16. Winnifred
“ C rew?” I bent over in attempt to catch his eyes, but they were already squeezed shut, pulsing under his lids.
My arms were patting his biceps rapidly. “Crew, do I need to call an ambulance?”
“No, just-” he blew out a harsh breath and winced at his back again. “Shit, maybe.”
I reached for my phone but butter and powdered sugar blurred the screen together so my phone app wouldn’t open, instead it took me to the opposite end, pulling up my TikTok for you page to a thirst trap of a man in firefighter turn outs dancing to Taylor Swift’s latest hit.
Crew opened his eyes at that, glancing at my shirtless and slippery screen. “Are you serious?”
“It wasn’t me,” I hissed. “It’s the butter.”
“It’s a for you page. Clearly it’s a you problem.”
I made two attempts at wiping my screen off but I only bought locally made butter and this high quality stuff was persistent so I reached for the last resort and licked the contents off my screen.
“God, that was hot and-ow-disgusting at the same time.”
“Wow, didn’t know you could multitask.”
“Only with you apparently.” He strained.
I finally opened the phone app but Crew stuck a hand out, long thick fingers wrapping around my wrist. “Wait, just drive me. I don’t have good insurance.”
“This is not the time to be thinking of insurance.”
“The spam texts I get on the daily would disagree with you.”
“Crew, let me just call-”
“No.” He snapped, dark and serious and with his arm wrapped around his gut, hunched over. “EMT will call my family and it will be a whole…thing. Just please drive me.”
“Your family probably should be called considering I have no clue what I’m doing and what if it’s serious and I don’t know-”
“Winnie.” I looked over at him and our eyes locked, his free hand wrapped around my arm and fingers tight but hazel eyes so soft, so gentle it makes me feel like I’m not even here. Like I’m going to blink and this moment will disappear with any other ones I’d pictured the two of us in.
“Please,” Crews voice is so raw and hoarse and honest that I think I might just cry. “I need you, okay?”
I nodded and sniffed, no tears and definitely not crying but if he kept looking at me like that, like he believed something so wonderful out of just me, I actually might let the flood gates open and smear snot on my favorite Marie Curie shirt.
“Okay.” I nodded.
I all but shoved Crew into my SUV and reared out of his driveway and towards the nearest ER. We’re only ten minutes out when Crew makes this gut-wrenching groan from the back of his throat and grips his hands on the console between us, like ripping it up from the root of the car would solve his pain entirely.
“Oh my God, is this what having a baby is like?” He took pants of breaths in between words.
“I know you’re in pain, but I don’t think I would go that far.”
“I don’t either but- GAH,” his hips lifted out of the seat, hands grabbing the ‘oh-shit’ handle on top of the door to yank him up. “It’s worse. It’s so much worse, Winnie.”
My heart was racing, pedal down the floor, and I felt like I was starring as a racer in Tokyo Drift and not in a fun and sexy Megan Fox way. “You’re gonna be fine, Crew. You’ll be just fine.”
As soon as we rushed into the emergency room, the receptionist took sight of Crew’s pale scrunched up face, and set him in the curtained room next door to get vitals. They sent him to get a CT and I couldn’t possibly imagine him sitting down long enough to let them get accurate scanning. Crew was always moving but even more so when he was in pain, apparently. With me begging all nurses for answers for over an hour, finally an RN stopped to update me that Crew would be rushing into the OR to get emergency surgery on what turned out to be an extremely large kidney stone that was just dancing around in his bladder for the last few weeks. She used more medical terms but my brain pictured a boulder having a rave in his insides and I felt a huge twinge of guilt. Not sure why, not like I grew the thing in there but still, I felt almost like it was my fault. Maybe because I never questioned it before. Or forced him to go to the doctor, but it never felt like my place and now I was wondering who did Crew have in his life to do that kind of thing for him? Did his siblings not notice him hobbling around for weeks? Were they that clueless or was I just that perceptive when it came to him?
By the time Crew was out of surgery, only lasting about thirty minutes, and rolled into a room his phone still had zero missed calls. I did my best to use Siri and say ‘call mom’ or any of his siblings names but nothing came up. At one point I was so convinced his phone was broken that I even tried calling myself but that didn’t work.
Either he had no contacts or his phone was just jacked up, I wasn’t sure which. Still, I felt guilty for not letting his family know the guy had been in surgery.
“Mrs. Wells?”
I kept trying different combinations of password possibilities but I was definitely getting too dangerous territory of disabling his phone entirely.
“Mrs. Wells?” The nurse through the swinging doors shouted into the waiting room full of a broad range of Philly’s finest.
“Wells. Mrs. Wells.” Geez, was no one listening?
“MRS. WELLS!” The tall, cranky, nurse took a step closer to my chair propped up in the corner, the pants of her dark navy scrubs brushing against my bare leg.
“Oh!” I shot up from my slouched position. “Oh, I’m not-”
Clearly she assumed Crew and I were married- something my stomach did a literal cannon ball at- but if I corrected her that we were, friends? I felt like I wouldn’t be allowed back at all. So…
“Yes! Yep, that’s me. Crew is my…” Husband just could not make its way out without me laughing. “Honey.”
“…right. Well, he is resting now you can come back.”
I took slow and steady steps to the room where Crew was leaned forward, right arm slung out with a nurse by his side checking his blood pressure. A monitor above him read off his average vitals and a steady beep, beep, beep played over the room in a strong beat. Crew stared off into space in front of him like there was a vortex about to swallow him whole.
I curved the corner through the door and knocked twice to announce my arrival. “Hey, bud, how we doing?” I squished into the space between the chair and the bed.
Crew’s eyes lifted to mine slowly, like his brain couldn’t keep up with the rest of him. My clear eyes locked his glassy ones and above him the monitor picked up pace, faster and louder. BEEP,BEEP,BEEP.
A smile creeped over that lazy face. His voice was as slow as his movements, slurred and blurry and a tad perfect. “Ahhh, there she is.” He nudged his elbow towards the nurse, but it hit the rails of the bedframe in his way. “The one I told you about. I’m gonna keep her.”
His eyes turned back to me and with his heart rate booming louder and higher. And he winked at me, with both eyes so I supposed he actually just blinked at me.
“I’m gonna keep you, Winnie girl.”
Warmth travels across my chest and up my neck. “In your basement, I’m sure.”
“I don’t have a basement, silly.” He smiled, one that was drunk and goofy and so cute I couldn’t help but reciprocate.
“Good for me then, huh?”
“Vera good.” I think he was going for a Scottish accent there, not entirely sure.
I rounded the bed and got closer, passed where I would be out of view from all of the IV situation happening. I was never a fan of needles.
“How are you feeling?” My hand moved to rest next to his, limp and probably numb.
“Gooood.” He was staring directly down my sweater without a hint of embarrassment, my cheeks felt warm but I didn’t have the strength to tell him to stop.
“They’ve got you on the good stuff, huh?”
“Reaalll good, Winnie girl.”
I snorted. “So, listen, I need to call your family-”
“UGH.” Crew groaned, loud and strong enough for the nurse to physically jump in her spinny stool and glance our way. She glared at me like I pinched him. I pointed a finger at him and widened my eyes. Not my fault you guys have him higher than the moon.
“Crew, I realize you’re anxious-”
“I aint anxious, baby doll.” This accent was clearly an attempt at mocking my own. For the sake of moving this along, I chose not to mock him back.
“Well, either way, we need to call at least your mom and update her. I have your phone but none of the contacts are pulling up right.”
“Mothership.” He mumbled, his eyes are stuck on the buttons of my sweater and I don’t exactly feel like telling him to move them up.
“What?”
“Moms name in there is mothership. Or Mother Teresa, I can’t remember. My password is one, two, three four.”
“Okay, I got- Crew.” I paused and forced his gaze up to my eyes. “Why is your password one, two, three, four?”
“I donwanna forget it.” His words are slurring worse and his eyes feel so distant.
“Do you regularly forget passwords?” There’s a smile in my voice I can’t push away.
“I forget everything, Win. I’m broken like that.”
My hand lifted on its own, resting along his jaw covered in scruff. His eyes poured into mine, pupils dilated and swimming in my own. I’d never felt someone attention so fully. I could say anything, do anything, and I think he would keep those eyes stuck like glue directly on mine. I knew he wouldn’t remember it. But I would.
“You just feel like that cause they’ve got you on the good stuff, you’ll remember everything better when you’re wide open again.”
His head shook sloppily, my hand caught between his neck and jaw. “You don’t get it. ‘Is okay, no one does.”
“So, what is my contact name under?” I asked to bump the topics around.
“Witchy Woman.”
I cackled, searched the name, and sure enough, yes. It was. With a tiny witch hat emoji beside it that I was going to have no choice but over think later.
I lowered my hand between us and passed his shoulder, covered by the thin hospital gown. “Alright, bud. Well, I’m gonna call your mom and update them and I’ll come back.”
Crews heavy lids struggled the stay half open when he nodded.
“I’ll forget the rest, but I’m gonna remember you, Win. I’ll always remember you.”