Dreaming of Cheers (Standing Up to Life Book 3)

Chapter 19:

"TIFFANY IT'S TIME to wake up," My dad said to me the next morning. I grumbled and moaned while trying to roll over and go back to sleep. I hated when he said that line.

"Come on Tiffany, let's get going," Mom said to me as well.

"Don't wanna!" I told them grumpily as I forced myself to sit up. My hair was still wet from last night, and I could feel it was a royal mess.

"Come on, let's get going. Do you want to take a shower? Or just wait until you get home?" Mom asked me.

"My hair's already," I stopped and pulled a hair out of my mouth and continued, "wet enough!" I told her sleepily.

Both my parents started laughing at me. I gave my dad a stare that would have blown up an armored fortress and he amazingly enough stopped laughing. I rolled out of bed sleepily and found a set of grey sweatpants in my bag with a little pink heart appliqué, and a pink sweatshirt that matched. I had grumbled a bit when Mom had bought the set for me one day. Not that they weren't really comfy, but they definitely fit into that seven–year-old's clothes look. I didn't care today though... Comfy trumped looking my age today!

I padded to the bathroom and threw them on. My appearance in the mirror was fairly frightening, but I didn't really care. It had been a long week and I was ready to just be lazy for a day. We were going to be in the car all day anyway. The most I was able to get myself to do was wash my face really quick, brush my teeth, and then I came out of the bathroom to see my mom already repacking my stuff in the suitcase. She handed me a hair brush which I took, but quickly turned around and said, "Please...?"

"Alright." She said resignedly. As she ran the brush through my hair she said, "You know if it wasn't for the fact that I never got to do this for you when you were little, I would probably gripe a lot about this..."

"Thank you," I told her simply while both smiling and frowning on the inside. 'So much lost time...' I thought. 'At least I can be me now.'

Once my hair was brushed into a reasonable form, I felt her start pulling the ends into pigtails. "Mommy is there anything else you do with my hair?" I asked nicely.

"You were the one that handed me the brush sweetie," she told me.

I sighed. I needed to start growing soon! I just decided to give Mom a hug. A year ago, I would have done anything to be where I was now, the least I could do was tell her I did appreciate it. "Thank you, Mommy, for everything," I told her.

"You're welcome sweetie. Now let's get going before it gets too late. It's going to be a long drive back home."

"Yes ma'am," I told her and gathered up my remaining stuff thrown around the room. I grabbed Emily before heading down to the car. I caught several smiles from people as we walked down and thought about how I must have looked to them. The little girl carrying her stuffed tiger... It did make me smile though. Even if I was little, I was still a girl!

Dad had already loaded most of the car up, so I just had to pretty much hop in and put my seatbelt on. "We're going to get breakfast in Colorado Springs sweetie," he told me as he climbed in the car and closed it.

"How long is that?"

"About an hour-and-a-half or so."

"Okay, Goodnight," I told him and my mom. The pillow in the car was quickly leaned up against the window and I went back to sleep.

THE TRIP SEEMED to take forever to get home. It hadn't seemed nearly as bad to get there, and in all honesty it hadn't been. About three hours from home, we began hitting a snow storm that made my dad slow down to a crawl. What should have taken three hours ended up taking us six! And, unfortunately, as we drove into my hometown there wasn't a single skiff of snow to be seen. How unfair!