Page 39 of Past the Broken Bridges

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says before I can question him. “They haven’t been giving me as much since last year because they don’t want me spending it on the wrong shit.”

That might be the first smart thing I’ve heard them do. I reached out to them for help when I first found out he’d been using, but they didn’t believe me until they got a call from the hospital after he was given Narcan from overdosing.

I glance down at the Pop-Tarts. If they stay in my apartment, they’ll go stale until I eventually throw them away. But if I give them to Sawyer, then Dawson could find out.

I could do a lot of things right now.

Help him or not.

Either choice would be a selfish one.

If I stick to my original plan, it’s to gain something from Sawyer. But if I help Dawson win over Dixie, it’s to keep him away from the girl across the hall who’s long since piqued my interest.

Wetting my lips, I gesture toward the building and start walking. “Come on,” I call out, making my choice. “I’ve got an idea. It’s cheesy, but it’ll work.”

Dawson follows blindly, and I only feel a little bad that he doesn’t question my intentions.

Maybe that makes me a shit friend.

But when I dig out my mother’s old cookie-cutter set and find the heart-shaped ones, I don’t feel nearly as guilty when I tell Dawson to cut into the Pop-Tarts.

I’m doing him a favor,I tell myself.

An hour later, he’s out the door with a paper plate fullof Saran-Wrapped snacks, and I’m left staring at the few I snatched up.

I take the leftovers over to Sawyer’s, hesitating to knock. Instead, I place the plate of heart-shaped Pop-Tarts on the floor with a Post-it note saying I hope she feels better, knock twice, and walk back to my apartment.

I hear the door open.

Then silence.

I debate looking out the peephole but decide against it.

It’s a few minutes later when I hear the door across the hall close.

Only then do I glance out the peephole and see the missing plate.

I tell myself it’s an innocent gesture—that everybody needs a Valentine at least once in their life.

The next day, the empty plate is back in front of my door with a new Post-it note attached. When I pick it up, I realize there’s a package of fruit snacks underneath the paper.

All that’s written on it is a phone number.

I don’t use the number.

And I stare at the fruit snacks until that fuzzy feeling creeps up the back of my neck again.

Chapter Thirteen

Sawyer

The headache that’s been pulsing in my temples for the last few days finally subsides enough to let me leave my apartment without wanting to cry. I blame myself. Without my mother’s constant nagging about drinking water and taking my medication, it was easy to forget until it physically hurt too much to do anything. Every time I got a text, it took everything in me to answer it until I couldn’t look at the screen anymore without feeling like I was going to vomit.

My mother was the only person I texted back within minutes. If I didn’t, she’d make Dad come check on me or book a flight to do it herself. I didn’t need that, no matter how much I missed her.

Dropping my phone to the bed after watching an old video uploaded online of Dixie playing a Led Zeppelin song on the piano, I flop onto my back and shake my head in disbelief.

“Insane,” I tell her, propping my feet up against the wall and wiggling my freshly painted nails, which Dixie madepurple. “I thought piano players only did stuffy music. Like that deaf guy, Mozart.”

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