A Kind of Contradiction

I stood at the top of the stairs, breathing in the scent of frying eggs and bacon. I’d heard Mom leave earlier this morning, but there was no mistaking Danny’s loud voice as it echoed through the house. A year ago, I would’ve been nervous about seeing my brother and Lucia after being away for so long. But I wasn’t that girl anymore, so I bounded down the stairs in leggings and a black scoop neck shirt (a colour I’d hardly worn before) without a second thought. My hair fell halfway down my back in unbrushed waves, pushed away from my face to reveal the dark roots that were starting to grow in.

It occurred to me that although Mom may have told Danny I was coming home, he’d probably forgotten. I stepped through into the kitchen with a bright smile on my face, looking right at Lucia. Her eyes widened and she bustled over, pulling me into an embrace. “Cosima!” she cried, at the same time Danny’s fork clattered onto his plate and he started coughing violently. “Daniel, come and greet your sister.”

Danny lifted himself up, staring at me in disbelief as he closed the space between us in a few strides. He’d gotten taller and leaner, and his hair stuck out at every angle instead of lying flat across his forehead. “Your hair is purple,” he observed, standing a few feet away from me.

“Yours isn’t,” I remarked. “Maybe you’re the weird one, and everything you think you know is a lie.”

“And you’re funny. When did that happen?”

“I’ve always been funny. I just didn’t say anything out loud.”

Danny grinned then, pulling me into a hug. “Speaking as your older brother, I think I’m going to have to start fending off the boys now that you’re hot.”

“I don’t know have a clever response to that,” I replied, both of us laughing as we walked back to the breakfast nook. Lucia put a plate piled high with food in front of me and kissed the crown of my head. “Thanks, Lucia. I missed your cooking.”

“You obviously got up to something in San Fran, so tell me what sort of crazy shit Aunt Mel made you do,” Danny said, his mouth full of eggs.

“Oh, you know, just the usual crazy shit,” I replied airily. “Discovering the wonders of alcohol, breaking hearts, maintaining a 4.0 GPA…”

“Fuck off,” Danny scoffed. “You dyed your hair purple and started partying? Who are you?”

I was almost certain I’d regret it later, but I told him anyway. “I also have a few tattoos,” I whispered, watching in amusement as Danny’s eyes went wide.

“No shit!” he exclaimed. “Can I see?”

I made sure Lucia wasn’t watching and propped my left ankle up on my knee, pulling the hem of my leggings up until the whole tattoo was revealed. Danny’s eyes went wide as he studied the black design inked into my skin.

“The others aren’t really easy to show you,” I explained, fixing the bottom of my legging and placing my foot flat on the floor.

“You’re like a million times cooler now,” Danny admitted with a grin. “Just wait till Nash gets here. He’ll shit a brick when he sees you.”

Nash Buchanan was Danny’s best friend. When I was thirteen I’d had a brief, yet intense, infatuation with him. He’d always been easy going and popular and basically everything I never was. But I quickly realized that he was very much like my brother, and this only became more evident as we got older. Nash had a string of girlfriends that never seemed to stick around for very long and he drank and smoked and did all the things that Mom frowned upon, so I spent the next three years pointedly ignoring both him and Danny. I wondered absently if he still had stupid side swept hair or if he’d cut it like Danny had, and what other changes could’ve taken place while I was gone.

We finished our breakfast and relocated to the living room, where Danny insisted that I play the latest instalment in his favourite video game series. I pulled my hair into a pony tail and accepted the controller that my brother handed me with absolutely no clue on how to play Call of Duty whatever-version-this-was, and awaited instruction. It was almost comforting to know that even if he looked a bit less like a gawky teenager, Danny was still a kid at heart.

The video game was predictably violent and I was terrible at it, but Danny seemed amused nonetheless. I was just glad he’d accepted me so quickly, because this summer would be long and boring if we were still at odds with one another. Contrary to scientific evidence, opposites do not necessarily attract.

“You should come to the lake tomorrow,” Danny said before killing my character.

“The lake?” I repeated.

“Yeah, it’s like a day trip thing. There’s beer and swimming and it’s a good time. You should come.”

“Beer and swimming,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t own a bathing suit.”

“I’ll ask somebody to lend you one,” Danny said. “Nash went home with Audrey last night and she has, like, a thousand bikinis. I’ll ask if you can borrow one.”

Then he paused the game to presumably text Audrey, who’s name sounded vaguely familiar. I recalled a tiny girl with blonde hair and a permanent sneer, and wondered if I even wanted to be borrowing a bikini from her.

“She says you can borrow one of hers,” Danny said. “Nash apparently agreed to drive her and Lindsay to the lake.”

Lindsay — taller version of Audrey without a sassy bone in her body. Of course, it was possible that they weren’t the same two girls I remembered from last year, but I seriously doubted it.

I finally succeeded in killing Danny’s character nearly an hour later, and let out a loud whoop of excitement. He rolled his eyes at me as the doorbell rang, and immediately leapt to his feet. “You should, like, hide or something,” he said quickly.

“Why?”

“To scare the shit out of Nash.”

“Why don’t I just answer the door?” I asked, and Danny’s face lit up. He grinned and lagged behind as I made my way to the foyer. I pulled open the door, only to come face to face with a considerably more attractive Nash Buchanan.

His jawline was more pronounced, and his hair was trimmed around the sides and the top, while shorter, still brushed over his forehead. His shoulders were broad and I could tell that there was definitely muscle beneath the thin white material of his t-shirt, and I had to keep my gaze away from his arms or I’d be staring at them for hours. He wore a pair of fitted black jeans and battered sneakers that I was almost certain had been in his possession almost as long as I’d known him. He was also staring at me with just as much shock as I was him.

“Cosima?” he said, sounding unsure. His eyes flickered down and surveyed me once more, just to see if he’d missed anything the first time.

“Hey,” I greeted, stepping aside to let him in.

“You, um, you look — different,” he stammered, his gaze caught on my pallid hair.

“Dude, that was totally not as awesome as I was hoping it would be,” Danny said, coming out from around the corner. “I freaked out more than you, and she’s my sister.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, leaning against the door after I’d shut it. I folded my arms over my chest, trying not to focus on how Nash’s gaze drifted briefly to my breasts and then back to my face.

But Danny didn’t answer, and pointed an accusatory finger at me. “She’s either gone insane or finally figured out how to be a teenager. I mean, look at that hair. And she has tattoos!”

Nash’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at me for confirmation. I shrugged, feeling the urge to maintain an air of mystery. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room, Danny,” I said. “Can we go back to that game now? I think I’m finally getting good at it.”

“No, you’re still shit,” Danny disagreed.

I returned to my previous position on the recliner while Danny and Nash occupied the larger of the two couches. After dying three times in a row and Danny’s constant gloating, I decided that I’d had enough. I stood and dropped the controller onto Nash’s lap, bidding the two of them goodbye and heading up to my room.

I skipped lunch because I was too absorbed in sketching the Victorian houses lining the street in San Francisco where I’d lived with Aunt Mel. The image, which I was reconstructing from pure memory, brought a pang of homesickness to my heart. Although Maine would always be home, I’d grown to love San Francisco for all of its wonders and quirks. I knew without a doubt that I’d be returning at my first opportunity, maybe over spring break next year.

Mom still hadn’t returned from work when Lucia called me down for dinner. We were having pasta, and since it was just me, Danny, and Nash, Lucia served us in the breakfast nook. I’d come downstairs without realizing that there was a pencil stuck into my bun, having completely forgot that I put it there after switching to a black fine liner to finish my sketch.

“You have a pencil in your hair,” Danny pointed out, shovelling pasta into his mouth. "Is that a statement or something?"

I raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"I dunno, maybe you're trying to show off your quirky creative side," Danny said with a lilt in his voice, wiggling his shoulders.

For the entire five minutes I’d been sitting at the table, Nash had been staring at me intermittently. He’d tear his eyes away to look at his plate or Danny, but they’d eventually drift back to my face or my hands or even, a few times, my chest. I wanted to ask him what the hell was so interesting, but I knew that Danny would probably say something inappropriate, so I held back. Unfortunately, Nash left immediately after he finished his plate, quickly thanking Lucia for dinner and telling Danny when he’d be by tomorrow to drive us to the lake.