Dreaming of Cheers (Standing Up to Life Book 3)

Chapter 15:

OUR DEPARTURE THE next morning was frantic and I just tried to stay out of everyone's way. I knew that no matter what I did with my hair at this point it would just end up being messed up by the time we drove there, so I just put it up in a ponytail. I'd made the mistake of asking my parents about how long of a trip it was, 'seven hours or so,' had been my mom's answer. She had told me we should be able to stop at the hotel before going over to my aunt and uncles, so I could make my hair look decent then. Since I was going to in theory have a chance to change, I just put on a pair of my cheer warm-up pants and a cheer shirt. They were comfortable, and even if we ended up going and meeting my family like this – it screamed that I was a girl.

When Dad had finally finished packing everything just the right way, I went out to our minivan and sat down in the middle row of seats. I had a blanket, a pillow, and Emily, my stuffed tiger in hand – fully intending to either read or sleep most of the way up there. As soon as the car was moving, I began making myself comfortable in my seat with my head propped against my pillow. That felt comfortable for a moment until I felt my pony tail digging into the back of my head. I shifted to my side and managed to doze off fairly quickly.

Sometime later I felt a prodding, "Tiffany, wake up..." Mom said to me gently.

"Where are we?" I asked her as I sat up slowly while wiping the sleep out of my eyes.

"Raton," she said.

"Where's that?" I asked sleepily.

"We're not far from the Colorado border," she told me.

"Oh, why'd we stop?"

"Bathroom break silly," she told me and continued to try and get me out of the car. I threw my cheer jacket on and the two of us walked into the gas station where we'd stopped. The bathrooms were single bathrooms which Mom went into first. She came back out shortly with her nose wrinkled up, and I could only imagine just how bad the restroom was going to be. I walked in to find a bathroom that was only one step up from a port-a-potty in grossness! I tried to not pay attention as I looked down at the toilet and pulled my pants down to sit down. I couldn't help but look around the restroom as I went pee though... it was filthy and stunk.

I stood up as quickly as I could and used my foot to flush the toilet. The sink was covered in grime, it looked like the soap was empty, and the paper towel dispenser was also empty – I skipped the hand washing. Mom looked sympathetic as I came out and we walked to the car with Dad.

"That was gross!!!" I told her as we climbed in the car. She handed me a Wet One wipe, and I knew she must have had similar thoughts to what I'd been thinking. 'I suppose I could still have skipped sitting down,' I told myself – but knew I wouldn't really consider that. We were back on the road pretty quickly and I decided to start reading a book. I could hear my dad snoring up in the front seat. Mom ended up coercing me into talking to her since he was sleeping. "I need someone to talk to me..." she had said.

I closed my book and began talking to her about lots of nothing. We talked about some of the scenery as we drove through the mountain passes, and then the absolute barren plains as we passed into the southern area of Colorado. In several areas as we drove there was snow piled up along the sides of the roads. I had been hoping we would get snow back home, but we'd yet to get a storm. Amy's parents said there was snow up near their condo at least – so maybe we'd get to go skiing soon.

Eventually we saw a sign for Pueblo and Mom began looking for somewhere to stop for lunch. Dad woke up about then and suggested the Sizzler when he saw it. I didn't really care, I just wanted out of the car! As we walked in a boy about my age held the door for us and said 'hi' to me shyly. I just smiled, and was somewhat amused as that looked like it had made his whole day. "You know you really shouldn't do that to boys like that," Mom told me quietly as we walked side by side.