19

Santana's POV

I couldn't believe that I had gotten injured at cheer camp and it wasn't even during practice. Due to my now sprained ankle, I wasn't allowed to participate in most activities for the rest of cheer camp, and I would still be stuck wearing the tensor band for some time after camp was over. I was not happy about it.

My parents barely even questioned my sprained ankle when I arrived home. Well, my mom seemed to care, at least a little, but my dad was gone, working as per usual.

During the summer months, I was home alone a lot. My dad worked almost constantly year-round, and my mom worked about as many hours as school usually is but during the summer as well.

When I was home alone, I spent a lot of time listening to music. I wouldn't admit it to anyone at school (other than maybe Brittany), but I loved singing. So, I'd sing along to my favorite songs. My taste in music was very different than Brittany's. I preferred Amy Winehouse and Alanis Morissette to Disney and bubblegum pop music.

Whenever my parents were home, though, I put in my headphones to listen to music and rarely dared to even hum the melody.

That year, my birthday would be after school started. I knew my parents would never allow me to have a big party like Brittany had, so I planned to invite Quinn and Brittany over on August 17th, which was four days before school started.

Both girls came after I finished eating supper, and my mom was still doing the dishes in the kitchen.

"Happy birthday, Santana!" Brittany was more excited than I was for my birthday.

"Happy birthday," Quinn said.

"It's not my birthday yet," I replied.

"I know, but it is your party, so I'm saying it anyway," Brittany reasoned, still too enthusiastic for the situation.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" I asked once the girls' shoes were off.

"You should open presents first," Brittany said.

We went to my bedroom. Brittany wanted to give me her present last, so Quinn went first. Quinn gave me some make-up and a gift card.

Brittany was very excited as she handed me a rainbow gift bag with glittery tissue paper covering up my present. I took out the tissue paper. Then, I took a leather jacket out of the bag. It must have been pretty expensive.

"Thank you, Britt," I said.

"You're welcome," she replied, "but there's more."

I looked inside the bag again and found a piece of paper stuck to the bottom of the bag.

"It's for tomorrow," she said. "If you want to come to the fair with me. I would have invited Quinn," Brittany continued, "but it's her parents' anniversary."

I accepted. Even though I hadn't been to the carnival since I was quite young, I was sure that going with Brittany would be very amusing.

We watched Clueless while eating popcorn after we'd cleaned up all the tissue paper.

Once the movie was over, Quinn and Brittany left to go home.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Brittany said. "My mom can pick you up at 10."

"Okay."

I was dressed and ready just before 10 o'clock the next morning. My clothes were casual: jeans shorts, a t-short, and sandals. Knowing Brittany, we'd be running around, playing games, and going on rides all day, so I packed a backpack to make sure I'm prepared.

The doorbell rand as I was putting on my backpack. I ran to the door and answered it. Brittany was standing outside the door wearing similar attire to mine.

"Are you ready?" she asked, practically jumping in place.

"Yup."

I followed her to her mom's car. Her sister, Jessica, was sitting in the seat directly behind her mom. Brittany squeezed into the middle seat, and I slid in beside her, before closing the car door.

"We're going to go on all the rides!" Brittany exclaimed. "Mom and Jess will stay by the kiddie rides."

The drive was short since the festival was in town. Once we were parked and bought our wristbands, Jessica dragged her mom towards the swings. Brittany grabbed my wrist and started running towards the bumper cars.

"We'll start with the less scary rides," Brittany stated. "Well, none of them are scary, but you know what I mean. We have to build up to the biggest rides."

I hadn't been on any of the rides at the Allen County Fair except for the kiddie rides, the swings, and the ferris wheel before. My parents thought spending money on the fair wasn't worth it just for me to go on rides alone, so we stopped going before I hit the appropriate age for most rides. I had no clue what to expect.

I had come with my junior high cheerleading squad the year before for the cheer competition, but we hadn't gone on any rides.

After going on rides all morning, Brittany and I met up with her mom and sister for lunch. We hadn't gone on any "scary" rides so far; we'd just rides like the bumper cars, Expo Wheel (sort of like a ferris wheel, except not the actual ferris wheel), the Vertigo (an intense version of swings), and the Scrambler.

After lunch, Brittany was intent on making sure we went on all the rides that we were allowed to go on, except for the ferris wheel. She laughed every time that the rides freaked me out, even though I told her that I wasn't scared but motion sick.

"It's okay to be scared," she would say every single time I used my "motion sick" excuse.

I never did admit that I was scared.

Shortly after 5 o'clock, Brittany wanted to go on the Super Slide. Each of the three different colored slides had been full of mostly younger children all day, but Brittany didn't care that it was a childish "ride."

So, we got in line, and when we reached the top, we each took a sliding mat. Brittany set her mat at the top of the pink slide, and I put mine beside hers, at the top of the green slide. She sat down quickly.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

I wasn't sitting down yet, but she didn't listen to my protest. Instead, she grabbed my arm and pushed herself down the slide. I had had a foot on the mat, so once Brittany started down the slide, the mat started sliding before it flung out from under my feet, and I landed, hard, on the slide.

Brittany laughed the whole way down, but when she saw my straight face, she stopped.

"I'm sorry. Are you okay?" she asked, worried.

"I'm fine," I said. "I just landed a little hard."

"Okay. Do you want to play some games now?"

After I won a stuffed duck for Brittany that was the size of her head at the ring toss, she was content to go find her mom and sister.

Once it started getting dark out, all four us went to the ferris wheel line.

"It's the best when it's dark out," Brittany said, jumping up and down while holding her new stuffed duck. Sometimes I wondered if she'd ever grown up. It was refreshing in a way, though, to see someone so unaffected by the trauma of high school.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because," Brittany explained, "you get to see all the lights from high up. Everything looks so magical and tiny."

Brittany's sister and mom went on the first open seat, and when the next seat came along, Brittany practically dragged me into it.

Brittany was right, of course. Being on a ferris wheel when the sun was almost set was magical. Her excitement was contagious, and soon I was following her lead, pointing out anything remotely interesting.

"Do you want to come over for a sleepover after this?" I asked as we got off the ferris wheel.

"Of course," Brittany replied.

I felt truly happy. Even though the day had been chaotic, I had a lot of fun. It was good to act like a kid again, even if just for a day.