Page 145 of Past the Broken Bridges

“Doyou trust me?” I ask, afraid of how she may answer. “We were friends once.”

I wouldn’t be upset if she told me no, so I’m patient as she stares at me in heavy contemplation. I’m not giving her much to go on except instinct. Hopefully, her gut is on my side.

“We still are,” she tells me.

My eyebrows go up.

So when she says, “Yes,” I feel the pressure on my chest lift. “But it doesn’t change anything, Banks. There’s nothing you can do. My family has already tried. I need this for me, and I don’t expect you to understand.”

I know.Swallowing those words, I force a nod. If she’s set her mind on it, I doubt there’s anything to be done. “Get dressed. I’ll wait for you here.”

It’s my way of saying,I know it won’t change anything, but I wish it did.

* * *

Sawyer keeps her body angled toward the passenger window and her hands tucked under her thighs as she takes in the setting sun that paints the sky in yellow, orange, and pink as we drive down the interstate.

I know I’m the reason her walls are up.

It doesn’t change anything.

It’s a harsh truth that I don’t want to think about as I pull off the New Orleans exit and weave through the slow traffic with out-of-state plates piling up the lanes.

“I’m sorry,” I say to break the silence.

She still won’t look at me. “I don’t need an apology,” she replies, staring at the scenery rolling by. Her shoulders rise with the deep breath she takes before they slowly release with her exhale. “You have every right to be mad.”

I don’t though. “It’s your life.”

I may not ever understand exactly what it’s like to go through what she has, but I’ve seen it with my aunt. I know it isn’t easy. My aunt had children, my three cousins, whom she fought for. A husband who loved her. Two dogs that she adopted from a shelter. She’d built a life for herself long before she was diagnosed with cancer.

It’s different for the girl beside me.

We drive another twenty minutes in silence until I slow down, nearing a side road outside of the Garden District. If we keep driving, we’ll stop in front of my father’s house, which is the last place I want to be.

“Where are we?” Sawyer asks, finally turning to me.

I open my door and slip out, bending down to look at her still sitting inside. “Come on.”

Closing the driver’s-side door, I open the one behind me to grab the little basket I put together before knocking on her door.

Sawyer hesitantly steps out, looking curiously at the wicker basket hanging from my hand. I walk around the front and put a hand on her lower back to guide her toward the thick magnolia bushes that were replanted a few years after Katrina hit. The hurricane wiped out a lot of the landscaping, but money donations to the gardening clubs eventually helped bring life back to the area when civilization slowly started rebuilding. But Dad and I redid this. It was the last project we ever did together. “Follow me.”

She bites her lip, looking around as we take the path that very few people ever have. It’s grown in, barely visible unless you know what to look for. Once upon a time, this private area used to be beautiful. The abandoned spot is still well kept on the outside but closed off to the public, thanks to the faded private-property signs hanging on the large oaks surrounding it, so very few people know that if you push back two of the bushes right behind the crape myrtles—

Sawyer freezes when I move the shrubs aside. The only sound around us is the slow trickle of water coming from the tiny stream behind the greenery, which only runs if there’s a lot of rain.

I step through the bushes and keep them back for her to do the same.

She steps back, snapping a twig and almost losing her balance before I manage to catch her wrist with my free hand.

Disbelief lifts her gaze to mine. “Your father called you Paxton.”

My heart gallops hearing her say that name.

The pad of my thumb rubs the back of her forearm. “He’s the only one who does. It’s why I prefer going by Banks.”

Her eyes dip to where I’m holding her.

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