Page 18 of Drawn Together
From: [email protected]
Good morning, I hope this email finds you well. Unfortunately, Mr. Brooks has decided to pass on your commission for his newest book. Please don’t take this personally, as I said before, we have gone through seven other artists due to his distaste. If you have a website, we can write a review for your next commission piece if you choose.
Thank you for your wonderful attempt. We will keep you in mind for future commissions.
Best,
Tom
I’ll give you a spoiler: the email did not find me well. The email found me in the last five minutes of my lunch break at Nook and Cranny. When I responded back asking for details on what exactly went wrong in my work, the agent merely forwardthe email straight from Cedric Brooks, which I wish I never even read.
There are stuffed animals everywhere. Tiny squirrels in the portal of a realm of death. She made Evie look like a spineless five-year-old. Did she even read the manuscript?
The biggest problem is I had an hour left in my shift when I read the email. Meaning I had to hold every piece of my emotional state in for sixty minutes of agony and overthinking, while my phone was locked in a basket under Edith’s desk due to her ‘no devices’ rule. I had to read a copy of Harry Hops to Harvard to a group of seven-year-olds—sharing the story of a bunny achieving his dreams of going to an Ivy League school. Meanwhile, all I could think about was this old man’s words, over and over again.
It’s only now, walking down the streets of Park Slope back to my apartment, that I let it all out. Big, fat tears rapidly slide their way down my cheeks, my sobs uncontrollable. What started first as a cute, measly sniffle has now transformed to full on ugly sobs. My bottom lip quivers at the ground, while my curly hair creates a curtain of privacy around my watery eyes.
Each racking sob is combined with the smell of autumn dancing in the breeze, with fleeting notes of leather from jackets and boots, subway steam laced with oil, the distant whisper of apples from surrounding vendors, and freshly brewed coffees from open-lid Styrofoam cups. It all feels so…big. There’s a better word out there for it. Encompassing. Overwhelming. Busy. But my mind lands on big right now.
It’s almost comical how in my hometown, if you were caught crying walking down the street, there would be at least ten people stopping to ask what’s wrong. By lunchtime tomorrow, the whole city would be speculating on your broken relationship, your job loss, or the one diner in town no longer selling your favorite sandwich.
Whisper Bay, Maine—where no one knew how to whisper.
Here, I could run down the street shouting about the end of the world while sobbing, and I don’t think anyone would even glance my way.
Thirty minutes of crying, and not a single person of the hundreds I’ve passed has stopped to—
“Agh—” My shoulder slams into someone walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk.
I look up, ready to rant about the correct way to use the city's walkways, when my eyes lock on a familiar, dark-eyed man.
“Good God.” My fingers lift to wipe the fallen tears off my cheeks, but by the uncomfortable look on Fletcher's face, I know it’s too late, he’s already seen it. Voice wobbly, I force out a sentence. “This city is way too big for me to keep running into you.”
“Sorry.” His cheeks are flushed from the heat of the steam grate near us. “I didn’t realize it was you.”
“Well, you’re walking on the wrong side of the sidewalk.”
“No…I’m not.”
I look around and realize, unfortunately, he is right. It’s me who is on the wrong side. In my blurry, watery-eyed state, I must've stumbled over to this side without realizing. Thankfully, I’m saved from trying to explain myself, because the second my head is lifted enough where he can see my pink water lines, Fletcher, in that low voice of his, says brusquely, “Did someone say something to you?”
Yes. “No.”
The way his eyebrows dip tells me he doesn’t catch onto the lie, but I don’t have it in me to push it further than the one word.
Then, Fletcher Harding does the impossible. In a turn of events no one would expect, he asks in a gentle tone, “Did someone beat you in romance trivia? Did they learn what Nora Ephron’s favorite underwear brand is before you or something?”
I don’t think he even knows who Nora Ephron is, but shockingly, it works. It makes me stop crying.
“No.” I wipe my snotty nose on my sleeve and tuck it behind my back.
He hums. “They said you read sub-par romance, then?”
“If that were the case, you would have made me cry with the first trivia question I answered.”
“Maybe.”
My eyes land on the brown paper bag in his hands. “What are you—”
