Me before you

chapter 7

“So.” Sana buried her hands in the pockets of her coat as she walked. She hadn’t been allowed to hold Louis’s hand in public for months. “What are you making today?

“Birdhouses.” Louis told her cheerfully, shifting his backpack straps on his narrow shoulders. “We’re just starting to make them today. I think we get to keep them when we’re done, so we could put ours in the tree in the garden. I think I’d like to live there if I was a bird.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Sana agreed. She forced herself to smile and nod back at a passing stranger. Y/n was right – this town was far too friendly. “We could buy some bird feeders to go with it.”

“Yeah!” Louis nodded enthusiastically. “Then we’d have loads of birds. That would be so cool.”

“It would.” Sana smiled, heart flooding with warmth and gratitude that she had a wonderful son who thought that housing ‘loads of birds’ was the epitome of cool. She breathed in, seeing the school gates rising up from the path a few feet ahead. “Listen. I have to take Y/n to the hospital today. I should be back in time to pick you up but if not, use your key and Aunt Chae will be in to check on you, okay? I’ll call you.”

“Okay. But you should stop worrying so much.” Louis told her, and before Sana could protest, he kept on talking, diving headfirst into the next random topic as only nine-year-olds could. “Y/n’s weird. I like her.”

“She’s not weird,” Sana told him. She just needs a haircut. “That’s not a nice thing to call people.”

“I know, but I mean it in a nice way.” Louis assured her cheerily. “She’s a cyborg, and she likes Hawkeye.”

“Is that one of the X-Men?” Sana tried, thinking back to the DVDs lined carefully in the cabinet under the TV.

“No!” Louis exclaimed offended, eyebrows drawing together. “He’s one of the Avengers, Mom.”

“Right,” Sana nodded. At least she’d got the superhero part right. She stopped outside the school gates, flipping her hair behind her shoulder – it was at the most awkward length now – and leaning down to give him a quick kiss on the forehead, despite his wriggling protests. “Now go on. You go make us a birdhouse.”

“I will.” Louis assured her seriously, before catching the eye of a boy waiting inside the gate, who waved at him. He waved back and hurried towards him. Sana stood in the light grey air and watched Louis greet his friends and disappear into the elementary school building.

Once she’d heard the bell ring, she turned back toward the mayor’s house and began walking to work. She and Louis were beginning to expertly navigate the neat grey streets of Lincoln, which wasn’t hard considering the size of the town. It was still very new and different, but Louis had settled in with ease and that was all Sana cared about.

As she walked, heels clicking against the pavement, Sana ran through her plan in her head.

Since the day she’d taken her to the beach, things had been getting better, physiotherapy mishap aside. Sana still wasn’t sure what happened that day. Sarah had sounded so distraught on the phone, and Y/n’s eyes had been red, but after a few minutes she’d seemed fine. A little dazed by something, but not a furious wreck. Maybe she was just restraining herself for Louis’s sake.

With winter settling in around the town, there were going to be more opportunities for her plan. Lincoln was exactly the kind of town that made a mountain of every molehill. Already, she’d two flyers through her door about different Christmas fairs and markets, and a woman trying to sell her festive candles (who she’d shut the door on. It was November and Sana Minatozaki did not suffer fools gladly).