Page 58 of The Outsider

He finished loading everything into the back of the truck, and shut the tailgate. She just stood there staring as he rounded to the driver’s side and got in. Her fingers were still burning. She hustled to open the door and get in, feeling a strange rush of relief when she was. Because riding shotgun in his truck was normal, at least. And what had just happened a moment ago had not felt normal at all.

He drove them both to the center of town and parked against the curb. The bank was housed in a historic old building, and something about that made her feel a little bit more calm. But this was weird.

“Will you come with me?” she asked, looking up at him as they stood outside the front door of the bank.

“I’m about to walk in with you,” he said.

“No, I know. But will you...? I can’t talk to a banker by myself. I can’t... I need you to go with me.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll go with you.” They waited behind two people before they were able to see the banker at her shiny wooden desk in the center of the old-fashioned room. There were gold posts with thick velvet rope delineating the lines to the different tellers. It was such a strange thing. Velvet rope.

The kind of thing Bix was always behind.

But she felt like she was crossing over.

Was this a betrayal of everything she had been raised to believe? And was that actually a bad thing? Or was it something that needed to happen?

They sat down at the desk, and Bix swallowed hard. She looked at the woman’s name plastered on the desk. Hope Berkey. It was a very fancy thing, to have a nameplate like that. And that was one reason Bix noticed. The other reason was that the woman’s name was Hope. In context with what she had just been thinking earlier, it seemed a pretty big coincidence. Bix didn’t especially believe in signs from the universe. But she did believe and trust in her gut. Listening. Paying attention.

Right now it definitely seemed like she was being told to have a little bit of hope.

“I need to open a checking account,” said Bix. She frowned. “The problem is I’ve never had one before.”

“Well,” said Hope. “Let’s go over our different products and see which one is right for you.”

Bix was entirely sold on the free checking account option and didn’t need to hear about anything else. And there was the option to add a high-yield savings account if she had more than two hundred dollars to deposit. A special offer to a new bank customer. And she did have more than two hundred dollars.

It was strange, depositing all her money.

She sat in the seat and waited while Hope went to get papers for Bix to sign, and waited for her debit card to print.

Daughtry leaned in, and her heart fluttered. “That’s not all your money, is it?”

“I’m not an idiot,” she said. “I’ve got some stashed away too.”

She hadn’t been able to imagine sending all of her money to this weird theoretical place, where it would just be a number on an ATM screen, theoretical as she swiped her card. No. It was too weird. She couldn’t bear it. She felt like she had to have real, concrete backup.

The woman came back, and Bix signed the papers, and then found a shiny debit card with a picture of a mountain being slid toward her.

Bix Carpenter.

It had her name printed on it.

She ran her fingertips over the top of it, just staring. And then she felt Daughtry’s gaze on her. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

Bix shook Hope’s hand, and she and Daughtry walked out of the bank and back onto the street. Bix clutched her packet to her chest, her debit card safely in her purse.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You looked... wistful.”

“I guess I am. I’ve never had a card with my name on it before. It feels very official. I feel very official in a way that I never have.”

“You’re doing great,” he said.

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