The lady at the hotel counter was on the verge of falling asleep. Her hair that had loosened itself from her messy ponytail stuck to her face.
"Excuse me." I said as politely as possible. She lifted her head up and swept her hair out of her face.
"Yes?" her voice was very deep, almost Bonnie Tyler deep. All of her facial features complimented her with a thin lined chin and soft round eyes of amber, she had broad shoulders that formed a straight line when she sat up.
"Are there four, two bed rooms available?" I caught a glimpse of her name tag, Natalie. Natalie swirled in her chair to the computer and was quickly typing away numbers and letters.
"Is it okay if there on different floors?"
"Yes." With a couple more clicks she was handing Steven and Max their keys, and giving Max a look. I quickly cut in front to get Madison and I's key. Natalie glared at me as if I ruined her chance with Max. All 8 of us made our way to the metal doors that blocked the elevator. A ding there and we were all trying to fit into the elevator. I was pretty worried we would exceed the weight capacity. The doors shut of Natalie's starring and I was going to make sure Max never went down alone. The lights were shining brightly down in the elevator. We were all in silence.
"Floor two." The elevator lady said in her monotone voice. Madison, Steven, Max, and I filed out. Daniella, Olivia, Jack, and Tyler were shut behind the doors and were to be on level 3. The hallway was eerie and quiet. Its pale blue walls were bumpy looking and the carpet was of blue and brown circles overlapping. I half expected bloody Mary to come around the corner it was so quiet. The lights were emitting a yellow glow. Our room number was 211 and theirs was 213. Before we shut our doors to clean up and maybe get some sleep I needed to ask them to do something.
"Hey after you guys are rested, we all need our stuff. Could you guys maybe drive down in a little while to grab our stuff from Grace's?"
"Sure."
"Oh and tell her Olivia's okay, because I know she cares about Olivia."
"You got it." Steven said.
Behind the door a narrow hallway leading into the bedroom with two queen-sized beds with white sheets and huge pillows. And halfway down both of the beds was golden "cover" sheet. All the walls were painted a sun kissed yellow. It wasn't exactly to my liking. Once you walked through the bedroom there was a small living room with a red loveseat with yellow specks and a hickory table. On a fresh wood drawer was a small flat screen TV. Now I realized there was no TV in the bedroom. If there was it was probably in the armware. Off of the living room was the bathroom sink in the niche of the wall and a mirror from the top of the sink to the wall. On the left side was the hair dryer. There was a sliding white wood door and it revealed the toilet and the shower.
"Do you want the shower?" I called to Madison. She poked her head around the door and nodded. This would give me time to rest. I climbed into the sheets and the felt so smooth on me. It felt so good to finally have time to rest after what has happened in the past 2 hours. My whole body ached and finally laying down on the cushiony mattress made my body a little less tense. I heard the shower running, it almost lured me to sleep, when it finally did, all I remembered was the families huddled together, grateful to be together, sticking together, and mine never did.
**************
The wind was whipping at my face as I looked out the window to a black night, only illuminated by lightning. The square TV was playing the news and it would occasionally white out here and there. My mother came rushing into my room.
