In Chap­ter 6 of If These Wings Could Fly, the sto­ry begins on a rou­tine Mon­day morn­ing. The char­ac­ters make their way down the street toward the bus stop, pass­ing by Mrs. Stieg’s house, as they do every day. But today, some­thing catch­es the protagonist’s eye as they approach Mrs. Stieg’s gar­den. In the far cor­ner of the yard, a bush that had once been thriv­ing now lies in ruins. This is no sim­ple dam­age, like the inci­dent where a bush had been bro­ken in the past. Instead, the bush has been com­plete­ly oblit­er­at­ed, leav­ing behind noth­ing but dis­turbed soil and scat­tered red petals. These petals, once vibrant, are now the only evi­dence of a vio­lent force hav­ing passed through, and they hint at an intense and pur­pose­ful destruc­tion. The sight imme­di­ate­ly evokes a sense of dis­tur­bance, a feel­ing that some­thing out of the ordi­nary has occurred.

The pro­tag­o­nist can­not help but share the dis­cov­ery with Camp­bell, hop­ing for some sort of expla­na­tion, or at least a reac­tion. But Campbell’s response is almost dis­mis­sive, shrug­ging off the sig­nif­i­cance of the event as if it means lit­tle to him. How­ev­er, as the pro­tag­o­nist watch­es him, there is a brief moment of hes­i­ta­tion. The pro­tag­o­nist notices a flick­er of some­thing deep­er in Campbell’s eyes—something that can only be described as pride. This brief glim­mer of pride feels entire­ly out of place giv­en the wreck­age they’ve just wit­nessed. It seems as though Campbell’s reac­tion doesn’t match the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion, and this incon­sis­ten­cy rais­es sus­pi­cions in the protagonist’s mind. The feel­ing grows stronger as the pro­tag­o­nist begins to won­der whether Camp­bell could have been respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the bush. With the sus­pi­cion set­tling in, the pro­tag­o­nist con­tem­plates look­ing at Campbell’s bike for signs of the red petals that could act as con­fir­ma­tion of their the­o­ry.

Despite the grow­ing impulse to inves­ti­gate fur­ther, the pro­tag­o­nist resists the urge to con­front Camp­bell direct­ly. They wres­tle with their thoughts and emo­tions, but ulti­mate­ly, they choose not to inspect the bike, leav­ing their sus­pi­cions unspo­ken. This deci­sion is piv­otal, as it reveals much about the com­plex­i­ty of their rela­tion­ship. The protagonist’s reluc­tance to probe deep­er sug­gests an under­ly­ing tension—one where trust is both present and frag­ile. The hes­i­ta­tion to con­front Camp­bell direct­ly sig­ni­fies that there are bound­aries in their friend­ship, bound­aries that are not eas­i­ly crossed. The pro­tag­o­nist under­stands the unspo­ken rules of their rela­tion­ship and rec­og­nizes that some things might be bet­ter left unsaid, even if doubts linger in their mind. This unspo­ken under­stand­ing, how­ev­er, leaves a sense of unease hang­ing in the air, sug­gest­ing that some­thing deep­er is at play.

The chap­ter del­i­cate­ly crafts a mood of unease and qui­et con­flict, where every small action and reac­tion car­ries weight. The imagery of the destroyed gar­den serves as a pow­er­ful metaphor for the trou­bled dynam­ics between the pro­tag­o­nist and Camp­bell. Just as the bush has been destroyed beyond recog­ni­tion, the trust between the char­ac­ters has been frac­tured in a way that may nev­er ful­ly heal. The scat­tered red petals are a vivid reminder of the destruc­tion that lies beneath the sur­face of their friendship—small yet sig­nif­i­cant signs of some­thing more com­pli­cat­ed and dark­er than they are will­ing to acknowl­edge. The pro­tag­o­nist’s deci­sion to hold back from a direct con­fronta­tion with Camp­bell reflects the broad­er theme of the nov­el: how rela­tion­ships can be test­ed by the small­est of actions, and how doubts, once plant­ed, can grow into some­thing more pow­er­ful.

Through this moment, the author sub­tly explores the fragili­ty of trust and the com­plex­i­ties of friend­ship. By choos­ing not to engage with Camp­bell on the issue, the pro­tag­o­nist shows the read­er how easy it is for unre­solved issues to fes­ter beneath the sur­face. The ten­sion between loy­al­ty and sus­pi­cion is pal­pa­ble, and it becomes clear that the protagonist’s rela­tion­ship with Camp­bell is not as straight­for­ward as it once seemed. In fact, the chap­ter sets the stage for fur­ther explo­ration of how even the most seem­ing­ly inno­cent inter­ac­tions can car­ry the poten­tial for con­flict. It’s not just about the destruc­tion of a bush, but about how that act of destruc­tion reveals the cracks in their rela­tion­ship. The chap­ter paints a pic­ture of a rela­tion­ship that is qui­et­ly unrav­el­ing, with each small, seem­ing­ly insignif­i­cant moment con­tribut­ing to the larg­er unrav­el­ing of trust between the two char­ac­ters.