Page 62 of A Fine Line

“As soon as you didn’t need me anymore?”

“What? No. No, no, no. I just thought it would make us both distracted.”

I had plans for this. I had this entire thing worked out in my head. I was going to tell him today, when we got back home, that we should stay together. That he was mine and I was his and that that was all there was to it. Then when we, hopefully, won on Saturday: I would tell him we could move. We could use the cash prize as a way to get us out of here and back down there where we were both free. And if he said no, if he couldn’t leave the rest of the Wells behind, then we could do long distance. We could make it work. I’d come here, he would come there. It would work.

“Okay,” Crew shrugged.

The rest of the drive was silent and extremely uncomfortable as I tried to form what would be a solid enough reasoning to get him to understand. To know that I didn’t leave him out because I felt like we were done. But by the finished look in his eyes, was convincing him even possible?

Crew pulled into the lot of my building, parking in the visitor area. In the farthest one from my spot.

“Well, I’ll, uh, see you Saturday then.” He shifted the car to park, his eyes never meeting mine. Never faltering.

My tears were falling, in big fat droplets that weren’t stopping anytime soon. “Crew, please, don’t do this.”

“I gotta calm down Winnie. You don’t get it. You don’t-” he took a deep breath and pulled at the ends of his hair. “If you leave I’m back to just, nothing.”

“Crew, that is not true. You are enough on your own. Your family loves you so much and I-”

“My family doesn’t need me, Win. No one does.” His voice was cracking now, his anger and sadness bubbling over and I couldn’t tap it down this time. I couldn’t save it this time. Because it was my fault entirely. And there was no returning from it.

“That’s not true, please just-”

“I have to go, I can’t be here right now, just…I’ll text you.”

“But what about Saturday?”

“I’ll be there. I said I would and I don’t back away from promises.”

It felt like a punch to the gut.

My boots dug into the Romfuzzled bar’s gravel parking lot. The sign said closed outside, but I didn’t want to be here in normal hours anyway. I wanted to be there in a time where they had to listen. No distractions and no interruptions.

Ever since Friday, Crew had blocked me out almost entirely. I believed the only reason he hadn’t fully turned me away was because he knew if I didn’t get an answer after each text I would be showing up to his apartment.

So each message I’d sent over the last five days had been reluctantly answered with short, simple responses.

It’s okay. I understand. I’ll be there Saturday. No, I’m not angry. Yes, I still care about you.

But none of that was enough. I had wrongs to right. And if I couldn’t fix the mess I’d made, I could fix another one that he was never going to. I could do this for him at the very least. After everything he’d done for me, I was going to do what I could for him back. Even if it meant us not being together.

“Hey, Winnie!” Calla turned around and smiled at me, waving a menu. “I just updated our menu designs, come look. Marigold and Rachel are going to model them if you want to-”

“You guys know how much he looks up to y’all?” I didn’t have to say who, judging by the fall of all of their faces, they knew. Layla and Luke turned from their conversation at the bar. Adam set his phone down. Nathan stepped up next to his wife. They all sat there, somehow confused and yet knowing all in the same look.

They had to know how he felt. Didn’t they? Did they not seem him like I did? Does anyone?

“How he beams from every single one of your tiniest praises like they came from God himself? He loves you guys, this whole family, more than probably all of you combined and still he feels entirely alone. Did you not see it? Do you not realize at all that he feels entirely inferior to all of you. He’s put so much into you and you’ve done nothing back.” I wasn’t sure if I was yelling more so at them or myself, but it had to be said. For all of us.

“I had no idea,” Rachel shoulders slumped forward. “He’s always so happy and smiling, and even when he’s not he’s just acting goofy. I’ve never seen another side of him.”

“Yeah. Crew was always…Crew. He always ran away, even when he was a toddler he would always find some sort of hide out and be gone for hours.” Liam’s face fell. “I didn’t really think anything of it, I just thought that’s what he wanted best.”

“Yeah,” Marigold sat down on the stool. “I didn’t even know he was struggling.”

Luke and Nathan nodded along with that, their own mumbled excuses falling after.

I stood tall, back straightened as I pointed to the windows outside. To the general direction of where he had to be. “You all were so caught up in your own lives that none of you noticed he was sinking in his. Open your eyes.”

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