In Chap­ter Six of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the nar­ra­tive begins on a Mon­day as the char­ac­ters walk past Mrs. Stieg’s home toward their bus stop. The pro­tag­o­nist’s atten­tion is drawn to a notice­able change in Mrs. Stieg’s gar­den, specif­i­cal­ly in the far cor­ner where a bush has been com­plete­ly destroyed. Unlike a pre­vi­ous inci­dent where a bush was mere­ly bro­ken, this one has been utter­ly pul­ver­ized, leav­ing only dis­turbed earth and rem­nants of red petals scat­tered about—evidence of an intense act that left lit­tle intact.

The pro­tag­o­nist shares this obser­va­tion with Camp­bell, who mere­ly shrugs in response. How­ev­er, the pro­tag­o­nist detects a flick­er of some­thing deep­er in Campbell’s big brown eyes—a hint of pride that seems out of place giv­en the destruc­tion they’ve just encoun­tered. This dis­crep­an­cy rais­es sus­pi­cions about Campbell’s involve­ment in the car­nage. There’s an instinc­tu­al urge to inves­ti­gate fur­ther; the pro­tag­o­nist feels com­pelled to look at Campbell’s bike for signs of crim­son petals that might con­firm their the­o­ry. This moment encap­su­lates a feel­ing of conflict—between want­i­ng to trust Camp­bell and the seed­ed doubt stem­ming from the bush’s dec­i­ma­tion.

Ulti­mate­ly, the pro­tag­o­nist decides against this con­fronta­tion and does­n’t check the bike, empha­siz­ing a tac­it under­stand­ing or com­plic­i­ty between the two. This reluc­tance to ful­ly engage sug­gests a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship, tinged with both loy­al­ty and sus­pi­cion. The chap­ter thus clev­er­ly sets up an atmos­phere of unease, hint­ing at past actions and the impli­ca­tions they may hold for the char­ac­ters’ friend­ship. The imagery of the ruined gar­den serves as a metaphor for the under­ly­ing tur­moil in their rela­tion­ship, rep­re­sent­ing lost inno­cence and the poten­tial destruc­tion of trust.