Page 104 of Drawn Together
Wordoftheday:Nirvana
definition:a state of perfect happiness, harmony, and freedom.
Subject: Final Files for approval / retirement:
Good evening, Mr. Brooks,
I wanted to send the finished files for your approval, so they are attached here! Also, I don’t think I’m supposed to know this, but I wanted to congratulate you on your retirement starting tomorrow. I know we didn’t get off on the right foot a few months ago, but I am so pleased to have worked with you. Please know this experience and your guidance have been so helpful in my artistic journey. I actually work with Edith at Nook and Cranny part-time, and I am really looking forward to meeting you in person tomorrow night. I just had to let you know that I am genuinely going to miss working with you. And that’s not sarcasm or just because I want a reference—let it be known I totally would accept any references from you—but,because I think you are a wonderfully complicated individual. I am going to miss your comments, even the meanest ones.
Anyway, that’s all. I’ll have all my copies of The Clockmaker’s Shadow ready for you to sign.
Have a great night, and an even better retirement,
Flora Anderson
AKA, your cartoon bunny of an illustrator.
P.S. Do you have a mustache? If not, can you grow one overnight? I have a bet to win.
With the email sent, I tuck myself into my blanket with my second copy of The Clockmaker’s Shadow across my lap. Lennon is at Stephan’s tonight, and I probably should take the moment to enjoy a quiet, empty apartment on a cold November night before the chaos of tomorrow looms. But still, I have this overwhelming sense of ‘what else can I do right now’ looming over me.
I graze my finger over the page, tracing Cedric’s past illustrator’s work. In the dim light from an oil lamp, Jonas holds a dull watch in cupped hands that is set to change his entire future. His shadow on the wall is longer than it should be—and it's reaching upward, even though his arms are down, to show how time and shadows freeze when it’s in his hands. “It only ticks for those who are lost.”
It’s almost funny how different this story feels fromThreadbare. How this one ebbs and flows into this darkness, andThreadbarealmost has this sweetly sinister twist in it. I lift my iPad and scroll down the illustrating software until I reach one of my favorite scenes. As Evie moves into the closet, the quilt beneath her changes, replacing happy moments with twisted, empty ones—memories unraveling. Cedric, in his wise way, has let me know why this exact moment was so important. The quilt’s change shows that staying too long in the Underseamerodes who you are, the discarded Threadbare hinting at why she's both loyal and bitter.
It’s kind of beautiful when you think about it. How you can find yourself in a place of darkness and allow it to change you over time. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death and still somehow—someway—there is a light at the end. For Evie, it’s coming back to her closet. For Lennon, it’s pushing through the first year without her brother. For me, I think it was all the times from my first heartbreak led me to meeting Fletcher. Because, when I met Fletcher, I met me, too.
It’s with that thought that I’m shut out of my own mind as there is an insistent banging on my door.
I sling the door open and it’s Fletcher, in pajamas of all things—plaid pajamas and a white T-shirt that fits snug around his arms and his chest, which is violently rising and falling as he catches his breath.
“Fletcher.” I look behind him, like Lennon and Stephan would magically appear, too, but it’s just him and me in the small space. “What are you—”
The world dissolves the moment his lips meet mine. There's no hesitation, no waiting, he’s just there. It's as if he's been waiting an eternity for this single moment, like our past kisses have been erased and he needs nothing more than to write them all back down. His lips—soft yet insistent—mold against mine, a perfect fit I know I’ll never stop craving. His hands—gentle and sweet and a touch possessive—weave through my hair, sending shivers down my spine as he tilts my head back slightly, deepening the kiss. The solid warmth of his chest presses against me, grounding me in a reality that suddenly feels heightened and exhilarating.
Fletcher kisses like he’s crawled through the desert—parched and desperate—and I’m the first drink of water he’s found. Every touch, every movement, is imbued with this raw, primal need.He kisses me like it’s the sole mission on his mind—a desperate, life-sustaining act. And, in this moment, lost in the intoxicating swirl of sensation, I think it might be. Everything else fades away. The open door of my apartment that he has propped open, the gasp of Miss Gonzales as she rushes back into her own home. The draft I feel on my exposed back as Fletcher’s hand raises up my sweater. It all goes somewhere in the distance, leaving only the frantic rhythm of our hearts and the electric connection that surges between us. It's a kiss that promises everything and demands nothing, one that leaves me breathless and wanting more.
“That book.” He pulls back just enough to look me in the eyes. His glasses are gone, like he has vanished them into thin air, and I cannot stress enough just how wild and out of breath he looks. “Do you remember that one part where he shows her just how nice enthusiasm is?”
I shake my head, leaning closer. My lips brush back and forth against his, like I’m testing the weight of them.
“No.” I plant one more long kiss on the corner of his lips and smile against him. “Remind me?”
And he does. He reminds me with a gentle and firm press of his lips on mine. He does with teeth against my collar bone and sweet kisses along my throat. He tells me the story with his hands, roaming my waist up to my hair. He reminds me of it all when he pulls me so close that I don’t know where he ends and I begin, when he looks me in the eyes and whispers up against my skin.
“I hate that someone out there has had you in ways that I haven’t. I know that’s ridiculous and unfair and selfish and yet, I still feel that way.”
“If it helps,” I trail my nails along his neckline, satisfaction running through my veins with every goosebump in my touch's wake, “you’ve had me in ways that he never has.”
The craziest part is, it’s true. Austin had me in the way you carry a last resort blanket in your car—as a backup, use in case of emergencies, kind of way. Losing him hurt, but mostly because losing him meant losing a part of myself rooted in childhood memories.
But, if I lost Fletcher now, it feels like the entire world around me would crumble to pieces. Not because I would be without Lennon or their friends, and not just for the fact that I’d be lonely. But, because if I lost Fletcher now, I think I’d lose all of me. Not just the young Flora, but this one too, and every version in between.
In every piece of myself, he’s there. Every corner I go to, he follows. Wherever I am, there he is, too.
Fletcher shakes his head against me, his lips caressing back and forth, slow and gentle. “You consume me. In everything I do. Every sound, every song, everything around me always comes back to you. Every silence in my life screams for your name. And when the silence dulls into my own perception, it’s still you. You’re the narrator of all my thoughts; everywhere I go, it’s you on my mind.”
