Page 48 of Drawn Together

He sucks in a breath and meets my eyes, like this next part is just for me. “Just over a year ago, my best friend, Ryan, got diagnosed with prostate cancer. And he spent the last four months of his life dedicated to teaching me about Cedric Brooks and his last novel, Threadbare.”

A picture of Ryan appears on the projected screen behind Fletcher as he holds up his note cards.

He looks so much like Lennon that I feel like someone punched me in the chest. Fletcher’s fingers shake so violently, his cards slip, and he curses before reaching down to pick them all up.

I want to be up there. Want to support him.

Want to ask a million things, including why could he not just tell me? But I’m still here. Still frozen.

“He put so much trust in me to take on this…dread Pirate Roberts situation—” And now I know he threw that in there just for me.

“That there was no way I was ever going to tell him no. And so, I took it on. And I was horrible at it for so long. I snapped at every person who tried to help, because it was Ryan’s last project.

Not my book, and not Cedric’s, but my best friend’s work that he trusted in my hands. ”

He picks at the book in his hands and lifts it to show a temporary bar with not for resale printed across and over the front of the cover.

My cover. “Then, I met my new best friend. I actually stole her muffin when I first met her, but that’s a story for another day.

I met this really, really great woman who was funny and smart and kind and an expert in romance novels, and while I was supposed to teach her about dark literature, she taught me about love.

And it took time—more than I’m willing to admit—to realize that the love she got from her books was the same love I was getting just by watching her drink coffee or gasp at squirrels in the park or talking about how much she loved book annotations.

Instead of reading Pride and Prejudice and watching How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, I focused completely on her.

She took over everything. And before I knew it, I realized I had this huge, horrible secret I was holding back, and it was eating me alive to not tell her.

And I was going to…” He turns and faces directly at me.

Everything else nearby slips, and it’s just us here and now.

“I was, Flora. I almost did at least twenty times. But I had this NDA, and there was no getting out of it…unless…” He gestures his arms to our surroundings.

“I agreed to retire Cedric Brooks as a whole. So, here we are.”

Gasps and shutters and whispers erupt around us, but they might as well be on the moon. I’m surrounded by books of love and loss, heroic character arcs, tragic back stories, overcoming of evil, and these beautiful happily ever afters, and yet here I am, stuck in my story.

“I was dying to tell you,” he whispers, just to me. “I just didn’t want to disrespect what Ryan worked so hard on to do it.”

I wish I could tell you what happens next. What questions people ask and how he answers and watching him sign life-long reader copies and see how well I’m sure he navigated that crowd. But I didn’t stay there. Instead, I ran off to the smallest corner I could find and let the chaos erupt behind me.

The bathroom here is basically nonexistent. It’s a floral wallpapered box with a toilet and a ceramic sink and a chain dangling from the ceiling that you yank to turn the light on.

“Hey.” Lennon slips in and squats down next to me, the mumbling conversations of other people behind her dull when she shuts the door. “You okay?”

I don’t know how to answer, because am I?

Am I okay with any of this? I’m so focused on what I’m supposed to feel and what’s appropriate to feel right now, that I can’t even stop to wonder—do I care?

Do I care about what is right and appropriate?

Or do I, deep down, just have the undying urge to run back out there and hug Fletcher and ask him myself everything I want to know?

I shrug, like I’m answering myself.

“Yeah,” she whispers, and snakes an arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“You knew?”

“In a way. But, if it helps, Fletcher didn’t tell me.

I was in charge of Ryan's books after he died, and I saw these massive checks from publishers coming in and did some snooping to figure out what was going on. When I confronted Fletcher about it, he didn’t confirm or deny.

We didn’t talk about it; I just assumed the rest when he was weird about his day job after that. ”

“It’s…hard. I had this whole image in my head of who Fletcher was and is and how…

Fletcher he is? And this entire other image of Cedric as this old man writing books in a bat cave, and now everything is so muddy.

And I think I’m kind of mourning this version of a man I’d been picturing this whole time. ”

“If it helps, I don’t think they’re exactly one and the same.

And maybe in a way they are. But also, maybe he saw a life that could have been loaded with secret success and money, yet saw another life with you, and he picked the latter.

” She brushes my hair from my face. “I don’t know what I would do in your case, honestly.

If it were Stephan, I mean. But I do know that even if you and Fletcher don’t work out,” those words alone cause a huge knot to form in my throat, “you’ll still have me. ”

I look up to her. “I will?”

“Of course, Flora. You’re kind of my best girlfriend, you know?

I know it took a while for me to come around, and I know I’m not always reliable for the little things, but I am there for you.

Why do you think I’m on this disgusting floor?

” She points to a corner with something black in it.

“Seriously, whose job is it to clean this?”

I sniffle a laugh. “Pretty sure it’s yours.”

“Oh boy.” Her nose curls. “I’ll be covered up next week if Edith finds out.”

My fingers lift to wipe my eyes.

“You okay?” she whispers, and I nod.

“Yeah.” Another sniffle. “I think so.”

“Well, take your time. Sort it out. Whatever happens, I’m taking you to Backside tomorrow morning and we’re getting those pancakes.”

Lennon slips out and closes the door behind her, leaving nothing but me and my thoughts left alone together.

When my tears are nothing but dried, white streaks along my cheeks and smudged eyeliner in the corners, I pick myself up, dust off whatever is on the back of my pants from these floors, and take a deep breath before forcing myself to get back out there.

Edith catches me on the way, asking if we have more ice in the back, and I aimlessly nod, not sure if I’m lying or not.

I float around the store for the rest of the event.

Refilling ciders, straightening paper leaf cutouts, re-positioning light strands and signs and napkins on the corner table.

Always assured of Fletcher's position as he is pulled from side to side by readers and publicists alike. It’s not like this place is massive—there’s only so much space where we can avoid each other—but I can keep my eyes locked on my current surroundings.

I can be here and now and in this moment without having to fully address what is inevitably waiting for me.

For instance, I am currently holding nine-month-old Saylor in the kids’ reading nook as her twelve-year-old brother and her mom are gushing over Fletcher—or Cedric’s— upcoming book.

My eyes lock onto Sailor’s, her long lashes fluttering closed as she fights to drift asleep in my rocking arms. The mom asks Fletcher for tidbits of when Threadbare is coming and what to expect and he makes simple comments such as “Close to the New Year” and “It’s the most beautiful of all Cedric’s books.

” I’m unsure if he threw that in there for my sake or not.

Unsure if he knows I can hear his every word, no matter where I stand in this store.

I think he must know some way or another, because the heat of Fletcher’s gaze has been on me all night, and I can’t decide how I feel about that, either.

You know when you find a new book and you get interested in the cover or the author or a friend's recommendation? You’re intrigued, sure.

But what do you do before you really get into it?

Read the back of it? If it’s an audiobook, maybe listen to the first chapter.

Maybe look up quotes or reviews or the author themselves and where they grew up and what their favorite color is.

And, once you really get to love the book, that’s when you dogear pages or crack the spine, when the corners start to get worn and golden from your constant picking and rereading?

That’s when the annotations and tabs and comments start to flow back, and you realize you liked this book from the start, but now you love the familiarity of it more than anything.

I think that’s what this whole situation is like.

The last two months, I’ve only had a mere introduction of who Fletcher is—the pitch on the back, the tropes listed on a graphic, a best-selling author blurb on a billboard in passing.

And now, here in this moment, is the start of finding out the rest. Where you climb into the book, imagine the characters as your real-life friends.

Where the images of castles and dragons and romance, grief, love, and heartbreak all intercede into a seamless thread of a story in your brain, to linger there as long as it chooses to do so.

Maybe everything until now was the first half of his book, and now I have to decide if I want to stay in the second.

Do I? Want to read the rest, that is. I look down at the curly-haired angel face in my arms, like maybe she’ll give me the answer.

She doesn’t. Unless the gas she is attempting to push out is supposed to be a sign for anything, and if it is, then I am choosing to not accept it as one.

The rest of the event is passes in a blur.

Lennon is cleaning the bathroom for half of it.

Cliff is playing very well in his security guard role, going as far to wear sunglasses in the dimly lit entrance and pointing to anyone who dares get near the phone basket by the door.

Edith is resting finally, sitting back in her worn out chair behind the counter, happily watching as the crowd goes on and on about the store.

Words like ‘quaint’ and ‘cozy’ and ‘charming’ are fluttering all around her, and I can feel the sense of ease wafting from her chest all the way over here.

If nothing else, there is that. Fletcher single-handedly has brought life back into this place, whether he meant to or not. Whatever side I choose to land on after all this, he did that for this store, and I think for me, too.

It’s with that thought as the very last customer, who happens to be Todd’s nine-year-old daughter, slips out hand-in-hand with her dad, gripping a signed copy of The House That Hums cradled to her chest.

“Phew.” Cliff locks the door and slides down the wooden entrance to land on his butt. “I’m done, guys.”

We all silently agree, social batteries drained down to nothing, and even the soft jazz music playing in the background is wildly overstimulating.

Fletcher walks over to the speakers and presses the off button, allowing me a moment to sit in my little pencil chair and soak in the silence.

Then, like it’s taking every bit of effort to not say anything, he walks up and takes a seat in the other chair.

His hips get stuck halfway, and if I wasn’t completely rung out like a wet towel, I’d laugh at the picture.

“Hi.” He leans in, staring at me, and I can’t force my eyes away from the arrow pointing to the restrooms where Stephan is fanning Lennon.

“Hi.” My voice is all washed away sanded down by the grit of fake smiles and sore cheeks and unknown feelings.

“I— uh,” He pats his hands on his legs, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man look so unsteady.

So uncomfortable in his own skin, like he’d enjoy crawling out of it and becoming someone else for just a bit.

“I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to get dinner tonight, but I, uh, am.

Wanting to. With you. If you’re able. And willing. ”

I can easily say no in this moment. No one would blame me. But, looking up at those sad hazel eyes and knowing there is so much more in this whole story that I’m missing out on, I know my answer before I can even think about it.

“Okay.”