Page 97 of Past the Broken Bridges

I hate that saying.

My lips part.

Then close.

The words get stuck in my throat.

Taking a deep breath, I force myself to nod and get out, “Yeah. One day.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Banks

I’m Sawyer. LikeTom Sawyer. It’s a book.

It could be a coincidence. An unlikely one, but still a possibility. There are plenty of kids named after books. I went to school with a girl named Austen, spelled after the romance author Jane Austen. Her brother’s name is Woolf after Virginia Woolf. It happens.

But Sawyer’s mother’s hair is red.

Not orange like Carrot Top, but dark auburn with highlights the same color as the copper wire I used to help my father with when he did his summer projects at the house. The same color hair as the eight-year-old girl I used to share snacks with under the aging oak.

The same oak I rarely visited for peace and quiet after Katrina because it seemed…emptier when Sawyer stopped showing up. I waited. And waited. And waited. But the day never came.

Sawyer said she’s never dyed her hair before, which would be an odd thing to lie about. So is her name reallya coincidence? It’s a steep chance, but one I can’t let my mind wander from because I miss those days when life was simpler.

Before my father’s drinking got bad and my mother left.

Life wasn’t perfect, but the days I spent in the shade eating fruit snacks under the tree with Sawyer the redheaded adventurer were close.

“There’s no way,” I tell myself, swiping my hand through my hair.

The last time I sawmySawyer was right before Katrina hit. My family drove north and stayed at my uncle’s house in Mississippi, still getting plastered with the storm but not nearly as bad as Louisiana. Sawyer said her family was leaving too, but I never knew where they went or if they even made it. I pestered my parents with questions trying to find out, but we didn’t know their last name or anything that could possibly help get me answers.

Mom and Dad were going through their divorce anyway, so the last thing they wanted to deal with was some random little girl I’d grown attached to. I was upset with them at the time, but looking back, I can’t blame them. They didn’t understand how I could possibly grow to like somebody so quickly when I barely knew her.

But the truth is, it was easy to like Sawyer when I had nothing else that brought me peace.

Maybe she was the distraction I needed—the perfect person to help me get through all the arguments at home I never wanted to listen to. She came into my life at the right time, and when she left it…

“There’s no way,” I repeat, pacing in my apartment.

I’ve felt unsettled since the conversation outside yesterday. Between her mother’s familiar red hair to the numberher father slipped me in the hall last night, I’ve been all but burning holes in the carpet from the back-and-forth pacing.

When I hear the laughter coming from the people I want to press for answers, I decide to stop torturing myself.

Sawyer didn’t want me around, which is a stab to the gut that I don’t like admitting. But it didn’t hurt as much as how quickly she corrected her brother when he called me her boyfriend. Normally, I would have appreciated it. Labels in the past made me feel suffocated, scared. I’d hear them and run the other way. In large part because of the skeletons I didn’t want anybody uncovering in my closet, but also because I felt like there was something more out there.

Someone.

And it pisses me off.

Since when is a girl not wanting more than fun a problem? I used to live for those moments. Hell, I stopped putting myself out there completely after I hurt a few girls’ feelings when they got a little too attached. I didn’t want to be a prick, so I didn’t bother giving anyone hope.

But Sawyer is different because she’s hiding something that I want to find out.

Obsessing over it clearly won’t get me anywhere, so I force myself out before I do something stupid. Like go to her apartment on her mother’s invite when she clearly doesn’t want me there.

And twenty minutes later, as if my brain is on autopilot, I pull up to the one place I haven’t been in months. Not since the fall when things got a little too heated between Dad and me. He’d almost hit me, and I was so, so close to doing the same. The second I raised my hand, I knew I needed to get out.

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