Chapter Thirty-Seven Banks

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Banks

There was so much I wanted to say to Sawyer when I walked into her hospital room, but all of those things—that I was glad she was okay, that we were going to get through this together despite her hesitations—went out the window the second I realized she was dealing with this alone.

But the difference is, she has people.

Not everybody is that lucky.

I’ve been driving for hours when I decide to stop at the Botanic Gardens and walk around. It only seems fitting when it starts raining, drenching me as I walk the trails aimlessly. I guess I’d feel cheated if it were sunny because that’d hardly match my mood. Ever since the night of the accident, everything has been dark. Cold.

When my phone goes off in my pocket, I pull it out, having the pathetic reaction of thinking it could be Dawson since we haven’t spoken in days. Then it hits me all over again that it couldn’t be.

One of the last conversations Dawson and I had ended in a fight. Harsh words were said. Things I can’t take back. I hold on to a lot of regret because I can’t apologize or tell him I didn’t mean it.

Scrubbing at the dampness on my face that I’m not sure is rain or angry tears, I ignore the call and slide my cell back into my pocket to protect it from the rain.

Sawyer doesn’t want to live life with any regrets, but I don’t see how she wouldn’t have any. She’s close with her family, and her decision left them behind. Led her to me .

On my way back to the car, when my clothes are sopping wet and sticking to my skin, I stop by the little footbridge that a chipmunk scurries under for cover.

Then I think about the last item on Sawyer’s list.

Grabbing my keys, I get back into the car and stare at the bridge a little longer.

I didn’t get a chance to make things right with Dawson, so I’ll be damned if I mess up with Sawyer, even if she doesn’t feel the same way.

So I come up with a plan and then find the number her father gave me that day in the hallway.

“If anything ever comes up,” he tells me, slipping the paper with the phone number into my hand with a solid shake, “I trust that you’ll let me know.”

He could tell I cared.

I stare at the number.

And hit call.

* * *

I change into dry clothes before knocking on the door across the hall, not willing to push my boundaries and welcome myself in after my exit earlier.

When Sawyer opens it, I take my hands out of my pockets and say, “Go on a date with me.”

She blinks. “W-What?”

“Go on a date with me,” I repeat. In hindsight, I should have brought flowers or chocolates or pastries, but I wasn’t thinking about that. “I know you told me before that I was ruining everything for you, but I have somewhere I want to take you. Somewhere you’re going to want to see. So just one date. That’s all I ask of you. Give me today.”

She’s still wearing the same clothes that she was in when I left—the same ones that she wore yesterday. Fidgeting with the sweatshirt, she shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“We’ve been through hell, Birdie. I promise it’ll be worth it. I just need you to trust me. If this is the last thing you give me, then so be it.”

Her eyes are sad as they meet mine.

“ Do you trust me?” I ask, afraid of how she may answer. “We were friends once.”

I wouldn’t be upset if she told me no, so I’m patient as she stares at me in heavy contemplation. I’m not giving her much to go on except instinct. Hopefully, her gut is on my side.

“We still are,” she tells me.

My eyebrows go up.

So when she says, “Yes,” I feel the pressure on my chest lift. “But it doesn’t change anything, Banks. There’s nothing you can do. My family has already tried. I need this for me, and I don’t expect you to understand.”

I know. Swallowing those words, I force a nod. If she’s set her mind on it, I doubt there’s anything to be done. “Get dressed. I’ll wait for you here.”

It’s my way of saying, I know it won’t change anything, but I wish it did.

* * *

Sawyer keeps her body angled toward the passenger window and her hands tucked under her thighs as she takes in the setting sun that paints the sky in yellow, orange, and pink as we drive down the interstate.

I know I’m the reason her walls are up.

It doesn’t change anything.

It’s a harsh truth that I don’t want to think about as I pull off the New Orleans exit and weave through the slow traffic with out-of-state plates piling up the lanes.

“I’m sorry,” I say to break the silence.

She still won’t look at me. “I don’t need an apology,” she replies, staring at the scenery rolling by. Her shoulders rise with the deep breath she takes before they slowly release with her exhale. “You have every right to be mad.”

I don’t though. “It’s your life.”

I may not ever understand exactly what it’s like to go through what she has, but I’ve seen it with my aunt. I know it isn’t easy. My aunt had children, my three cousins, whom she fought for. A husband who loved her. Two dogs that she adopted from a shelter. She’d built a life for herself long before she was diagnosed with cancer.

It’s different for the girl beside me.

We drive another twenty minutes in silence until I slow down, nearing a side road outside of the Garden District. If we keep driving, we’ll stop in front of my father’s house, which is the last place I want to be.

“Where are we?” Sawyer asks, finally turning to me.

I open my door and slip out, bending down to look at her still sitting inside. “Come on.”

Closing the driver’s-side door, I open the one behind me to grab the little basket I put together before knocking on her door.

Sawyer hesitantly steps out, looking curiously at the wicker basket hanging from my hand. I walk around the front and put a hand on her lower back to guide her toward the thick magnolia bushes that were replanted a few years after Katrina hit. The hurricane wiped out a lot of the landscaping, but money donations to the gardening clubs eventually helped bring life back to the area when civilization slowly started rebuilding. But Dad and I redid this. It was the last project we ever did together. “Follow me.”

She bites her lip, looking around as we take the path that very few people ever have. It’s grown in, barely visible unless you know what to look for. Once upon a time, this private area used to be beautiful. The abandoned spot is still well kept on the outside but closed off to the public, thanks to the faded private-property signs hanging on the large oaks surrounding it, so very few people know that if you push back two of the bushes right behind the crape myrtles—

Sawyer freezes when I move the shrubs aside. The only sound around us is the slow trickle of water coming from the tiny stream behind the greenery, which only runs if there’s a lot of rain.

I step through the bushes and keep them back for her to do the same.

She steps back, snapping a twig and almost losing her balance before I manage to catch her wrist with my free hand.

Disbelief lifts her gaze to mine. “Your father called you Paxton.”

My heart gallops hearing her say that name.

The pad of my thumb rubs the back of her forearm. “He’s the only one who does. It’s why I prefer going by Banks.”

Her eyes dip to where I’m holding her.

“Come on,” I urge, tugging on her arm until she’s stepping past the bushes and into the cozy environment that I’ve managed to keep up despite the damage inflicted all those years ago.

I let go of Sawyer, letting her spin as she takes in what’s left of the oak that used to shade the area. It was so damaged by the storm that a majority of the branches had to be cut down before they became a hazard. Most of the shrubs were crushed by the thick branches that had fallen during Katrina, and one of the original crape myrtles snapped and fell too, damaging the other bushes that surrounded it.

Then she stops, her lips parting as she stares at the wooden footbridge. Or what’s left of it.

It’s still standing despite the rotting and missing wood.

Broken but beautiful.

“The bridge,” she whispers.

I walk over to it, kneeling down and setting the basket beside me. “I always thought you felt familiar,” I tell her, looking over my shoulder at where her feet are glued to the ground. “I couldn’t figure out why until your mom said you were named after Tom Sawyer.”

“Like the book,” we say simultaneously.

The smile comes easily. “I tried picturing you with red hair but couldn’t. You said you never dyed it before.”

Her hands go to her head, her face turning a similar shade to the strands she touches. “I…I haven’t.”

“I know that now.”

She never had to dye it.

She lost it and hid what came back.

Wetting my lips, I run my fingers over the inner post, where two sets of initials in messy handwriting are carved.

Finally, Sawyer walks over and stares at the initials she put into the wood. She told me she used a butter knife and then brought the same one a few weeks after we met so I could do the same.

“I didn’t think…” Her head shakes back and forth as she lowers herself to the ground. “I had no idea if it’d still be here.”

“It almost didn’t survive.”

The broken structure is made of thick pieces of wood that probably shouldn’t still be here after the abuse they were put through, but the bridge fought its own battles to remain standing.

I look to Sawyer, whose hair looks exactly as I remember it in the sunshine. Right here, standing beside the bridge, she looks so similar to how she did back then. Just older. Frailer.

“You told me back then that this was your happy place,” I comment, sitting down and patting the grass beside me. “When I realized who you were, I understood what the last item on your list was.”

She joins me, pulling her knees up to her chest and staring at our initials still. “I couldn’t remember where it was. The chemo…” Her throat bobs. “Chemo brain makes it hard to recall details. I wanted to come back and try finding it because I wanted to feel how I did back then. Normal. Just…just one more time.”

Her eyes are wet when they turn to me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, resting her chin on top of her bent knees. “You were right. I never thought I’d ever see you again. I was only thinking about me when I chose to come here. I was thinking about closing a chapter I didn’t get to thirteen years ago, and I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to say I was a college kid. Reckless. Dumb. I wanted everything to be…”

“Easy,” I finish for her.

That’s what she wanted from me. Easy.

“Paxton,” she says again, but it’s clear she’s not trying to talk to me. Not this version of me, anyway. Her eyes close, and a small smile tilts the corners of her lips. “You were my favorite memory.”

Wetting my lips, I reach over and take her hand. “You were mine too, Birdie. Always.”

When her eyes open, they glisten with a fondness that I haven’t seen in a long time.

“There were days when things at home were bad,” I tell her, fingers tightening around her. “I’d come here to get fresh air. I used to come with my dad, but when things started getting rough with my mom, he stopped coming out. It’s like he forgot it existed. But I was glad.”

It meant more for me.

More time alone.

More time with Sawyer.

“This is on the property I grew up on,” I say, watching her eyes widen. My foot taps the closest post. “I built this with my dad. Before the alcohol took over, when things were normal. Or as normal as they could have been. I always wondered how you found it, but I never cared enough to ask.”

Sawyer stares at the bridge. “You built…?” Her head moves back and forth in disbelief. “You never told me back then. I found it when I went out adventuring. I was hot, needed a place to rest, and this place seemed so…”

“Safe.”

She nods. “Safe,” she agrees.

“Maybe we were meant to meet,” I remark, leaning back and thinking about us as children, sitting in this very spot. “We both needed somebody back then, and we both need someone now. Especially since Dawson…”

We fall to silence.

Then I pull out the two bags of fruit snacks that I snagged from the campus store, and she lets out a watery laugh and accepts one just like we did as kids.

I play with the gummies poured out into my palm, not eating any of them. “Is there really nothing the hospital can do? If you changed your mind…”

It’s not going to change anything.

Sawyer picks one of the fruit snacks out and squeezes it between her fingers. “The oncologist came to see me after I was brought in. Even if I did change my mind, it wouldn’t matter. It’s spread. They told me it would.”

Emotion crams into my throat, making it hard to swallow.

“I can feel it,” she whispers, a tear sliding down her face that she wipes off with the back of her hand. “I think I’ve been feeling it for a while. Since I got here. Maybe even before.”

My nose burns as I fight off the tears prickling the backs of my own eyes. What can I say to her? There are no words that would make it better. Nothing I could say to comfort her.

So all I do is hold her hand.

She squeezes it.

I squeeze back.

Her voice is nearly inaudible when she speaks again. “I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt anybody.”

She tried warning me. Tried pushing me away. But I wouldn’t let her. “I know you didn’t, Birdie.”

We sit with the quiet swirling around us as the sun begins to set. Then I look up, hearing a faint chirp before a red bird lands on a twig above us.

I point. “Look.”

Sawyer’s head moves up toward the cardinal staring down at her. Its head cocks to the side as if studying her. Then to the other.

“They say cardinals are spiritual birds,” I murmur, transfixed by its fascination in Sawyer. It flies off the branch and onto the ground a few feet away from her. “I’ve read about how they’re believed to be people we’ve lost checking in on us. I took out a book on birds not long after coming back to see what Katrina had done. It reminded me of you.”

We watch as the bird hesitates before bouncing over to her feet, stopping by her shoe. It pecks her once, twice, then flaps its wings and takes off.

“Maybe that will be me someday,” Sawyer says.

The lump in my throat returns, and I can’t find the words to answer her.

It’s well after dark when we finally pull into the parking lot of the apartment building, her hand tucked into mine the entire way. I don’t even know if she realizes it’s there, but she hasn’t let go.

Sawyer turns to me. “Thank you.”

A single tear rolls down her face that I swipe away with my thumb. “You don’t have to thank me, Birdie. I’m just glad I could help you finish your list.”

Her eyes close for a moment, eyelids clenching to fight the flow of tears as she nestles her cheek into my palm. “Still…it means the world to me. I never thought I’d see it again. Didn’t know if it still existed. After everything, I didn’t think you’d even want to be around me.”

If she’d gotten her way, maybe I wouldn’t have. But there’s a tug in my chest that always leads me to her whether I want it to or not.

When I see somebody walking toward the car I’m borrowing from my father, I take a deep breath and say, “Just remember that, okay?”

She opens her eyes with confusion twisting her features before knuckles rap on her side of the window.

As soon as she sees her father standing on the other side of the glass, she locks up.

“They love you as much as if not more than you love them,” I tell her, hoping she’ll forgive me. “More than I…I could have loved you. Don’t you think they deserve to be part of your life no matter how hard it gets?”

Her jaw quivers. “You called him?”

I turn off the engine. “My father and I may never see eye to eye, but you still tried for me. This is me trying for you. Be with your family, Sawyer.”

Be with your family.

Forget about me.

“Close the chapter.”

Her breath catches as she stares at me.

I squeeze her hand once before letting go.

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