25. Crew
F riday had eventually rolled around, and we were just about to hit the road back to Philly.
The whole morning had been this buildup—packing, checking lists, stealing kisses and cracking jokes. More stolen kisses and then more of us avoiding the fact that we were going home. We were riding a high from this week, or at least I knew I was. It felt like we were floating, every little brush of Winnie’s hand or a satisfied, smug look in her eyes sending me higher.
Winnie flashed me a smile up at me as she balled her socks together, sticking them in an organized zipper compartment in her hard suitcase. Meanwhile, I was fully packed with the three sets of clothes and spare boxers I brought now rolled up together and shoved into my backpack that was ripping at the seams.
“Whatcha smiling at me for?” There was a twang in my voice that she cackled at, tossing a pair of socks right at me.
“You’ve already been here too long.”
“Nah, honey. I think the accent is gonna catch on soon.”
“I hope not.” She said but her smile told otherwise, big and shining.
I wondered how hard it would be to convince her to cancel our return flight. To stay here, and avoid everything waiting back home. Screw her apartment, I could buy her out of the contract with my savings and we could just stay just…a little longer. Until we’ve had our fill. Until we fill like we could go home and face the rest.
But then there’s shadow side of myself that thinks, you know, I do miss my family. Even though I feel like an extra, even though they’re busy and I’m…me. I’d missed them a lot. Their texts still had been flying in and out, so it’s not like I felt fully away from them. And staying away from them longer felt wrong, and yet, exciting at the same time.
We’re going back. I knew that. But still, watching Winnie pack up slow and hesitant, I wondered if she felt it too. The draw to this place. To maybe more visits. Longer visits. Time on the farm or time ‘downtown’. But always together, no matter what.
Her head cocked around to the side of her suitcase. “Have you seen my charger?”
I glanced around my area, my separate charge sticking out me bag, I checked by it and under the throw blanket beside me but it wasn’t there either. “Nope. Do you think you left it downstairs?”
“Probably,” she stood up and stretched, “One sec.”
As soon as Winnie left the room I reached under the bed to grab the pair of socks she threw at me earlier. As I leaned down to grab them, that’s when I saw it—her bundled up charger wedged in the gap between the bed and the wall.
“Gotcha,” I muttered to myself, stretching as far as I could to pull it out. When I straightened up, ready to let her know it was up here the entire town, I heard voices drifting up from downstairs—her and Lottie, laughing and chatting in that easy way they had. I smiled to myself.
I took two steps at a time, rushing down about to make a joke about Winnie losing her things- meanwhile I had lost half of my very stuffed backpack over this entire trip- when their conversation stopped me dead in my tracks.
“You know, the duplex next to my place is still available,” Lottie was saying. “I was renting it out, but the guy and his wife move out next week.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind,” Winnie replied, and there was a tone to her voice I didn’t recognize—soft, almost sad.
Maybe she was feeling as weird about leaving as I was. I could tell her now, tell her we could put off the trucks until Monday and just start fresh in our preparation for competition on Saturday.
Lottie asked, “Have you told Crew?”
“What?” Winnie sounded caught off guard.
“That you’re moving back here.”
My chest tighten, like the air had thickened into something too heavy to breathe. Moving back here? Moving away. Fully. Moving away where I wasn’t a twenty minute drive down the road. The words echoed again and again, pounding against my ribs, and suddenly I felt like the room was spinning, closing in. I’d considered it, sure, but she was ready now. Without me involved entirely.
I shook my head, eyebrows furrowing. This wasn’t right. Winnie was the different one. Winnie didn’t leave me out of things. She wasn’t…everyone else. Winnie didn’t forget me. She didn’t just cast me aside. She was the only one that was different. She was mine. And she wouldn’t keep me out of the loop like that…not after everything I shared about how I felt with my siblings. Not after I told her how I was this bonus thing for everyone.
Winnie gave some quiet reply, something about it being “complicated,” between us. I backed up, nearly stumbling as I reached up the stairs back to her childhood bedroom. The high I’d been floating on this entire trip had vanished in an instant. The bubble popped and now everything felt unsteady, unreal. I forced myself to breathe, to focus, throwing the last of my things into my bag, willing the world to make sense again.
I did the square breaths that she taught me, wondering what was left for me at home. If I didn’t have Winnie there with me, did I have anything?