Page 61 of Drawn Together
Point is, I know the battle I am heading into, and I know I have to fight this attraction as hard as I can if I want to keep Fletcher in my life moving forward.
I do, by the way. Want to keep him in my life. If that wasn’t clear enough.
My phone buzzes beside me, and when I see Fletcher’s name, I drop it into the laundry basket at my feet, full of clean socks and underwear and my vibrating phone. I have no clue what I would even say right now, or if he even remembered last night’s moment in the closet. I let the phone ring out until it’s fully silent before snaking it out of the basket and checking my recent text.
Fletcher: Sorry if I made things weird last night.
Me: It wasn’t weird!
He starts typing, stops, then starts, and stops. I figure he’s not going to say anything else, but the vibrations come back, andhe’s calling me again. With a violent effort, I throw my phone back in the laundry until the vibrating stops and pull it out to text him one more time.
I cannot fall for another friend. No, no, no. I will not. It would be one step forward, ten steps back.
Me: Sorry, super busy! I’ll talk to you later?
It takes an absurd amount of time for him to reply but when he does it says,
Fletcher: No problem. Have a good day, Flora.
In all fairness, I tried to have a good day. But I spent my morning frantic over a potentially unrequited—or even worse, requited—crush, and dove straight into my next commission page for Cedric. I have redone this one three times, and considering his feedback is lighter—not to bother, but can we remove the flowers in the field? Also, it’s nighttime here—I am a little more obliged to do as he asks. Even in my adjusting and contrasting and shading lines, I kept coming back to two things: the closet, and how positive are we that I am not about to die of carbon monoxide poisoning? According to the building manager, highly unlikely, but not impossible. So, there goes the day of goodness.
It hits me as I am mid-sketch that this whole crush thing only came up after Lennon talked about my needing a rebound. So, when looked at in that way, it’s really not my fault. She planted a seed of a reminder that I am a single woman in her twenties in a town full of good men to go out with, and I—naturally and blamelessly—picked the first one I was alone in a coat closet with. It’s like all the cobweb dusted corners of my brain that used to scream for a romantic relationship suddenly opened back up for normal business hours.
That’s all that was. A quick little blip of desire to an attractive man—it doesn’t have to actually mean anything. It doesn’t have to ruin anything. I can keep Fletcher in my life, thereby alsokeeping Lennon, Stephan, and the others, and nothing has to change. Que será, será and all that.
So, when Lennon and I are at work this afternoon, the first thing she asks when we are alone is, “Have you given any more thought to that rebound we talked about?” I almost laugh.
“Actually, yes.” I stamp the ‘staff approved’ stamp on another postcard to stick in the books beside us. “I’d like to try. Just once.”
Just one good date. A single night to ogle a man and realize that there is so much more out there in the world, and I don’t have to keep picking the person closest to me to fall headfirst into affection with.
Lennon beams. “A very good idea. We can go out tonight, if you want?”
“That would be great.”
“Are you still okay with that line dancing bar? You’ll like it, I promise.”
I give a nod and then wonder, “Is that where you guys met?”
She laughs. It’s big and bright, and I don’t know if I have heard it before, but I make a note to tell her how much I enjoy it later. “I don’t remember where we met.”
“You don’t?”
“We were probably still in diapers. Our moms were best friends, still are. And Stephan was Ryan’s best friend.” She sucks in a little breath but tries to cover it with the stamp. “We were friends, but nothing like they were. Then, when I was fifteen and started growing boobs, he noticed me a little more.”
I snort. “So, then you started dating.”
“Yep.”
You should talk to her about it. As much as I don’t want to think about Fletcher right now, I know he is right.
“What did Ryan think?”
“He was livid at first. He tried to ground me.” Watery laughter. “Threatened to throw my phone in our sink, then did the same to Stephan. But eventually, he caught on to what we had and realized it wasn’t going anywhere.”
“You’ve been together since?”
“Pretty much. Our ten-year anniversary was last month.” She’s quiet for a second, staring down at the stamp in my hands. “I thought he was going to propose,” she whispers, like she's scared to let it out. “We talked about it before Ryan’s diagnosis. But then, everything was kind of…pushed to the side, you know? And when he passed, I lost so much sense of myself that an engagement wasn’t even on my mind.”
