Page 31 of Drawn Together
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.”
