Story Of A Girl

Ch 5

The next morning I woke up to the sound of Cole shaking me and shouting my name. I was sprawled across the the bed groggily rubbing my eyes when I realized what he was saying to me.

"Hurry up Lake! We have to go! The train leaves in 20 minutes!" he yelled frantically waving his arms around in the air to emphasize the importance.

Immediately I sprung out of bed and quickly changed into jeans and a white v-neck. I noticed Cole was already showered and dressed so he went down to the lobby to checkout.

I quickly stuffed all my clothes back into my backpack, tied my vans on my feet, grabbed my skateboard and jolted out of the room to find Cole.

Checkout must have been fast because by the time I got to the lobby, he was already waiting patiently for me by the front entrance.

"Let's go!" I shouted taking his hand and running out of the hotel to the train station.

We only had about 15 minutes to get to the station so it was a good thing that we were both fit enough to sprint the mile distance from the hotel to the station.

Once we finally reached our destination we were both relieved to find the train hadn't left us yet. We pulled out our tickets showing them to the clerk and making our way into the train. As soon as we sat down, we both started laughing.

We almost missed our train; we shouldn't have been laughing. But I guess we both didn't really care at the moment. It just seemed to come out as a thrill for us.

The train started to pull away from the station and I found myself kind of missing El Paso already. I only stayed there one night but in that one night I had so much fun. I had one of the best times of my life. I was sure to put it on my list of places to visit again.

"So now to California, huh?" I turned to Cole who looked back at me with a smile on his face.

"Trust me, if you liked El Paso, you'll love Cali," he stated almost like he was reading my mind and answering the mental questions I had.

"So where are you from in Cali?" I asked. I remember him saying he always visited Lake Tahoe but I didn't know exactly where he was from.

"I was born and raised in Sacramento," he said. Sacramento. It sounded familiar. Oh that's right it was the state Capitol.

"So tell me about it," I urged dying to hear about the golden state.

"It's perfect really. In the summer when everyone is out of school, my friends and I would take trips to the beach off the coast and just spend days sometimes weeks there. We would just hang around going surfing and playing our guitars. At night we'd make s'mores around a fire. Then of course I'd always have to end up going home so we could take me our semi-annual family trip to the lake house at Lake Tahoe. In the winters we'd go snowboarding whenever we got a chance. It's sounds so cliche but honest to God this is what we did all the time," he rambled on and on and I listened carefully to his happiness about the place.

It truly sounded like an amazing place and I couldn't wait until we got there.

I watched Cole's facial expressions change into delight and excitement as he continued reminiscing about his home. I could tell he was ecstatic to be going back.

Silently however I fell asleep laying my head on his shoulder to the sweet sound of Cole's soothing voice describing our destination.

Once again I dreamt. I dreamt of California and just having the time of my life everyday. Hopefully if all things went right I'd be making a permanent home there.

It wasn't used to dreaming. It was so new to me. I normally expected nightmares or the black essence of sleep. I liked it though - dreaming. It felt like I had another reason to go to sleep other than to refuel and rejuvenate my body.