The man smiled at them and picked up the mop he had sitting by the door. He must be the cleaner, Callie thought. She looked down and noticed all water the guys and her were trailing in.

“Sorry about the water.” She said to the man.
“It’s ok,” He smiled. “Most of the floor is wet anyway from the small leaks in the roof, so be careful the place is a little slippery.”

She smiled back and nods her head and walked beside Beau as everyone headed for the counter. Everyone’s shoes squeaked on the ground from being wet logged. It wasn’t even a minute before Mike and Matt were doing it on purpose to see who could make the loudest noise skidding up the mini aisle of chips. Callie looked at them and laughed as Matt almost skidded into one of the shelfs but managed to stop himself, but Mike couldn’t and crash right into Matt, who then knocked over Jared.

“Pile up in aisle 9!” Eric yelled laughing.
“Cleaner needed!” Beau added.

Callie laughed more with Eric and Beau. The three that were tangled up on the floor started moving while laughing and complaining. Eric went and helped Mike who was on the top of the pile. Beau and Callie dropped their hands, as much as they didn’t want to and helped up the other two. Callie tried to swallow her laughter back, it was hard. There wasn’t a day when she wouldn’t burst out laughing because of them or something they did.

She managed to get Matt back up on his feet and he gave her a side hug as a thank you, she smiled back at him.

“Ok, that’s enough messing around, let’s get food!” Eric yelled throwing his hands up in the air almost hitting Callie in the head.

She hit his arm away from her and laughed before locking eyes with Beau and smiled.