A Kind of Contradiction

I’d been feeling miserable ever since I left Patrick’s, despite knowing that breaking up was the right thing to do. On Sunday afternoon I finally stumbled out of bed, having spent the entire morning (and most of yesterday) under the covers watching TV on my laptop. I hadn’t touched my sketchbook since Thursday, despite the itch in my fingers to draw Nash, because I owed it to Patrick to sulk for at least a week.

But I was hungry, and I’d ignored Lucia’s calls for meals yesterday because I could hear Danny and Nash talking downstairs. The house was relatively quiet now, except for the sounds of Lucia cleaning. I didn’t know if Mom was out or in her office, she didn’t seem to have noticed that I was holed up in my room. But, knowing her, she’d probably prefer this sort of behaviour to me going around dating a twenty-four year old and kissing my brother’s best friend.

Lucia was in the midst of unloading the dishwasher when I entered the kitchen. She took in my baggy t-shirt and sweatpants combination and clicked her tongue. “Sit down. I’ll make you grilled cheese, and you can tell me all about it.”

I sat at the breakfast nook with my legs criss-crossed, tracing the rim of the cup of homemade iced tea Lucia had placed in front of me. “You were married, right?”

“Yes, a very long time ago.” Lucia placed the sandwich into the pan, casting a glance at me over her shoulder.

“What happened?”

She smiled. “Our love was filled with passion, but there was no stability. For a relationship to work, you need both.”

“Do you still talk to each other?”

“We do. But it took almost ten years to make that phone call,” Lucia flipped the sandwich, then walked over to the breakfast nook. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be talking, not me.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m just trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing.”

“Is there a boy, Cosima?” Lucia asked with a coy smile.

“There were two,” I admitted. If she disapproved, her face didn’t show it. “The one I want doesn’t want me, and I don’t want the one who does.”

She waited until she’d gone back over the stove and switched the grilled cheese over to a plate, cut it in half, and came back to the table to respond. “I think you are mistaking dislike for apprehension, Cosima.”

I frowned. “Do you know who I’m talking about?”

Lucia looked at me like I’d just asked her the most ridiculous question she’d ever heard. “Of course I do, honey. And I assure you he likes you very much. But he’s afraid of what your brother might think.”

“How do you know Nash likes me?” I asked, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest.

“Because he wanted to know why you stayed in your room yesterday and kept on looking toward the stairs. But each time Daniel asked why he was so distracted, he made up an excuse.”

“That doesn’t mean he likes me, Lucia.” I informed her.

She raised her eyebrows. “No? Well, I was cleaning the upstairs bathroom when he came up and stood outside your door for almost five minutes. I thought he was going to knock, but he didn’t.”

The front door slammed shut, and both of us looked toward the doorway. Lucia cast a smile in my direction, and went back to emptying the dishwasher. There was no way I could get back upstairs without being seen, so I picked up one of the halves of my grilled cheese and acted like I wasn’t trying to hide.

“She lives!” Danny cried out, striding into the kitchen with a wide grin on his face. “I was getting worried for a minute there, sis, thought you’d run away or something.”

“I wish,” I replied.

He dropped onto the bench across from me, leaning forward on his forearms. “Mom said to tell you she’ll be back on Wednesday. I was thinking of inviting the guys over tonight. You don’t mind, right?”

“Whatever.”

“Hey, don’t be like that, Cos,” Danny said with a frown. “I’ll order a Hawaiian pizza just for you.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, fighting a smile. Danny’s frown morphed into a grin and he patted my wrist with his hand before hopping up. “I’m gonna text the guys now. Should I get Nash to bring beer?”

“You’re underage, Daniel,” Lucia said in a warning tone. “You shouldn’t be drinking.”

Danny skipped over to her, throwing one arm around her shoulders and planting a kiss on her cheek. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Lucia.”

She slapped him lightly on the chest with a dishtowel, tutting to herself. Danny threw me one more grin before leaving the room to call his friends.

I ended up back in my bedroom, sitting with my back against the wall and a book open in my lap. I wasn’t much of a reader, preferring to lose myself in a pencil and paper. Mom had always encouraged reading over drawing because she thought that it was better for the brain, and my only rebellion against her for most of my life was keeping a sketchbook. I never took any art classes, but I used to spend lunches sitting in the art room with Mrs. Bailey while she told me about all sorts of techniques and let me use the supplies that I couldn’t keep hidden at home.

After enduring seventeen pages of dull descriptions and bland conversation, I shut the book and left it on my desk to be put back downstairs later. My fingers twitched over my pencil case and I stared at my sketchbook (the one I kept for random drawings; I had two more specifically for architectural work) for a full minute before I picked it up and leapt onto my bed. I selected a pencil and sat against the wall once more, knees up and sketchbook propped against my thighs.

It was a struggle at first, not to let my hand guide itself, because I knew the face that would slowly start to appear. I wasn’t accustomed to thinking while I drew freehand, usually I let the lines flow out from the tip of my pencil. But I got an idea after a moment and let it become clear in my head before I started to draw.

I was back on my feet a few minutes later, rifling through my box of art supplies for coloured pencils. I sharpened the few that I needed and carried them back to the bed, returning to my former position with the pencils scattered on the mattress next to me.

“Coooosss!” I heard Danny yell from downstairs. I wasn’t aware of how much time had passed until I looked at my phone and saw 6:02 on the lock screen. I’d been sat there for nearly five hours, position changing periodically as my limbs grew stiff. I vaguely remembered getting up to use the bathroom once or twice and putting on an instrumental playlist on my laptop, but I’d remained blissfully unaware of what was going on in the rest of the house. I remembered Danny saying he’d order a Hawaiian pizza for me, and my stomach growled at the thought.

When I looked down at the page, the image in my head had become much more fluid, the colours blurring together and the lines less defined, but it was definitely still the lake. I grabbed my pencil and held it over the trees, thinking I could add a few dark lines here and there, but decided I liked it the way it was. It was different from my usual style; I hardly drew anything without crisp lines and clear angles and shapes.

I wanted to do more, but I needed to eat first. So I set my sketchbook aside and hopped out of bed, sticking my pencil into my bun. I made it all the way to the bottom of the stairs before I realized that if Danny had ordered pizza, it meant his friends were here, and that meant Nash. I gripped the doorframe with white knuckles at a sudden loss for what to do, when Travis strolled around the corner and almost walked into me on his way upstairs.

“Woah, Cosima,” he mumbled, obviously high, and blinked at me in confusion. “Why are you, like, standing here?”

“I just came downstairs for some pizza,” I informed him, shouldering past. There wasn’t much I could do about it now, I was going to have to face Nash whether I liked it or not. Considering he’d apparently stood outside my door yesterday without knocking, he was just as unsure as I was of whether or not he wanted to see me.

“Ah, there you—“ Danny began when I entered the living room, his voice cutting off when he surveyed my attire. “There’s stuff all over your shirt. What where you doing up there?”

Smudges of colour that had come off my hands when I wiped them on my t-shirt, leaving rainbow streaks across the white material. My hands were polychromatic, fingertips more heavily covered from pressing directly against the page to blend the different colours together. I thought it was rather obvious what I’d be doing, considering the pencil stuck in my hair, but Danny tended to blurt things without really thinking them through.

“Magic,” I responded flatly, rolling my eyes.

There were four boys lounging in the living room, but I only noticed one. It took all of my self control not to look at him, and I stared pointedly at the stack of pizza boxes instead. Unfortunately, if I was going to take a few slices upstairs, then I’d have to actually get them, which meant going near Nash. I silently cursed him for sitting right in front of the pizza, set my jaw, and walked over.

“Why don’t you watch a movie with us?” Danny asked.

“No thanks,” I said, wishing I hadn’t put my hair up, because I could just make out Nash in the corner of my eye and he was staring at me like he desperately had something to say. “I’ve got more spells to cast.”

“Hilarious, Cos, really,” Danny said. “But you can’t just lock yourself in your room forever.”

I glanced at the other two, taking in their uncomfortable expressions. It was understandable, really. Danny needed a filter. Travis picked that moment to return, holding up a stack of DVDs I guessed he’d retrieved from Danny’s room.

“You watching?” he asked me with lidded eyes.

“No.”

I was proud of myself for not looking at Nash directly the entire time. I had, however, managed to take in his appearance surreptitiously, and wondered absently if it was possible for him to look bad. The sleeves had been torn off of his black shirt, whether by him or the store he’d bought it from I wasn’t sure, and because God was feeling particularly malicious today, Nash had put on the black jeans he’d worn back when I saw him for the first time in a year. There was a hole in one of the knees now, the only difference from the last time I’d seen him wear them.

On my way upstairs, any chatter of Danny and his friends was blocked out by the roar of the television and whatever DVD they’d decided to put on. I was shutting my bedroom door when a hand flew out and stopped it, and Nash slipped inside before closing the door himself.

“Um,” I started, my eyes flying to his face on instinct. I swallowed, suddenly nervous. I hadn’t been nervous around a boy in months.

“If I kiss you, will you stop me?”

Even if I wanted to, I wasn’t sure that I could. So I shook my head. Nash ducked his head and caught my lips with his, hands grasping at my waist. It was a desperate kiss, one that made me feel feverish and got my heart racing, and I couldn’t keep my hands still for more than a few seconds. Nash’s fingers dipped beneath my shirt and skimmed along my skin, causing shivers to race up and down my spine. The same thought was on both our minds, and we broke the kiss so that he could lift the shirt over my head and toss it aside, then do the same with his own, quickly bringing our mouths back together before the distance became unbearable. I’d stopped thinking long ago, letting my body speak for itself, and shimmied out of my sweatpants while peppering Nash’s mouth and jaw with short, hot kisses that left my lips tingling. My hands explored every inch of his torso, and the spot my fingers had just brushed against was soon covered my mouth. My lips grazed the skin just above the waistband of his jeans and Nash’s hips twitched, a low moan sounding from his throat. He tugged the pencil and elastic from my hair, the lilac waves falling down my back, and pulled me up by the shoulders, propelling both of us toward my bed.

I pushed the pencils aside hastily, and they clattered to the floor. Nash climbed onto the mattress after me, positioning himself between my legs and planting kisses along my collarbones, his teeth and lips leaving marks I’d have to cover up tomorrow. My back arched, and then Nash’s hands were under me, undoing the clasp of my bra. He pushed the straps down my shoulders and then pulled off the bra entirely, and there was a pause as we both caught our breath and Nash stared down at my exposed chest with dark eyes.

“NASH! Where the hell did you go, man?”

“Fuck,” he cursed, eyes tearing away from me to glower accusingly at the door. I scooted out from under him and grabbed my discarded shirt from the floor, quickly pulling it over my head. Nash was sat on the edge of the bed, raking his hands through his hair and looking ten shades of annoyed.

“Are you gonna go back down?” I asked, still a little breathless. I sat facing him, my shin against his thigh. I placed a light kiss on his shoulder then leaned my chin there, examining the freckles splattered across his cheekbones and nose.

“It’d be a little awkward to go back with a fucking hard-on, Cosima,” Nash replied, his eyes squeezed shut.

I glanced down to the area in question, biting my lip to stop from smirking. I walked my fingers up from his knee, unable to hide my grin any longer when Nash groaned. “Do you want me to, ah, help you with that?”