PAST THE BROKEN BRIDGES

Two broken pasts. One last chance. An unforgettable story of star-crossed lovers, found family, and the fight to live fully...no matter the cost.

Sawyer Hawkins and Paxton Banks were inseparable as children, their secret bridge in Louisiana a sanctuary from the world--until Hurricane Katrina swept them apart. Thirteen years and a lifetime of battles later, fate brings them back together when Sawyer returns for college.

Sawyer, unbroken and unapologetically alive after a relentless battle with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is determined to seize every moment she's been denied. The bucket list she writes is her lifeline: each item a rebellion against the years stolen by illness, each day a chance to taste freedom, friendship, and love.

Banks, now a reserved architecture student, carries the weight of his father's abuse and his best friend's addiction, feeling unable to save those he loves. But when he discovers his long-lost friend Sawyer is his new neighbor, her courage and warmth begin to melt through his walls.

Their reunion is electric, with witty banter, shared secrets, and a spark that refuses to be extinguished. But as their friendship deepens into a complicated, aching romance, old wounds and new tragedies threaten to tear them apart, and Sawyer's still-declining health becomes impossible to hide.

Both must confront the truth: sometimes loving someone means letting them go.

Filled with longing, laughter, and heartbreak, this is a story about living fiercely in the shadow of loss, about the courage to love even when time is running out, and about the bridges we build--between hearts, across years, and beyond grief.