Page 39 of A Fine Line
She was reshaping the base of a new tartlet around it’s shell, gentle fingers molding the pastry dough into place before taking a fork and poking holes along the bottom for…whatever scientific reason one would have to do that? Meanwhile my side of everything was finished and I still didn’t feel done so I found my hands aimlessly chopping leftover vegetables I hadn’t needed but now suddenly felt a strong reasoning to find something to do with them.
Winnie turned to put her tartlet in the oven when her hip knocked over the rolling bar cart beside her with various measurement cups, recipe car holders, and I think a picture of her grandmother or perhaps some random old lady she just so happened to find comforting. The only somewhat decorative thing in this kitchen, holding all spare items, went scattering to the floor in shambles, piece by piece.
“Ah, shit,” Winnie stuck the baking dish in the oven before turning to pick up the tray and its contents.
Because I decided to shove down my dastardly instincts, I followed her actions and bent to help pick up each item. My fingers wrapped around the black and white photograph and just as I was going to ask why she had a frame photo of Marie Antoinette in her kitchen, my back curled a hair in the wrong direction and sharp, lightning bolts of pain shot through the bottom left on my back running through my abdomen and hips.
“Ah, shit.” I parroted Winnie and she looked up at me with eyes locked and loaded ready to roll but paused before she could.
“Crew, is your back still bothering you?”
My face scrunched, actually I think my whole body scrunched, I was one giant scrunchy. “Still?”
“You’ve been wincing when you bend over or stand up for the last month.”
“Didn’t know you paid that much attention to me, Winnie girl.”
If she caught on to the nickname as a distraction, she didn’t let me know.
“Yeah, well it’s an automatic reflex for a witch you know, to find everyone’s weaknesses.”
I pulled my knees together enough to transition from a squatting position to a standing one. Again, as soon as my back straightened the feeling of something is wrong inside of my pulsed through my bloodstream. Thirty more minutes, I reminded myself. You can’t pass out, not for thirty more minutes. Now twenty nine minutes and fifty three seconds and then I could army crawl down the hall and all the way to the nearest urgent care.
“Dear God, are you about to cry?”
“No,” My nose involuntarily sniffed with impeccable timing. “Shut up.”
“Oh my gosh, you are, aren’t you?”
My left lower back was throbbing with enough force that it felt like my heart dropped down there itself. “Winnie, I liked to think we’ve been getting along rather well the last hour so if you could not ruin it by being a massive canker sore in my si-” I tried my best to keep going but the tiny black specs on the outer rim of my eyes were beginning to circle closer and ‘side’ came out more like siiiaahh. And somehow I knew then there was no way I was making it thirty more minutes without blacking out entirely.
“Crew?” 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.”