Page 77 of Drawn Together
“I just don’t get it. What did I do wrong?”
Fletcher's sympathy is so palpable it drives straight into my chest and pushes out the tears even more. “What’s the last thing you two spoke about?”
I open my phone and slide up on the conversation that felt like it was going so well in the moment but, looking back I probably should have known better.
“Here.” I slide the device across the table. “You can read it.”
His brows furrow and he mutters something low about giving him nightmares before he starts reading.
“It’s not bad, I don’t get it— Wow. He really does like plants a lot.”
“It felt like a green flag at the time.”
Fletcher nods, and his jaw clenches the further he reads.
“You…asked him for his birthday?”
“I did.” I sit up straight. “Why? Is that weird?”
“No, not weird, just…” He pauses for so long that I have to tap his foot under the table.
“Sorry, did you mean to ask him for his family ancestry username so you could friend him and ‘compare your bloodlines?’”
“Well, when you say it like that, yeah it sounds a little weird.”
He locks the phone and pushes it back to my side. “You never asked for my username.”
“I didn’t exactly think about our bloodlines.”
The thoughts I have of Fletcher Harding aren’t the least bit family friendly.
“It’s me, isn’t it? I’m the whole problem in this mess.”
“Flora, it’s not you. I promise.”
“But that’s the thing, it is me. I moved to the city with such romantic expectations. I moved here thinking I could come to the most popular city in the country and make all these friends and have all these experiences. When really, this is the loneliest place I've ever been.” Until I met you. I want to add. And when you are gone from my life one day, I don’t think I’ll survive this city on my own again.
“Come here. I wanna show you something.” He pulls my chair impossibly closer so I can see the restaurant from his view now.
“What are we looking at?” As far as I’m concerned, my view of the water and the city is far better than that of the restaurant filled with people dressed fancier than I ever have.
“You see the younger woman three tables from the bar with the brown hat?” I nod and he says, “She just had a miscarriage.”
My heart drops. “You know her?”
“No, just stick with me. She had a miscarriage, it was twins. She and her husband were so heartbroken that they are on the verge of divorce because of it.” He points to someone else, a tall man with a mustache sitting across from a woman who looks like she is ready to leave their table any moment. “He just lost his job. He is fighting bankruptcy and is having to beg his family for money when they told him not to move to New York in thefirst place.” He moves his hand again, just out of sight from the others. “That older lady over there just got a biopsy for a tumor.”
I gasp. “What did it say?”
“It’s cancerous, and she’s too old for the invasive surgery. They suspect she has only four months to live. Doctors caught it too late, and now she has to find a way to say goodbye to her grandkids.”
“What? No! How is this supposed to make me feel better?”
Fletcher's shoulders are low, his mouth inches from my ear as his voice reigns me in. “What do they all have in common?”
“They’re all miserable?”
“They are all connected. Everybody’s got some kind of desolation in there somewhere, and in a way, it’s nice to know you aren’t the only one carrying some tough shit around. Maybe it is a lonely city, but we all have that thing in common. Everybody’s got something they’re taking with them. They’re all drawn together that way.”
