Drawn Together

by Juliana Smith

So, that was that. Magic was real. And it can only be found folded between the pages of books.

Fletcher Harding no longer hated the color yellow. Banana Laffy Taffy yellow.

Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein. Funny how those two were published within five years of each other. What a time to be alive.

Word of the day: windownest Definition: that feeling of being indoors — reading, writing, or watching rain — while the world bustles beyond a city window

Flora Anderson bought Fletcher a pumpkin because it reminded her of him. Granted, it’s the ugliest pumpkin that he had ever seen. But he went home, set it on his coffee table, and stared at it for an hour, wondering how he wanted to take that—along with the three-minute hug that reminded him just how touch-starved he was.

How rude of her, Fletcher thought. To come barreling into his life right when he was starting to figure things out, just to turn them all back upside down again.

Fingers reach, grabbing one tendril of my curls, and he studies it, then me. And just like that I’m suddenly jealous of all his paperbacks for experiencing what it’s like to be held and known so intimately by Fletcher Harding.

Fletcher never thought of himself as a knight in shining armor kind of guy, never really cared enough to be the type. But, if that’s what Flora needed, he would gladly accept that label and save her anytime.

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.”

“You know I’m yours, love.”

Because, when I met Fletcher, I met me, too.

“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.”