An ear piercing sound pulls me out of my deep sleep I was in. I rub my still closed eyes.
“Winnie,” I say groggily. When I don’t get an answer I look over and see Winnie sprawled out on the other side of the bed. Her head is at the end of the bed and her right leg is resting on her pillow and her left leg is draped across my torso. Her hair is a mess around her head partly covering her face. She is dead to the world around her.
I push her left leg off of my torso and I reach across her to turn off the annoying alarm. It’s 10:09 AM. We have to leave soon.
“Winnie,” I say this time nudging her slightly. Still asleep. I move so sit next to her face. I lean in close to her face.
“Winnie wake up!” I say in a loud voice. She stirs a little and eventually opens her eyes and searches around until she meets mine.
“Well good morning,” I say in a quieter voice. She smiles slightly and stretches out, she lets out a small yawn. She pushes her hair out of her face.
“What time is it?” she asks her voice still heavy with sleep.
“Time for you to get up,” I say with a small smile on my face. She pushes herself up so she is sitting right next to me. Her hair is in disarray around her face. I nudge her shoulder.
“We are need to leave soon,” I say. She nods her head absently and looks around the room.
“If you order room service I’ll get everything packed and ready to go,” she says. I nod my head and go over to the desk that has a phone on it. I call down to the front desk and order two stacks of pancakes, French toast, and a bunch of fresh fruit. It only takes fifteen minutes for the food to arrive to the room and only about ten minutes for Winnie to get everything all packed up.
We eat in silence. Once we are finished and ready to go it’s 11:15 AM. We only have forty-five minutes to get to the airport and on our flight to Seattle. Winnie and I rush downstairs and out to our waiting car. We load everything up and speed the airport. We check our bags and run to the our gate. We get there with only five minutes to spare. The lady checking tickets looks annoyed that we are late.
We walk onto the plane and take our seats. Luckily the plane isn’t full so Winnie and I end up with a whole row to ourselves. Winnie takes the window seat and I take the every end seat with the seat in between us open. Once we are up in the air I push up both arm rests and lay my head down on Winnie’s lap.
“It’s my turn to sleep on this trip,” I say. Winnie giggles a little and runs her fingers through my hair. It doesn’t take me very long to fall asleep.
Winnie wakes me up once the plane has already landed. I surprisingly slept through the landing. I sit up and rub my eyes. Winnie and I grab the bags that we took on the plane with us, which is just Winnie’s purse. She slips her fingers into mine and squeezes lightly on my hand. It sends chills down my spine. I lead the way off of the plane and down to baggage claim where someone waits with a sign that reads,
Winnie & Jase
I grab our bags from the carousel while Winnie talks to guy holding the sign. When I walk over Winnie smiles.
“Looks like we have another rental waiting for us outside,” she says with a smile on her face. Winnie takes some of the bags and I follow her outside to a plain black car. She gets into the drivers seat while I load all of the bags into the trunk of the car. I sit down in the passenger seat.
“I guess you’re driving today,” I say. She smirks at me and starts the car. I notice the GPS System on the dash.
“Thankfully you remembered the GPS System from the other car,” I say while adjusting my seat.
“What would you do without me?” she says.
“I would die,” I reply. She nods her head in agreement. I look at the address that she plugged into the GPS, our first stop will be the first ever Starbucks.
Once we get there it takes us a little while to find a parking spot, but eventually we find one about a block away and when we walk inside it isn’t too busy. There is only about five people in line. The coffee shop is small and plain. It looks like all of the Starbucks that Winnie and Grace has dragged me into over the years.
“This isn’t anything special,” I say quietly to Winnie. She flashes me an annoyed look.
“This is the first ever Starbucks, this is what started it all,” she replies. We are next in line. Winnie orders a caramel frappacino with extra whipped cream, and I order a Java chip frappacino with extra whipped cream. Winnie pays with Grace’s card and we sit down at a table inside.
“Okay so what is our next stop?” I ask. Winnie looks down at the letter.
“I suggest the next thing that we do is the Seattle Great Wheel,” she says without looking up from the paper.
“Works with me,” I say after taking a sip of my drink. We sit there for a while just enjoying being there in the very first Starbucks. Eventually we drive over to the Seattle Great Wheel, which is just a big Ferris wheel. It’s nothing special. We buy our tickets and ride it once.
The view from the top is beautiful. I can see the Space Needle in the distance. I’m really excited about going to the Space Needle for dinner tonight. Once we are done riding the ferris wheel, we go to Pike Place Market. Which again is nothing special, it’s just a big farmers market. It’s one of the biggest once I’ve seen though I will give it that. Winnie bought a small watermelon and a few honey sticks before we made our way to the Gum Wall.
“Now this is cool,” I say. The gum wall is a lot bigger than I had expected it to be. I popped a piece of gum into my mouth and looked at all of the patterns and designs people have made with their gum over the years.
“This is gross,” Winnie says from behind me. I ignore her comment and stick my piece of gum to the wall below a design of a tree. I turn to Winnie and reach out for her hand. She crosses her arms.
“Not until you wash those hands,” she says with raised eyebrows. I roll my eyes and walk with her back to the car. I take some hand sanitizer out of Winnie’s purse and put some in the palm of my hand. I over-dramatically rub the hand sanitizer all over my hands. Winnie rolls her eyes at me and drive to a hotel near the Space Needle. When we are checked into our hotel and bags are brought up to the room we head over to the Space Needle for dinner.
We ride the elevator up to the restaurant and we are seated after a fifteen minute wait. After we place our orders Winnie gives me a strange look.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” I ask while rubbing my face.
“I think I’ve figured out why Grace has sent us on his adventure,” she says. I cock my head to the side.
“What do you think it is?” I ask while taking a drink of my Mountain Dew.
“Grace obviously knew or thought she was going to die in that car accident, so she planned this adventure and sent us to all of the places she has wanted to go to, within the United States of course,” she says with confidence in her voice.
“How do you know our next stop isn’t London or something?” I counter.
“Because then one of our items on the list she made for us would have been a passport, and plus you don’t even have yours,” she says with a smirk on her face. I roll my eyes at her.
“Touché,” I say.
“She probably figured if she never got the chance to go these places that the next best option was to send her two best friends to have these experiences for her,” Winnie says. I nod my head. She’s right, but then again she’s always right.
“You’re probably right,” I say not wanting to completely attempt it out loud.
“I know I’m right,” she says. Of course she does. After our food comes we eat in silence once more.
We barely make it back to the hotel because of how full we are. We both fall onto our individual beds. It was Winnie’s idea to get the two beds, not mine.
“We have to open the other letter,” I say. Winnie pulls herself up from the bed and gets the next envelope that says Open at 9:00 PM on April 2nd, 2015. I look at the clock. It’s 9:15 pm. Oops sorry Grace. Winnie opens the letter and pulls out a piece of paper and two more plane tickets. She opens the piece of paper and starts reading out loud.
I hope you two had a great day today! Winnie, how was the first Starbucks? And Jase how cool was the Gum Wall? Tomorrow at noon you will be flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico where you will be doing several things. First one is a little sad, and a lot to ask of you two, but I’m trusting you guys to do it. You will be driving to my great grandma’s house, 6700 Ester Avenue and you will tell her about my death. She deserves to be told in person and not over the phone. All I want you to tell her is that I died in a car accident. Make sure you give her a hug, she gives really good hugs. After that you will ride the tramway all the way to the top and eat dinner at High Finance. Stay at The Hotel Blue.
I look at Winnie and we share the same shock. Grace’s great grandma was the most important person in her entire life and she is trusting us with telling her about Grace dying.
“Oh my god,” is all Winnie can say.
YOU ARE READING
I Didn't Want To Go
Mystery / ThrillerThere was a fatal car crash, but was it on purpose or an accident?
