“Takes a lot more than that to offend me. And it’s nice of you to offer. But we’re good.”
I nod and sip my tea. He watches me for a moment and then looks down, his eyelashes making long shadows on his cheeks. I imagine leaning toward him and pressing my hand against his face. I haven’t touched the face of anyone older than twelve in years and I can’t even imagine what it feels like, the roughness of someone who shaves, against my palm.
“I remember this one time … I was maybe eleven or twelve. We went to Target to get school supplies, like, the day before school started.” He stares at his hands while he talks. “Everything was picked over and they didn’t have some of the stuff I needed. I was giving my mom a hard time for waiting until the last minute. Like always. And then when we were checking out I could tell she didn’t have enough money. She got this panicky look and started going through her wallet like she thought there was more hidden in there somewhere. I’m sure any credit card she had was maxed out. I was like, ‘Come on, Mom.’” Zenn rubs his forehead with one hand like he has a headache.
“The woman behind us saw what was going on and offered to help. She had her Target REDcard in her hand.” He’s quiet for a second, remembering. “The bill was maybe sixty bucks, which felt like so much at the time, and she didn’t even bat an eye.”
“Did your mom let her pay?” I ask.
Zenn nods. “Oh, yeah.” He traces the wood grain of the table with his finger. “I hated that she did. I hated that feeling of needing help.”
I think of the homecoming date Charlotte tried to set me up on. Pity sucks. “Probably made that woman feel good, though.”
“Yeah.” He looks up at me. “But I’d rather work three jobs than feel like that again.”
I get it. There is a lot to be said for self-reliance.
I break his gaze and glance around in embarrassment.
And that’s when I notice the painting in the corner across the room. At first I don’t realize what it is, but then I feel my stomach seize up and I stare at it, stunned.
“Fractal,” I blurt out involuntarily.
He follows my gaze across the room. “Oh,” he says, and looks back at me. Something in his eyes looks surprised and worried. He probably thinks something is wrong, with my word-blurting. “Yeah. You know fractal art?”
I can’t exactly explain that he has painted what I “see” in my head. The detail, the pattern. The colors and organized chaos. I get up and cross the room to stand in front of the painting, which sits on a makeshift easel. Other paintings lean against the wall, but this is the one that has caught my eye. Close up, the intricate detail is amazing.
“You know fractal means broken?” he asks.
I nod. Yes, I know. That’s my brain: broken, shattered.
“Why did you paint this?” I ask.
“Why do I paint anything?”
He still thinks I’m making polite conversation about his art. He doesn’t realize that I’m freaking out on the inside. His hobby is painting the very images that haunt me.
“I don’t know. It’s kind of … therapeutic.”
I’m a little creeped out. It’s like he got into my brain somehow and found the worst and most disturbing part and then painted it and put it on display.
He shrugs. “When you get into airbrushing anything, that’s what people usually want. Weird shit that looks like it could be on an album cover or something. But actual fractals — they’re really interesting to me.”
“Have you heard of Benoit Mandelbrot?” I ask. Just on the off chance.
Zenn shakes his head.
“He’s, like, the father of fractal geometry. He once said, ‘The goal of science is starting with a mess, and explaining it with a simple formula.’” I don’t tell him that’s what I’m hoping to do some day: use my math and science skills to figure out my defective, chaotic brain. Reduce it to a simple formula and come up with some sort of cure.
“I don’t know much about math. Or science. But that’s pretty cool.”
“He died in 2010.” I don’t tell Zenn this, either, but Mandelbrot’s death breaks my heart because I hadn’t even heard of him, or fractal geometry for that matter, until I was in ninth grade, and he died that fall. I think if I had known about him sooner, I would have hunted him down and picked his beautiful brain for a theory on why mine is such a disaster.
I turn away from the painting and nearly bump into Zenn. I hadn’t realized he was right behind me. Tea sloshes out of my mug and onto the floor.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s a rental.”
His chest is just inches away from my face and I can smell the laundry detergent from his T-shirt. He lingers for a moment, and then steps around me to look through the stack of small paintings on the floor.
“I was going to give you this one, to thank you for your help with trig.”
I look down at the painting and exhale. This one is different. It is almost soothing in its repetition, like a lavender seashell that circles in on itself. It reminds me of the kind of peaceful, well-adjusted fractal I used to get from Charlotte. I take the painting in one hand and rub my thumb over the patterns. The fractal he painted me doesn’t give me a fractal, and if that’s not the definition of irony, I’m not sure what is. His hands didn’t actually touch the paint or the expanse of canvas. Just the paintbrush.
“Thank you.” My voice is nearly a whisper.
Zenn is standing so close to me that I can feel the soft exhale of his breath on my hair. I look up at him. Swallow. Force some words out of my mouth. “I should probably go. I usually start dinner on Fun to Be Three days.”
Zenn nods and takes my mug from me. In my distraction I’m not careful and our fingers touch, just a gentle brush of my cold ones against his warm ones. I pull back immediately and brace myself. If touching his jacket almost made me vomit, I’m not sure of the havoc his actual hands might wreak.
But there is nothing.
The touch must have been too quick.
I’m glad. I don’t want to know only the dark stuff about him, the fractal stuff. I want to get to know him like a normal girl gets to know a normal boy.
He has a surprised look on his face as well, probably because I flinched from his touch. Not an inviting vibe.
Oh, well. Chalk up another one for weird germaphobe girl.
I slip on my wet shoes, grab my plastic bag of soggy clothes, my backpack and my painting, and follow Zenn back out to his truck.
He drives me to church, where I pick up a spare house key. My dad gives me an odd look when I go into his office. I had forgotten about the Juicy sweatpants and uncharacteristically Walking Dead-themed sweatshirt. I’ll have some explaining to do over dinner tonight. I don’t give him time to ask many questions now, though. Zenn is waiting out in the truck.
When he drops me off at home I thank him for rescuing me. Again.
“Any time.”
I hop out, protecting my painting from the rain.