Page 13 of Drawn Together

Twelve

Word of the day: Amity

Definition : Warmth in a friendship

I go to bed that night with two notifications resting at the top of my phone, and my eyes first snag on the emailed reply from Cedric.

From [email protected]

To: [email protected]

CC: [email protected]

Miss Honey Bell,

Though I can appreciate your enthusiasm, I don’t like the idea of cutting my agent out of the conversations. I have already expressed my concerns about us working together, but it seems the message didn’t come through plainly enough, so let me make my response clear.

Your illustration style is entirely mismatched for the tone and substance of Threadbare.

This is a dark novel, not a pastel-colored bedtime romp.

What you've sent me so far feels more like it belongs on a cereal box than in the pages of a story about missing children and whispering shadows.

I don't need smiling squirrels or doe-eyed orphans. I need dread. Atmosphere. Teeth in the dark. I’m not interested in softening the material to make it palatable for parents who'd rather pretend children don’t have nightmares.

In short: if this isn’t a good fit, I will not pursue it further. For any further attempts to re-pitch or revise, my agent will follow up, should there be any confusion.

Best,

Cedric Brooks

Before I can even begin to think of a response—besides an all capital WHAT followed by ten question marks—there is a text banner from Fletcher.

Fletcher: Is there a reason you assigned me this book specifically?

I smile to myself.

Me : I have no idea what you mean.

Fletcher: First Rochester and now Darcy. I feel like you’re trying to make a point.

Me: You said it, not me.

Fletcher: How’s Frankenstein ?

Me: I practically feel the monster in me growing.

Fletcher: Can you?

Me: No. But I am more than determined to get this commission locked in, and I can pretend for the sake of it.

Fletcher: So, more books, then?

Me: Many more books.

Fletcher: I’ll try to go darker next time.

Me: No one likes an overachiever, Fletcher.

Fletcher: Does Friday still work for you?

Me: Same place?

Fletcher: Same place. Need me to walk you over this time?

Me: I would say yes, but I am going straight from work, so I will probably have to hitch a ride from Fiona Apple again.

Fletcher: It’s important for me to note that you did not take a rideshare with Fiona Apple…ever.

Me: Okay, Darcy.

Friday comes by in a flash.

The week is a blip in time, filled with apple cider donuts—thank you very much to Edith’s granddaughter—watching Lennon envelop herself into working with me, and digesting Frankenstein like my future depends on it. Which, in a way, it does.

My newest draft of Threadbare ’s outline work is far more frightening than before.

I’ve stripped out the blush tones, the soft gradients.

No more cotton-candy skies or glimmers of gold in the warm light.

The palette is desaturated, scraped thin—like a memory left out in the rain.

I even gave The Seamstress these weird shadows—long, sharp, and wrong in their angles—stretching behind her in a way shadows shouldn’t, and a willow tree with branches hung low, leaves grazing her shoulder in a light touch.

Comparing this draft to my first, I think I’m beginning to get what old man Jenkins—ahem, Cedric—was getting at.

In my mind, that draft was perfect for the eight- to twelve-year range and fit the story's theme, but that was the old Flora.

This is the new Flora, and she is dark and mysterious. Watch out world.

On my way to the café, I pass a stand selling assorted pumpkins in multitudinous shades, sizes, and shapes, but my eyes land on a perfect pink one.

The woman behind the counter ensures me that it is technically a gourd, and I take a picture and text it to Sloane, telling her it reminds me of her.

I my eyes catch on a light green one; it’s bumpy and calloused and has some scratches on the bottom of it, and the handle of its stem is broken off, leaving it bald and misshapen.

This one reminds me of Fletcher. So, I pull out the last of my cash and happily pay the overpriced ten dollars for the small and absurd pumpkin.

“You’re on time.”

Fletcher’s eyes widen, and he stares from me to my full hands.

“Do you have to sound so surprised?”

He gestures for me to sit across from him, and I do, placing the little green guy in front of us both like a centerpiece.

“What—”

“It reminded me of you.”

“Um. Okay.”

“It’s a gift. To say thank you for the help.”

“Ah, alright then.”

I leave him briefly to grab a cup of vanilla chai, and when I glance over my shoulder, he is turning the tiny pumpkin around in his hand with a confused look.

When I sit back down, I take note that he has put the pumpkin more on his side than mine and assume it’s his way of accepting the gift. I sip from my steaming paper cup and pull out the paperback that I have clung desperately to this week.

“Oh, tell your friend I said thank you for letting me borrow their copy.”

“Okay.”

I could just let the moment slide. I should. But there’s this halting motion in my brain that tells me to sit here, to soak in whatever his answer is to my next question.

“It’s not really my business, but Lennon acted kind of funny when she saw I had this book.”

Well, that’s not much of a question.

“Funny mad?”

“No. Like funny…curious.”

“Oh.”

I raise my brows like…anything to add? He takes his fork and cuts the muffin between us in two before pushing one half over to my side of the table, like it would suffice for a real explanation. Clearly beating around the bush is doing me no good here, so I outright ask.

“Is there something I’m missing here?”

“Did Lenny say anything else about it? About who owned it?”

“Not exactly. She just seemed to find it weird that I had this copy.”

Fletcher is quiet for so long I wonder if his brain is rebooting, but then I see it. The exact moment he decides to tell me the truth.

“It was my best friend’s. The book. He collected a lot of classics, and I just took it from his old shelf in the apartment.”

“Oh.” Was reigns overall in my head, and I have to assume the worst. “And he’s…”

“Dead.”

“Oh my God, Fletcher. I am so sorry. I really, really should not have taken this.” I all but throw the book across the table, like its worn pages could burn me. “I could’ve ruined it, I could’ve—”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“You don’t know that. What if I dropped it in a puddle on the side of the road or spilled coffee on it? What if I lost it in the bookstore?”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“Fletcher.” I turn on my assertive voice. “You are awfully confident for someone who hasn’t seen the number of mugs I have shattered just by trying to wash them. Why would you let me borrow this?”

He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”

But it is. It so is, and I don’t see how he couldn’t understand that.

“Can I ask about him?”

“If you want.”

I have multiple questions, but the first I land on is, “When did he…”

“March.”

“Of this year?”

“Yes.”

Six months. That’s all? Just one month before I moved here, there was a man in the building across from me losing his very best friend.

He had to be young, too, right? Fletcher is what…

twenty-seven? Twenty-eight at the most? I rub my palm against my chest. “Fletcher, I am so, so sorry. I can’t believe you let me borrow his book—”

“You seem to be making this a really big deal.”

“It is. If I lost my best friend, I like to think I’d hold on to their things in a fireproof safe and never let anyone near it.”

Of course, I did lose a best friend once—though death was not involved—and in stark contrast, I got rid of all evidence of him as soon as he was out of my life.

The only thing left of Austin is the scar he left behind, deep in my chest cavity, where no one else bothers to go.

A ghost sitting at the end of an empty hallway, warding all others away.

Fletcher doesn’t respond, he just sips on his coffee, staring at the books on our table and to the ugly pumpkin beside him.

“Can I ask how—”

“Prostate cancer. He found out too late, and even though he tried treatments, he only made it four months after the diagnosis.” The way he says it is so monotonous, like he’s repeated it a hundred times before—like he’s practiced it in the mirror.

Nausea rises in my stomach at the touch of sadness in his hazel eyes. I stand up, my chair leaving an awful screeching noise into the room from the motion.

Fletcher glances from me above him to the people sitting around us. “What are you doing?”

I raise a hand. “Stand up.”

“I’m okay.”

“It’s mandatory.”

He looks around to the others in the coffee shop for support, but they are all so engrossed in their own media and drinks they don’t care what I’m doing.

“They’re not even looking.” I wave my hand.

“They definitely are.”

“Do you care that much?”

“I would care less if I knew why you were standing.”

“Humor me.”

“I think you can humor yourself.”

“Then let me humor you.”

He puts his hands in his lap and fidgets. “I’m okay.”

“Get. Up.” I spit the words out, and he must either be too tired to fight me or my authoritative voice is getting better, because he finally stands.

I lift my chin and take a couple steps closer to him.

“What—”

My hands start to reach between his arms, his hands stuck in his pockets, but he snaps them close to his torso.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to give you a hug, if you’d just— Ugh, come down a little bit—” I didn’t take our height difference into consideration for this assignment. I am a fairly tall woman—well, above average—but that seems to be a pointless fact in this position.

“This is really unnecessary.”

“It’s a requirement.”

“But it’s not.”

I am still trying to find a way to wrap my arms around his ridiculously long torso while his arms are searching for a place to go without landing on me.