Page 28 of Drawn Together

Twenty-two

Word of the day: desertion

Definition: the action of deserting a person

I have these dreams regularly where I’m someone else.

It’s not usually a good or a bad dream, it's just…

there. An accountant in Philadelphia who loves bacon cheese fries and is avoiding talking to her ex-boyfriend.

A young writer in Alabama that watches Phantom Menace once a month and wears days of the week underwear.

A reporter obsessed with celebrity drama, following her clients from state to state, watching them through binoculars like birds.

The usual.

Last night, after my delusions, I dreamt of a woman having the perfect date. I dreamt of wearing a pretty dress, of dancing and fresh flowers and first kisses on porch steps. I dreamt of laughing and hugging and whispering and more laughing.

All the while, I dreamt with Fletcher’s face in mind.

Which is exactly why tonight has to go perfectly.

I need to squeeze past all this uncomfortable…

liking and get right down to business. Fletcher is my friend—my best friend.

I have lost this kind of feeling before over love, crushes, and loss, and while losing Austin hurt, losing Fletcher would crush me.

I have spent the entirety of my Saturday prepping for tonight.

I have listened to The Cranberries on repeat all day.

I shaved my legs with such precision that it would take a magnifying glass to find a single hair on this body.

I wore fluffy socks under my heels that I’m going to wear tonight to break them in.

I watched seven makeup tutorials and practiced on my hand.

The outfit I bought solely for tonight—a black skirt and a cream sweater with thick, wool tights underneath—was approved so heavily by Sloane that she sent a picture of her thumbs up rather than simply responding to the mirror selfie that felt horribly unnatural to take.

You can’t even see my legs that I spent so long perfecting, but it's the thought that counts.

If I feel attractive, surely it will shine through.

I slip a dark coat over my sweater and scrunch my hair one last time before walking out to the living room where Lennon and Stephan are sprawled out on the couch in their matching pajamas.

I have an hour and a half before I have to be there, including the added time I allowed myself in case I got lost on the way—because of course I will—and no clue what to do with it.

I could ask Kane if he wanted to meet me earlier than seven, but he hasn’t responded to the last three texts I’ve sent, and I know this is one of those times I need to reel myself in.

Lennon looks up when my boots clack against the hardwoods and she whistles. “Wow.”

“Aw, Flora,” Stephan smiles. “You look nice.”

My cheeks burn and tick up. “Thanks, guys.”

“Something's missing.” Lennon taps her fingers to her mug before standing up and traipsing off to her room. “Come with me.”

She yanks me into her room, and I don’t dare protest.

It’s kind of funny to think I have never seen Lennon’s room before. I’m not sure what I expected, but considering how detailed she is at Nook and Cranny, and that I have never once had to ask her to clean up her areas of the apartment, I just assumed she is an overall tidy person.

I am very wrong.

When it comes to her room, Lennon is chaotic and messy—the floors are covered in laundry, a neon orange bra hangs from the mirror above her dresser, and there is a duvet halfway on her bed and half on the floor.

Shoes. So many shoes. Heeled boots, high top tennis shoes, sandals, knee-high heels, and Crocs are scattered all around.

She tosses a half-empty diet coke bottle over her shoulder by the nightstand, and I lean to the right to narrowly dodge it.

“They’re here somewhere,” she mumbles to herself, as I make eye contact with a stuffed animal that looks like a croissant smiling up at me.

“Ah, here.” She turns around and lifts two hands, holding up a pair of gold earrings against me. “Gorgeous with your skin tone.”

The gesture is so precious that I hate I can't take her up on it. “Oh, I can’t really wear earrings. My hair gets all caught up in them.”

Last time I did was senior year prom, and Mom had to cut my hair around the golden studs, leaving me with fly aways by my ears nearly for two years. Sloane called them my ‘angel wings.’

Lennon frowns. “Do you ever straighten it?”

“I used to every day,” erasing myself piece by piece, “but I haven’t in years.”

It was more of a hassle than anything. I couldn’t reach the back very well, it would end up curling back up if I didn’t take my time, and just never felt fully worth it. Even straight hair didn’t make me any more desirable to have around, so why bother?

“Do you want to?”

Do I? The last time I dressed this nice was for my job interview with Edith, and before then, I’m not sure honestly.

Lennon puts the earrings to my skin again, as if to prove a point of just how much it would elevate this look.

I wonder what it would be like this time, straightening my hair—not so I would look more like the girls Austin always hung around, but so I would look nice for me.

To not get curly tendrils stuck in my lip gloss, or to be able to wear earrings and feel like a woman who is going out on a date.

The thought makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so I check the time, and there’s still well over an hour to spare.

I smile in the mirror facing Lennon. “That would be really nice.”

Turns out that agreeing to let her straighten my hair turns out to mean a whole lot more than my hair.

Before even pulling out a straightener, she is touching up the makeup that I spent forty minutes on.

She eventually pulls up my hair in pinned back sections, the heat of her straightener warming the back of my neck.

Each pull and brush of my hair feels like she’s trying to lull me to sleep.

“You’re really good at this.” I sound like I’m underwater.

“Well, it was my full-time job.”

“Hm?” I tilt my head, but she scolds me for moving, so I straighten back. “What was your full-time job?”

“Hair and makeup for actors and actresses on movie sets. Didn’t I tell you that when you first moved in?”

It takes the will of an elephant to not jerk around. “Um, no. You did not.”

“Oh, well I used to. I’ve worked on some really cool sets, and usually it meant Stephan and I could go to movie premieres. That’s why I was gone a lot in the beginning; I had to fly to LA for a night or two and come back, just to repeat it again in two weeks.”

Seriously, how much more am I going to find out about this girl? Does she have her travel agent license? Does she own a boat? What else is there?

I want to ask just that, but at the same time, I love the thought of learning Lennon piece by piece.

Like the falling of the sunset, getting to be her friend has been slow, inching down and all at once lit up by the stars across the city skyline.

I hope she keeps the surprises coming. I hope that the longer we live together, and the closer I get to her and Fletcher and their friend group, I find myself more and more in place.

“That’s amazing. Have you worked with anyone I would know?”

“Probably. What’s that movie that came out last year? The romance where they’re stuck on the island, and he is supposed to like to marry her sister or something?”

Well, I’m awake now. My voice is as shrill as a siren’s. “You worked on Island of a Thousand Kisses?”

“The sister has a lovely waterline.”

“Wow. Well, that is good to know. What else have you done?”

With every sectioned piece of my hair being straightened, Lennon tells me of every set and celebrity she has had the privilege to work with.

Ellis Jude in the Taming of The Beast. Sawyer Ellisworth in You Cling To Me.

The Jett Rhodes in Jungle Reckoning. She got to contour his abs, fix his perfect hair, and shape up the stubble on his sharp jawline, and I have never been so jealous in my life.

I make a mental note that Fletcher and I have to watch all his movies together and zoom in on his abs to admire my roommate's work.

Sloane plays with my hair until it’s to her liking, then slips the earrings in, before spraying me head to toe in hair spray—she claims it’s for my makeup and my hair, but she also sprayed my boots, so I’m not sure how to take that.

I stand up, slip my jacket back on, and watch as she takes a step back to admire her hard work. “Well, would you look at that.”

“Hm?”

“You wear my earrings better than I do. That means they’re yours now.”

“No.” I reach a hand up to hold the golden hoop. “I can’t—”

“I won’t take them back; they’re not made for me.”

The admiration in her voice is so palpable that I spin from the mirror to her willowy frame by the doorway. With arms stretched out, I pull her into my embrace, and it hits me—I have never hugged Lennon. I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone other than Stephan do it.

“Thank you,” I whisper in her ear, and slowly two arms slip over my shoulders, squeezing me back.

I count to thirty before slipping away, not missing the tiny slip of a tear in the corner of her eyes. Maybe Fletcher didn’t need my thirty-second hug, but Lennon certainly did.

With her door closed, neither of us heard the apartment door open twenty minutes before, so I stop abruptly when we walk out and see Fletcher with a pumpkin scone halfway to his mouth. As he stands up, he practically throws the scone on a plate, causing the crumbs in his lap to fall to the ground.

I like how he does that—stands up whenever I come into the room. Maybe it’s the historical romances I’ve read, but something about a man who stands at your entrance is so endearing.

“Hi,” he chokes out, around the bite behind his lips.

I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, light and silky. “Hi.”