Treasuring Trayce

Chapter 2

After yelling at Elaine for a solid half an hour on the way back to the hotel for rudely interrupting me and Trayce, I take a hot shower and attempt to relax my tense muscles.

After I do my nightly routine of washing my face, combing my hair and brushing my teeth, I climb into bed falling asleep instantly simply by the contact of the warm hotel bed and fluffy pillows.

~~~~~

"Calia..."

"Calia! Get up it's finally time!"

I'm being roughly shaken by an eager figure as I slowly open my eyelids. I do my best to rub the sleep out of my drowsy eyes and ask, "What?"

The mysterious figure scoffs and states, "You know what, now lets go!" I sit up in the uncomfortable chair and observe my surroundings.

I'm seated in a sort of waiting room blocked off by bleak white walls and a disturbingly sad blue tiled floor. The mood is grim and the room reeks of cleaning products.

Confused and frustrated on how I got here I ask, "Where am I? How did I get here and what is going on!?" The unknown figure steps into my line of vision and I discover that it's Elaine.

She takes my arm and leads me towards two swinging doors while asking, "Are you ready?" As I'm about to ask 'ready for what?', we step through the doors and everything goes black.

~~~~~

I jolt into a sitting position panting and sweating as if I just came out of a sauna. I look around only to find that I'm still in my hotel room along with Elaine and Kai whom are still sleeping soundly.

I get up and quietly navigate my way to the bathroom. I shut the door before turning on the light immediately regretting my actions when the artificial white light aggressively blinds me.

After my eyes adjust, I look into the large mirror in front of me. My eyebrows furrow almost instinctively at the exhausted expression that consistently rests on my face.

I grab one of the 'complementary' water bottles and take a few sips before I leave the bathroom, crawl back into bed and fall into a dreamless sleep.

•••••••••••••••••••••

The morning sunlight creeps through the separations in the curtains as I awaken to a fresh mindset and the promise of a new and bright day.

I sit up in bed and stretch out my limbs while letting out a loud yawn aka my war cry.

Elaine stirs in her bed while letting out  a groggy good-morning. I look over at Kai and see that she's already wide awake, per usual, and reading a book. She flashes me a sweet smile and I return the gesture happily.

I enthusiastically jump out of bed and walk over to them so that I can tell them what we are doing for the day.

"Alright guys! So! Right now we are going to get up and get some breakfast at this cute little diner I know, then we are going to come back here and get ready for the game! Got it?" I ask as soon as I'm out of bed.

I may or may not be a morning person.

Kai snaps with both hands and says, "On it love!" I wait a second for any kind of response from Elaine but don't receive one.

Did she just fall asleep on me?

I let out an exasperated sigh and grab two pillows off of my bed. I throw one to Kai and she gives me an affirmative nod already knowing I what I plan to do. We both pull back our arms with a pillow gripped tightly in our hands and catapult them directly at Elaine's head.