Page 15 of Past the Broken Bridges

Her cheeks turn pink. “That’s not my name.”

I look back to my doodles, trying not to remember the way her bare legs looked in those shorts. I’m a leg dude, and she’s got the kind I want wrapped around my waist. But that’s the last thing I want to think about right now.

Because of Dawson. And because I don’t need a distraction and something tells me the girl beside me would be exactly that.

My silence doesn’t deter her. “What are you drawing?”

“Nothing.”

“Looks like a flower to me,” she replies, leaning closer. She smells like lilac and cherry wood. Lotion? Shampoo? Itry tuning it out even though it wraps around me, taunting me to look her way.

Sighing, I close my notebook. “Do you believe in personal space?”

“Do you believe in manners?” she shoots back. Her voice isn’t sharp or witty but casual and firm. Challenging.

“My mom would like to say yes,” I reply easily, lifting a shoulder. “She would have whooped my ass otherwise.”

When other people start trickling in, she turns forward and says, “Could’ve fooled me.”

And the surprising answer has me laughing lightly under my breath. “I’m Banks,” I tell her, staring at the whiteboard at the front of the room.

“Is that a first or last name?” she presses.

“Just Banks,” I inform her, sinking into my chair. The only person who calls me by my first name these days is the reason I feel like garbage.

I feel her eyes on me. “I’m Sawyer.”

Eyes turning to the blue-eyed beauty, I study her facial features. I used to like that name because it reminded me of when things were easier. Back before it felt like I had nobody, when I had a quiet spot to hide away and a redheaded girl who was always up for an adventure.

I’ve known three girls named Sawyer in my short twenty-two years, but only one ever piqued my interest, thanks to her constant curiosity. I don’t know what ever happened to her after Katrina hit—if her family made it out or lost everything. Weeks after the storm brutalized Louisiana, I’d made my way back to the small clearing to find it nearly destroyed.

And no Sawyer.

I went back every single week for two months, hopingshe’d be waiting there with a backpack full of snacks and more random facts about birds.

She was never there.

Eventually, I realized she wasn’t coming back.

My eyes go to this girl’s light hair before flicking back down to her eyes. I’ve never tried picturing what my Sawyer would look like when she was older because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

The girl beside me watches me with furrowed brows, probably wondering why I’m staring at her like a creep.

Cracking my neck, I turn away again. “It’s not a flower,” I tell her, shading in my image with a pen to give it a better shape. “It’s a magnolia tree.”

A noise rises from her throat, but she doesn’t say anything. When I glance at her from the corner of my eye, her chin is resting on her palm as she watches me draw. I usually don’t let anybody look at my drawings, but this is mindless work until our class begins.

“Do you draw other things or are flowers”—she stops when I shoot her a look—“magnolia trees,” she corrects, “it?”

“I don’t take requests.”

“I wasn’t asking you to.”

I look at her, studying her soft features. “Is Sawyer your first name or last?”

“It’sjustSawyer,” she replies, grinning cheekily at me.

Touché.“I draw a lot of things” is the only reply she gets from me before I go back to the current sketch in front of me.

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