Page 44 of A Fine Line

I found a box of band-aids on my truck the other day after she sliced her finger during one of her flirty knife disasters. Partially my fault, for deciding on a whim to give it right back to her. She left the box without a word, but the band-aids said enough. So, naturally, I had to one-up her. The next day, I left her a taco with a sign that said, ‘not poisoned or overly salted’ and it got a snort-laugh out of her, which I considered a win too.

My phone buzzed on the counter, Winnie’s contact—which used to have a witch hat emoji and was now replaced by a strawberry one—flashing across the screen. I swiped it up at an alarming rate and didn’t wait a single ring before answering.

“You’re not getting that jalapeño sau—”

“Have you checked the weather for Saturday?” Winnie rushed out, skipping the formalities.

I tilted my head as I placed her on speaker, already pulling up the weather app. “I haven’t, no. But you know that stuff is wrong all the time.” The number of times I had packed up my truck after assuming it was going to rain like the end days, only to see it was just a light sprinkle and then having to set everything back up again, wasn’t lost on me.

“Crew, please listen. I just got a call from Craig—”

I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “Let me guess, he wants you to visit him again? Bring him some more donuts? Give me his number, and I’ll show him how a real man—”

“Crew.” She cut me off, and I could hear a shakiness building in her voice. “They’re considering rescheduling the whole competition to the week after Thanksgiving.”

Winnie’s breath was rapid and chaotic, and I tried to think of anything to make her feel at ease. “Okay, so they’re not canceling, just rescheduling? No big deal. We’ve got more time to practice and make everything perfect.”

“No. Crew, it is a big deal.” Her voice cracked, and I stopped tapping my foot. “I needed that money before Thanksgiving.”

“Then talk to me. Why does the date matter so much?”

She let out a heavy sigh that wrapped around my chest and heart. “I was going to fly home for Thanksgiving with that money. I haven’t been back since...” She didn’t finish, but I didn’t need her to. I knew. Ever since her ex-fiancé made the biggest mistake of his life, she had been on her own. Here. Away from the place I knew she had been dreaming of. And she hadn’t been able to visit because she had been putting all her money into the ridiculous apartment he left her with.

“Come to my Thanksgiving.” The words were out before I could think them through. “Mom would be thrilled to have you. The mac and cheese might not rival your Nana’s, but it’s still pretty damn good. And Rachel keeps threatening me if I don’t bring you over anyway, so this really might be the best solution.”

She hesitated. “I told my cousins I was coming. My Nana was excited. This competition moving ruins everything. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. I feel stuck here. I need a break—I just can’t wait anymore.”

I ran a hand through my loose hair, glancing at the forecast again. It was grim, but something in me refused to let this crush her. “It won’t rain.”

“But it says—”

“I know what it says, Winnie, but we’re not freaking out yet. They haven’t officially canceled anything, right? Don’t tell your family you can’t come, because you don’t know that yet.

There was a pause on the other end, followed by a few sniffles. “Yeah… yeah, okay. You’re right. We’ll just wait and see.”

“Exactly. Now, get your head back in the game and make me some more of those chocolate croissants to keep your mind off things.”

A gasped laugh came through the speaker, and I felt the edges of my lips pulling up. “Oh yeah? To keep my mind off things?”

“Listen, I’m doing this for you.”

“Sure.” She laughed, and the load on my chest got progressively lighter.

“Hey, come on, we’ve got this, alright? I’ll keep checking, but I promise it’s not going to cancel.”

Winnie eventually calmed down fully, and after we hung up, I sat down at the table and pulled out my laptop, scrolling through ten different weather sites like I was some kind of amateur meteorologist. “Absolutely whipped by a girl I’m not even dating,” I muttered to myself. “This is a new low.”

But who was I kidding? The more time I spent with her, the less I minded the whole “whipped” thing. If this was what it felt like, I couldn’t say I hated it.

They rescheduled.

I got the call from Craig an hour ago. He insisted that I could come by their office if I had questions or needed comforting- which really solidified that Crew was right about the guy and instantly made me regret my care packages of baked goods I sent his way. Truth be told, one of the things that hurt the most was that I texted Crew immediately. And he read it, started typing, stopped, started again, and then just never answered at all. He knew even he had no chance of making this better. He knew as well as I did I wasn’t making it home for the holidays.

So, like any mature adult would do in my situation, I sank onto my very stiff couch with a fuzzy hedgehog blanket and turned on Gilmore Girls whilst slamming back an entire sleeve of Oreo’s.

Three episodes in of Lorelai disappointing her mom there was a knock at her door. I waited a while, hoping whoever it was would drop their package or flier about saving Philadelphia’s trees or whatever ‘cup of coffee a day’ fee I was morally supposed to be paying and be on their way. But a few moments later theknocking returned, this time a little more hushed and quickly followed by a deep, “Winnie, you home?”

Crew. I looked around me, black crumbs riddling my blanket and tissues strewn about.

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