A Kind of Contradiction

“Those look like fractals.”

I blinked, the hand gripping an HB pencil falling onto the mattress, and met Julia’s curious gaze. Moments ago she’d been stretched out on the bed in front of me scrolling through Facebook on my laptop while some indie playlist blasted through the speakers. I was leaning against the headboard, legs criss-crossed, my sketchbook balancing on one knee. The rhythmic, ethereal beat of the song playing had made my mind drift, and I’d started tracing a rose window. Thick, heavy lines inset with lighter ones, the patterns in each window repeated in concentric circles.

“It’s a rose window,” I said, tucking a strand of pale hair that fallen loose from my bun behind my ear. “Like in cathedrals.”

Julia nodded and slid off the bed. She picked up another, bigger sketchbook and flipped through the pages slowly. I had to curl my fingers into fists to stop from leaping off the mattress and snatching the book from her grasp — it was still hard for me to let other people look at my sketches, even if they were just curious and not doing it to provide constructive criticism.

I snapped the book with the half-finished rose window shut, laying it on the sheets next to my discarded pencil. Julia had moved on from the sketchbook to inspect some of my more in-depth pieces tacked up on the cork board. These were less sketch-like and more practical, actual measured lines and angles that had taken hours of studying and hyper zoomed-in photos to get just right. Some were perspective sketches, looking through a window into the interior or from a birds-eye view, and others were simply precise renderings of famous or interesting buildings. I didn’t have the materials to make models, and I doubted Mom would want me to start messing around with balsa and plaster and all sorts of glue.

There were two short raps at the door, then Lucia popped her head in. “Lunch is ready, girls.”

Mom was locked up in her office today doing conference calls, but she’d been pleased when I brought in Julia to meet her. I guess sitting around at home with seemingly respectable girls my own age — unlike the sort that Danny brought around, such as Audrey and Lindsay — was an activity she approved of.

Lucia had made pesto, tomato and mozzarella paninis with yam fries, and there were two plates waiting at the breakfast nook for us. I laughed at Julia’s moan of approval when she bit into her sandwich, popping a fry into my mouth. It was nice not having Danny and Nash around for once, mostly because I couldn’t look at Nash without wanting to reach out and touch him, and Julia wasn’t all that bad in terms of company. She tended to rant about inconsequential things, but I hardly paid attention to it.

I’d only gotten through half of my sandwich when the front door slammed and Danny’s guffaw of a laugh echoed through the house, followed by Nash’s much subtler chuckle. Julia cast me a dry look; she wasn’t that big of a fan of Danny, I’d come to understand. She hated it when nice guys acted like assholes because they thought girls liked it. I had to agree with her on that one, even though he was my own brother.

“I smell food,” Danny exclaimed upon arrival in the kitchen, Nash trailing behind him.

I had to hand it to the guy; nobody could pull off a plain white t-shirt and cuffed denim shorts like Nash Buchanan. Paired with his ever-present, ragged leather boat shoes and blasé attitude, he was nothing short of perfect. Nash avoided my gaze, raking his fingers through his fringe and making it swirl away from his forehead.

“Did you make some just for me, Lucia?” Danny asked, propping his elbows up on the counter next to the sink, where Lucia was busy washing dishes. Nash stayed a safe distance from the breakfast nook and busied himself with his phone. “Nash, bro, there’s yam fries. Yam fries are the shit!”

“We’re supposed to meet the girls,” Nash said, glancing briefly at me.

Danny waved a hand. “Tell them we’ll be late. I want some yam fries.”

Once my brother had filled a plate with his beloved fries, he slid in next to Julia. She wrinkled her nose, shuffling over a bit to put over a foot of space between them. Danny, of course, was too wrapped up in his food to notice her moving away.

I chewed on a fry, casting surreptitious glances toward Nash. He was still standing near the fridge, very awkwardly, and rubbing the back of his neck. Finally Danny noticed this and motioned his friend over to the nook.

“Uh, I’m good.”

Danny glanced between Nash and I, noticing the stiffness in our postures and the apprehension on his face (I was a little better at hiding my feelings, which were to drag Nash upstairs) with raised brows. “This isn’t about the pencil thing, is it? I make one joke about you two going at it and suddenly you’re afraid to sit next to each other in case I’ll misunderstand? Just sit the fuck down—“

“Language!” Lucia snapped from the sink.

“Sorry, Lucia,” Danny said, throwing a wide smile in her general direction. “As I was saying, sit your butt down, Buchanan, or I will throw Cosima’s yam fries at you until you do.”

“Why my yam fries?”

“Because I want to eat mine.”

Nash sighed, ruffling his hair a bit. I shuffled over to make more room, trying not to think too much about the feeling of Nash’s arm draped across my shoulders in Betty’s Diner. He sat on the very edge of the bench, keeping at least an inch of space between us at every point. But I could still feel him there, just in the periphery of my senses. Tension crackled between our skin like electricity; I was almost certain that if I looked down, I’d see little blue fingers connecting our arms like those in a plasma globe.

I’d lost my appetite entirely. When Danny asked if he could finish off my fries, I slid the plate over to him without a word. Julia had finished by that point too, so we made the boys to get up and allow us out, then returned to my room. I collapsed onto my bed and buried my face in a pillow, forcing Patrick’s dark hair and excellent bone structure into the forefront of my mind. But after about a minute of trying, he morphed into the tragically forbidden and terribly gorgeous face of Nash Buchanan. I didn’t want to be one of those girls that spent all of her time thinking about a boy, but it had happened anyway.

“Did you hook up with Nash?”

I lifted my head from the pillow, blinking quizzically at Julia. She’d perched on the edge of the desk chair, twirling a flaxen curl around her finger. “No,” I said, sitting up and pushing my hair away from my face. I had re-dyed it yesterday, careful not to make a mess in the bathroom to avoid flack from both Mom and Lucia. It was more purple than white now, but still pale, and my dark brown roots were no longer showing through.

“‘Cause you guys were pretty awkward in there. I could feel the tension across the table,” she said casually. “And at the bonfire a couple weeks ago you were totally checking him out. You can tell me if you are, I won’t tell Danny.”

“We haven’t hooked up,” I told her, staring down at my hands. “He won’t do that to Danny.”

Julia raised her eyebrows. “So it almost happened? And he stopped it?”

I nodded.

She exhaled sharply. “Shit.”

“Now I don’t know how to act around him,” I admitted. “Everything is weird between us now.”

“Boys are dumb, we’re better off without them.”

I could’ve said it then; that I was sort of seeing her older brother. But I knew that it was Patrick’s truth to tell and not mine. He’d said as much to me when we started hanging out.

Instead, I nodded in agreement and fell back against the mattress, laying my palms flat against the slight swell of my stomach. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was about me that Nash was attracted to. If he had a type, and it was Audrey, I was the furthest thing from it. She was all flat planes and angles (with, to her credit, perfect boobs), and I was curves and soft edges. If it was just the forbidden factor that drew him to me, then he would’ve acted upon it by now, because the whole point was that he would be kissing somebody he wasn’t supposed to. But Nash, in his infinite complexity and confusing behaviour, refused to take that step.