Past the Broken Bridges

Chapter Six Banks

Chapter Six

Banks

The hangover is strong, but not enough to forget that I dickishly stole this chick’s food. Though it was outside in the cold, so I figured it was fair game. If I didn’t get it, the racoons probably would have.

As I give her a once-over, I realize Dawson got his wish. This girl is hot. Short, petite, with a good face. Even scowling at me. I’ve always had a weakness for blonds.

Rubbing my eyes, I lean back in my seat and stretch my legs out. I could pretend I don’t remember, but then I’d be a bigger asshole than I already have been. “You couldn’t have wanted it that bad if you forgot you ordered it.”

The way she stares at me is comical. She pushes a piece of her blond hair away from where it fell in front of her ocean-blue eyes. Another weakness of mine. It’s almost not fair. “I didn’t forget . They never said it was delivered. The app must have messed up or something.”

All I say is “Unfortunate.”

Turning forward, I open my ratty notebook and start doodling in the corner of a fresh page. I think she’ll give up and sit down in her chair a few rows over, but she decides that we’re not done talking.

Her things drop directly beside me before she noisily pulls the chair out. The legs scrape against the floors, making me cringe at the horrid sound. The Motrin I took this morning did very little for the headache pounding in my ears, and she’s certainly not helping. If I didn’t think my father would somehow find out about my absence so early in the semester, I wouldn’t have come at all.

Unapologetically, she sits down.

I don’t pay her much attention despite the obvious way she’s gawking at me. Dawson basically called dibs on her the day she moved in. He even texted me about it. Didn’t say her name. Barely said anything other than she was blond, cute, and “totally into him,” which I have a feeling he exaggerated.

It doesn’t matter that she’s my type. I wouldn’t do that to my best friend. Especially after the unfortunate situation last time. “You going to take a picture, Birdie? It’ll last longer.”

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? I try 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, hoping she’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’s just Sawyer,” 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.

“I hope you didn’t drive,” Sawyer says a few minutes later.

My pen pauses over the paper. “What?”

“Last night,” she elaborates. “I hope you didn’t drive. You were wasted.”

“I was fine,” I grumble. I know the roads around here like the back of my hand.

Was it smart to get behind the wheel when I’d had one too many? No. But I wasn’t about to crash at my father’s place or waste money on an Uber when the college store barely pays minimum wage. One ride from the Garden District to here would be half my paycheck.

The girl beside me deadpans, “You could barely walk straight, Just Banks.”

I eye her humorlessly. “It’s Banks.”

That subtle grin tilts her lips again, showing straight white teeth. A pretty smile is a dangerous one.

Chuckling under my breath despite myself, I go back to my drawing and let her watch. Silently.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long after that for the white-haired professor to walk in wearing a purple button-down and bright-pink bowtie that matches his suspenders. He stops at the podium, dropping his belongings onto it. “Welcome to creative writing,” he greets us with a clap of his hands. “I hope you all have vivid imaginations and a love for the written word because you’re going to need both in this course.”

Sawyer perks up, her attention fully on the man in charge and away from me. It gives me time to look at her profile, noting her feminine features that look delicate somehow. Innocent. Her excitement over the introduction of class is…cute.

I do my best to ignore her the rest of class, not wanting the drama that would come with even the mildest of interest in the girl from across the hall.