The Cherry Trees

Chapter Fifteen: 2013

"I- I LOVE YOU LIKE A LOVE SONG BABY!" Lexi screamed.

She was so hyped up on candy and soda, that even her mom was getting annoyed with her. We were listening to a Selena Gomez song in our ride up to our condo from the airport, and Lexi was going all out to the point where people from other cars were looking over at us.

This morning, I had been woken up by my mother, telling me that I had to start getting ready to go to Ocean City. Of course, I was so excited that all the tiredness left my eyes the moment they fluttered open. Once my mom left the room, letting only a little sliver of yellow light enter my room from the hallway, I had pulled open my bear and taken out my walkie- talkie as fast as I could.

"Lexi! Are you ready?" I asked.

A few minutes passed before she answered. "Whaa?"

Great, she wasn't even awake. "We are leaving in two hours!"

"Oh YEAH!"

I rolled my eyes, and began to pack all the rest of my things up, that I couldn't put in my suitcase a few days ago. When I was finished, I took a quick shower, and got in some comfortable clothes that I knew I would be fine in for the trip there. Of course, my mom insisted on braiding my hair, and I didn't feel like arguing. When I was all finished getting ready, I said goodbye to my parents, though I could tell they were having a tough time parting with me.

"Promise you will call everyday," mom said.

I nodded.

"And listen to Ms. Lotter," my dad said.

"I will."

Then, I lugged my suitcase through my backyard, rushing to get onto Lexi's lawn, since it was still dark out and I wasn't sure what was lurking around in these woods. After pulling my luggage all the way to the driveway, Ms. Lotter helped me load it into the trunk of her silver Honda, and we were on our way to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport.

To be honest, I had never been on an airplane. I was kind of scared, but Lexi reassured me that even if we did end up crashing, there were parachutes and lifeboats, and at least we would die with our best friend. It didn't make me feel a whole lot better.

Regardless, we were on our plane an hour later, and taking off. Lexi held on to the armrests, smiling and giggling during the takeoff.

I was holding on to my armrests for my life.

The flight was only about two hours, but Lexi and I kept fully entertained by the T.V.s in front of us. There was a GPS system that told us exactly where we were, television channels, and other things that we liked to play with. We also kept asking for those Biscoff cookies and ginger ale- so much that the flight attendant knew our names. Our full names.

"Hi! I'm Lexandra, but I hate that name, so you can call me Lexi, if you want to. This is my best friend. Her name is Anne, but her real name is Annalise. She prefers to be called Anne though," she said. Then, she glanced at her name tag.

"I can see that your name is Alex. Is that short for Alexandra?" Lexi asked.

The flight attendant looked at us weird. "Yes," she replied uncertainly.

"Cool! But I have a question. Can we have more cookies?"

The lady nodded, and she handed us a package. Lexi cleared her throat.

"I don't know if you want to keep coming back around to us, so why don't you give us some more while you are here."

A bit startled, but relieved, Alex gave us about six packages of those cookies before moving on to the next person.

Lexi turned to me. "And that is how it is done," she said with a smile.

It's not like I was gonna argue.

When we finally landed, it was just as scary as the take off. Lexi, of course, laughed and giggled the whole way, obviously amused by all the noise and bumps. Or maybe it was just all those Biscoff cookies.

We caught a bus to the car rental place, and we got our parking space number. We walked through the lot until we found it.

"Holy. Pickles," Lexi said.

I looked at the car and my jaw almost dropped.

"This. Is. An. OUTRAGE! I didn't come here to get some oldie car! Mom! Why do we have to use this one?" Lexi whined.  I looked over the car, and totally agreed with her. It was a beige Crown Victoria. Ew.

Ms. Lotter rolled her eyes.

"Please can we get a different car?" Lexi asked.

Fifteen minutes later, we had a red convertable, and Lexi was totally satisfied.

-

"Here we are!" Ms. Lotter said as the door to our condo swung open.

This time, my jaw dropped in awe. The place was beautiful. The walls were a prett blue color, and the floor a white tile. New furniture was placed around the room, and pictures of the beach hung all over the walls. It was well- lit, and the balcony looked right over the ocean. Lexi and my room looked pretty much the same, except it had two twin beds in it, with perfectly white sheets, ironed and pulled on the bed without a wrinkle. When we stepped out onto the balcony, and I saw the sugar sand and cool waters, I knew that this was going to be an amazing vacation.