11. Crew
I had a secret.
Two, technically. The diagnosis and all my mental health bull shit being the forefront one. But there was this other one too that sat in the back of my head, festering and growing and taking over until sometimes it’s all I could think about.
I loved outside. I loved a large, empty field with tall weeds and buzzing bees and the smell of honey suckles in bloom. I loved the way my bare feet felt against dried grass, even when a bug would crawl across it and tickle the life out of me. I loved the air, filling in my lungs and making everything settle in around me. How the noises dulled to a hum. How the constant thrumming in my head came to a stop. I loved all of it.
I loved it so much, that I had my own place to enjoy it. A place that no one else knew about. A place where my phone had no signal, I had no contact to the outside world, and where I had every right to be one hundred percent me. No outside noise, beyond bugs making their little bug noises and birds chirping. No busy streets or bill boards or people stepping on your toes cause you’re walking at the correct time the crosswalk told you to. Just…bliss.
So, when my family made jokes that I’d disappeared again. Gone who knows where, ‘off to Neverland’ they’d say, I’d be right here. In Tyler State Park, far beyond the usually empty parking lot and off the trail through a couple woods to this here field.
Where the grass was never cut and the stars always shined brightest at night. Where full, overwhelming thoughts became empty ones and anxiety melted into something more: freedom.
It was my place, only mine. And I was untouchable here.
The tall grass poked through the holes of the knit blanket I kept in my car, tickling the backs of my knees and my elbows they dug into the ground. My chin was tilted up to the sky, watching clouds shape into everything and nothing and the reminiscence that airplanes were passing one another up there.
Funniest part was the first time I landed upon this place was back in high school. A group of people that I was very loosely friends with came here during my senior year. They claimed it was a great place to smoke weed and think and I truthfully only had interest in one of those things, hoping it would take away the other. But, as it always did, my mind wandered and soon enough, so did I. I stumbled off the path, got a little lost, and found myself here.
My signal was lost, my phone in SOS mode and so I had no choice but to sit it out. I laid there in the grass for hours, and when no one came to find me, I slipped out on my own. Took me a while, but eventually I figured it out and hiked back down to the parking lot, where I reached four bars of signal. The real funny thing was, the car we shared was gone, and I had no missed notifications on my phone. No family texts, no pothead friends asking where I was, even the girl I was seeing at the time was radio silent when I had been gone for the entire afternoon. Vanished, poof, just like that.
I could’ve broke down, realized that was probably a rut I needed to dig myself out of. Instead, I climbed in further with a smile on my face and. shovel in my hand. I could slip away here, into someone else entirely. This was my field, my spot. And as often as I got overstimulated by the city and its lack of sleep: I came here for peace.
I glanced down at my phone, still in SOS mode, showing the time as 3:40 pm, forty minutes past the time I said I’d stay. Slowly, I stood, folded up my blanket and settled it over my shoulders to carry the short hike down to my car.
With each step I took closer to the parking lot, the more my phone buzzed in my back pocket. Weather notifications and Ring doorbell drop offs, I knew.
Reaching my car, I tossed the folded blanket in the back and settled into the driver’s seat. My phone buzzed again. and again and again. I inevitably gave up and reached to answer the call as it connected to my blue tooth.
“Hello-”
“What have you been doing that is so important that you can’t answer my calls?” With the tone in her voice you would think she was my mother. Or anyone else in the world who could possibly care. Instead, Winnifred’s name and contact emoji- a purple devil horned face- flashed across my dashboard.
I had a strong urge to turn around right back to the field again. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mom, I wasn’t aware I needed to be available for you twenty-four-seven.”
“Well you should have been. I’m at the chamber of commerce, you gotta come up here and sign something saying we’re a team and show your ID.”
I look to the time, nearly four now. My lips parted as I took a breath. “I can’t right now.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not in town.”
“Well get in town.” Her voice was hushed and forced out in rapid passes. “Believe me, I would already have this done if you weren’t involved. But Craig is insisting you be here. I even brought in a basket of baked goods. He ate one chocolate turtle in a single bite and still said you had to be here. That’s all I’ve got.”
“You know, I’m really getting sick of your attitude.” Still, I pulled my car into reverse and backed out of the parking lot. My disparity recently reached a new low, underground actually, when I agreed to work with Winnifreddie Kruger.
But she was right yesterday. Neither of us can do this without each other. So, if I had to draw the line between working with my mortal rival and cheating a system, I guess partnering with Winnie is my best resource.
“Hmm, I think you like it.”
I ignored that, moving past the topic of things I like about her. “I can’t be there until five, meet me then.”
“Hurry up please, I don’t want to sit around in my car for an hour.”
“It’s your fault for calling so last minute.” I argued.
“No, it’s your fault for not answering the phone from wherever you are.”
My fingers gripped the steering wheel as I turned to the left, heading straight for the interstate. Traffic, lights, cars, sounds, music, honking, bill boards flashing, crossing pedestrians. All of it was coming back to me one by one. My blood pressure rose beneath my skin, my thoughts churning faster and more incoherent. I can’t think in this city. I can’t breathe here, not like when I’m there.
“I-I have to let you go.” I knew my voice was shaking and I hated it. Hated that my anxiety was tipping higher and higher and the other person on this line was her of all people. If I had anyone that I needed desperately to never see this side of me, it was her.
A pause lasted so long in the phone I checked to see if we were even connected.
When she responded it was slow and soft, softer than I think she’d ever spoken to me. “Is everything alright?”
No. No, no, no. I felt it coming on like a wave crashing against the tide. It’s pushing and pulling and pushing some more and my blood was roaring inside of me. Everything in me was yelling to turn back. Away from the city, away from the noises and corruption.
Go back to the silence. Go back to the meadows.
And I couldn’t. I had no avoiding it. How pathetic was it to be so overwhelmed by your surroundings you couldn’t even enjoy the place you were supposed to call home?
“Crew?” Winnie’s voice came out almost vulnerable. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew her concern stemmed from a place of needing me for this competition, I would almost think she cared.
“F-Fine.”
Damn it, this was not the time.
A car honked behind me, long and strong, before passing me in a large whoosh outside my window. My eyes dipped to the speedometer. I’ve been going fifteen under the speed limit. And I couldn’t-I couldn’t force my feet to push any further down on the pedal. I couldn’t get there any faster. I won’t. The faster I drove, the faster I got there, the faster it all would come rushing back.
My car tipped over the hill, the city skyline far off in the distance, and my ears begin ringing. Strong and high-pitched and exactly as they had the last time I left town and was forced to come right back. My chest is tight. Panting breaths. Begging for space. My truck was so small. When did my truck get so small? The roof over me was closing in and I feel the cab shrinking. I couldn’t breathe, oh my god, I couldn’t -
“Crew, seriously, this isn’t funny.” Her voice. I heard it but it was just so distant. On the smallest screen in my head. Everything else was so much louder. Brighter. Bigger. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t keep forcing myself in this town. These tiny spurts of hours weren’t enough anymore.
“Crew!” She yelled with this higher pitched squeal- she only used that one on me when I snuck a ‘buy one get one free’ sticker with her custom logo onto the side of the menu over half of her most expensive items.
Her screen got a little bigger.
“Please, look, if you want to meet another day or you’re mad or whatever fine but this isn’t okay. I…I don’t want to think you’re hurt in traffic or something can you just say something.” Winnie was begging now. Her voice more desperate than I’d ever heard her and I made sure to stop the growing possibility of her actually caring before it took root into my brain. I’d been wrong before. So many times.
My fingers felt numb when I gripped the steering wheel further, tighter as my knuckles turned white. My voice was raspy and broken and uneven but it’s all I could muster. “I don’t know.”
The smallest hint of relief caused my finger to lighten up ever so slightly. But my brain is still pacing, trying to track exit signs and gas stations and bachelorette cars with Venmo usernames on the back and the homeless man waving people down. It wouldn’t let me just drive. It knew what we’re coming to. It was out of my control now, I was losing it.
“Are you…are you having a panic attack?”
I lifted a single hand to rub against my aching chest.
“Is that what it is?”
I sounded so vulnerable. So soft and pathetic and nothing like a man should sound like on the phone with a beautiful woman on the other side, especially not a woman he deemed impossible to impress already enough.
“I don’t know, I’m not there. Do you feel anxious? Are you having a hard time breathing and focusing?”
She didn’t need to see this. She could use this against me. When my heart rate came down and my thoughts weren’t as clouded, she could turn and taunt and shape this in any way she wanted. I knew it, there was no way- “Crew, it’s okay. Let’s breathe together, does that sound good?” She sounded so soft. I wanted to dip my fingers in her voice, wrap it up and pull it to my chest. When she spoke like that it made everything else seem so harsh, broken. Scattered. But there she was, this woman I couldn’t stand and argued never ending with, but I couldn’t let go of her. Not yet. Couldn’t miss out on that sweet tone.
What if this is the only time I get this version of her?
“Okay,” I sniffed.
“Good. I’m not an expert, but these help mine okay? They’re called box breathes, or square breathes or something like that, just stay with me.”
I nodded and I knew she couldn’t see me but it’s like she sensed it because she kept pushing forward.
“Okay in for four,” she breathed in low and slow and so gentle. So human. “hold,” she strained the voice out and was silent. I wasn’t breathing with her yet, I wasn’t holding either. Just listening to the steady pace of her voice soothing over my trucks stereo. “Out,” she sighed and the air whooshed out softly. “Hold again,” those were hushed whispers from the lack of air.
She repeated the process two more times and although I was more so listening to her voice and the steady rhythmic tunes coming from her, I did feel myself breathing slowly. In and out.
One, two, three, four.
The truck felt taller.
One, two, three, four.
My fingers loosened.
One, two, three, four.
My toes uncurled.
One, two, three, four.
My chest fell, still tight but enough where I could feel the space around me and know somehow that it would be fine. I wasn’t having a heart attack. I’d get to the city, alive and well.
My speedometer read the speed limit, finally, and my shoulders relaxed a tad.
“Helping?” Winnie paused her breathing to ask.
I nodded again. “Yes…I, yes.”
How could I face her after this? We were going to have to go separate ways. I couldn’t work with her three times a week, partner in a competition, and fake friendship with a woman who’s seen this. Weak, pathetic, impossible. The medicine isn’t working. My brain was taking over and I had to rely on square breathing exercises from a baker who I didn’t even truly like. Not really.
“Winnie, I’m gonna go.”
“Crew, it’s fine, really we don’t have to-”
“Goodbye.”
My finger jammed against the cars display, hanging up on the one person who’d helped me more than any other. The one person who saw it for the first time beyond a doctor or therapist. And the one person I trusted the least.